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How to integrate with Intercom

Learn how to start forecasting and tracking agent performance via Intercom

Updated over 2 weeks ago

What does the integration do?

Once connected, the system will pull historical data from Intercom to:

  • Show your actual contact count from Intercom within Dialpad WFM

  • Generate forecasts and staffing requirements

  • Track agent performance and attendance within Intercom

For Intercom, forecasting and performance reporting require two different connections due to differing data sources.


How to set-up forecasting via Intercom

Step 1: Connect Dialpad WFM to Intercom

The forecasting connection is made via API:

  1. Login to Dialpad WFM

  2. Navigate to Settings > Customer service

  3. Click the button labelled 'Connect to Intercom'

  4. You’ll be taken to another screen to authorise your connection.

  5. Set-up is complete!

What's next?

The system will now download 12 months of historical contact data from your Intercom account. This process will take 24-48hrs to complete, depending on the volume of contacts in your account.

Step 2: Set-up your forecast with queues

Once this is complete, you next need to map your Intercom contacts to queues.

A queue should represent the channels, inboxes or queues your team work on in Intercom, e.g. a tier 1 inbox, or a french language queue.

  1. Navigate to Forecasts > Queues.

  2. Click the button labelled 'New queue'.

  3. Name the queue. We recommend you use the same name you use in Intercom.

  4. Select if this queue is a real-time or non real-time channel:

    1. Select real-time if conversations are handled while the customer is present and waiting, i.e. 'true' live chat.

    2. Select non real-time if the conversation can happen asynchronously, e.g. the messages can be sent at any time, and the customer isn't always present.

  5. Select 'Intercom' from the connections dropdown.

  6. You can now filter the contacts you want to include in this queue in the 'define queue' section. You can choose to filter tickets by:

    1. source_type e.g. conversation, facebook, whatsapp.

    2. tags - the tags you use in your Intercom account will be synced into Dialpad WFM.

    3. team_assignee_id - the teams you use use in your Intercom account will be synced into Dialpad WFM.

  7. On the right hand side of the page, you will see a preview of the number of contacts you received in the last 7 days that match your filters. You can use this to check against data in your Intercom account to ensure you've set up the filters correctly.

  8. Next, you need to enter the staffing parameters for this queue.
    These inputs turn contact volumes into a staffing requirement.

    1. Average conversation/interaction time:

      1. If you've selected 'real-time' then enter the average handle time for the entire conversation.

      2. If you've selected 'non real-time' then enter the average time it takes for agents to write each message.

    2. Concurrency: this is the average number of conversations agents work on at once. You can use the same number used in your routing rules here.

    3. Shrinkage: the is the % of scheduled time that's lost while agent's work on this queue. If you're not sure what you're shrinkage is, 30% is quite average across the industry.

  9. Finally, you need to enter the service level or SLA that you're trying to achieve.
    This a target % of all contacts that should meet your first response time target.

  10. Your queue will now be set up and ready to use to forecast, track coverage and agent performance.


How to set-up agent tracking via Intercom

Step 1: Request a connection link

The performance connection is made via webhooks.

To create this connection, our team will need to send you a link.

💬 Speak to us on Intercom and select 'Integration set-up help' to create a ticket.

What's next?

Our team will generate a link and email it to you. You then need to authorise the new connection from Dialpad WFM to Intercom.

Once connected the system will start tracking agent actions and behaviour in Intercom. Data on their performance will be shown in the performance page.

Step 2: Link activities with queues

In order to correctly mark agent activity as 'on-task' or 'off-task', you need to define which activities are 'queue activities', i.e. agents should be working in Intercom as this time.

  1. Navigate to the day view of the schedule

  2. Open the activities toolbar by clicking “Toolbar

  3. Select the activity you want to link to a forecast and click the edit icon ✏️

  4. Toggle 'link to a queue' on and select the relevant queue(s) from the dropdown

  5. Set-up is complete!

You can now monitor agent's Intercom presence and activity in the real-time page and performance page.


FAQs

Why do I need two connections?

The system Dialpad WFM uses to forecast only pulls the historical volume of contacts and basic metadata. The data is only updated once every 24hrs.

To track agent activity, more information is needed, such as the status changes of contacts and who it was assigned to. This data is updated every 2-5mins.

What do you track in Intercom for performance?

  • When the status of a conversation changes (open, closed, or snoozed)

  • Whenever a message is sent to a customer and whenever an internal note is added to a contact.

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