Introduction
VirtualAdvisor provides a consistent experience with easy accessibility. Institutions have the ability to manage where VirtualAdvisor is available to its users and VirtualAdvisor offers a variety of different features to help narrow down the intent of the conversation.
How It Is Managed
VirtualAdvisor can be enabled in any student facing CampusLogic product, including CampusCommunicator, ClearCost, StudentForms, and ScholarshipUniverse. For each of these products that an institution has purchased there will be an enable/disable switch in the StudentAdvisor Basic Settings page to manage. This will allow an institution to enable the VirtualAdvisor chat in certain products as needed, such as a rollout process.
The VirtualAdvisor chat can also be attached to any html page of the institution's choosing using a code snippet provided within the Basic Settings page. This is a simple copy and paste code that an institution's IT can inject into html. Please note any web pages where the code snippet is placed needs to have the URL whitelisted, which can also be managed in the Basic Settings page.
The VirtualAdvisor avatar (including the name and icon) and greeting card text can also be managed within the StudentAdvisor Basic Settings page. This allows an institution to personalize the avatar chatting with users.
The Student Experience (Web Chat)
Within each CampusLogic product that VirtualAdvisor is enabled, along with any web page where the chat feature has been enabled using the code snippet, users will find VirtualAdvisor is accessible from the same location to keep a consistent feel.
Where enabled, a floating badge will be found on the bottom right corner of the web page.
Upon opening, VirtualAdvisor will greet the user. Until authentication is complete, VirtualAdvisor will consider the user anonymous. The greeting card can be configured by your institution in the Basic Settings page.
Chat Window Actions
The user can immediately begin their inquiry. Based on the first message a user inputs, VirtualAdvisor will automatically detect the language entered by the user and default the Language selector at the bottom left corner of the chat window to converse with the user in the selected language. VirtualAdvisor supports over 70 different languages. At any time if the user prefers to converse in a different language, they must select the new language manually. VirtualAdvisor is expecting the user to chat in the selected language and will not assume it should transition to another language without the user selecting to do so. As a new language is selected, VirtualAdvisor will immediately ask the user "What can I help you with?" in the selected language.
For unauthenticated students a Login (Lock) icon will appear for them that will open a new tab and allow them to login to authenticate themselves. This may be required for those who may be inquiring information related to SIS data. Once authenticated, the Login button is hidden.
- For single sign-on (SSO) clients, students will use their school portal credentials to login
- For direct sign-on (DSO) clients, students should login using the same StudentForms/ScholarshipUniverse account information
- If the student does not have an account, they may create one from the login page. Please note that a verified student record must already be imported into PlatformManagement to verify the student can create an account, contain their student ID, first and last name, and either email or date of birth. A verified student record must be found in order to prevent non-student users from trying to create an account. These can be created by using the Verified Student Import or automatically created when importing student SIS Data.
Save Chat (Save icon) allows students to download a .txt file transcript of the entire conversation.
Start Over (Refresh icon) clears the current conversation and restarts the conversation with VirtualAdvisor.
- Please note that this button is disabled if the user is currently in queue to speak to an advisor or is currently in a conversation with an advisor.
Send (Paper Airplane icon) sends the current text to VirtualAdvisor. Users may also click Enter to send,
In Chat Features
There are some special features that may appear during a chat with VirtualAdvisor, some requiring addition steps by the user to drive the conversation.
- Information Requiring Authentication: Unauthenticated users who ask VirtualAdvisor questions that trigger a response containing SIS information will be asked to authenticate themselves before the information can be released. Upon authentication, VirtualAdvisor will then be able to lookup the SIS data for the user. If the user chooses not to login, VirtualAdvisor will not respond to the question and the user can move on to any further questions.
- Multi-Turn Questions: Some responses from VirtualAdvisor may in turn ask the user questions to help narrow down information to give a more accurate response, similar to a decision workflow. A user may be given a multiple choice selection that is linked to a separate response, sometimes being asked a line of questions in order to determine the intent and give the response the user is looking for.
- No Answer Found: Responses may include tags, either to institutional data fields mapped in StudentAdvisor or SIS data imported into PlatformManagement. In cases where a tag value is not found, the user may be given a generic response that the information is not available - this messaging can be defined by the institution in the Basic Settings page.
- For institutional data field tags, this occurs if a value has not been given for the tag.
- For SIS data field tags, this occurs if SIS data for the particular flag has not been imported for the user.
- Dialogues: Special dialogue prompts may be triggered for users to be driven to a CampusLogic product if the institution is using said product. These prompts include:
- Determining the outstanding Verification transaction tasks found in StudentForms
- Determining the number of matched scholarships found in ScholarshipUniverse
Ending a conversation
There are multiple ways a conversation may end:
- Clicking the X in the chat window (student will be asked to confirm)
- Logging out of a CampusLogic product
- Navigating to a different page
- If the student is currently chatting with VirtualAdvisor in StudentForms or ScholarshipUniverse, the conversation will hold as the student navigates through different pages within the product.
- Closing the browser
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