Website Live Chat in Microsoft Teams

Chatlio puts a chat widget on your website and delivers each visitor’s messages to a Microsoft Teams channel you choose. Your team answers from Teams, and visitors see the replies in the widget, without needing a Microsoft account. Each visitor gets a thread in that channel or, once a Microsoft 365 administrator approves it, a separate chat.

Microsoft Teams works on every Chatlio plan. See pricing for details.

Related pages: Teams commands and Teams troubleshooting.

Before you start

You need:

A Chatlio account, and an account administrator to do the setup. Only an account administrator can link, change or disconnect a Teams channel. Sign up or open the dashboard.
A Microsoft Teams team that will answer visitors, and permission to add apps to it.
A Teams administrator. Chatlio is not in the Teams app store yet, so an administrator adds it to your organization from a file.
A standard channel in that team for visitor conversations, not a private or shared one. Everyone with access to this channel can read visitor conversations, so read Privacy before you pick one.

Install Chatlio in your team

Open the Chatlio dashboard, start a new widget, and select Add Chatlio to Microsoft Teams.
Download the Chatlio app for Teams. Click Download the app file and leave the file zipped. If your organization already has Chatlio in Teams, skip this step and the next one.
Have a Teams admin upload the file. Only a Teams administrator can upload to your organization’s app catalog. If you are not one, send the file to your Teams admin. As the admin, open Teams and select Apps on the left. Select Manage your apps at the bottom of the Apps panel, then Upload an app at the top of the page. Choose Upload an app to your org’s app catalog and pick the file. Do not choose Upload a custom app, which puts Chatlio in one team only. Chatlio then shows in Apps under Built for your org. An admin can also upload the file in the Teams admin center under Teams apps, Manage apps, Upload new app.
Add Chatlio to the team that answers visitors. In Teams, open Apps, select Chatlio under Built for your org, then select Add. Teams asks you to choose a place to use the app. Pick a standard channel in the team that will answer visitors, then select Go. Teams opens that channel with a new post started and the Chatlio mention already in it. Skip this step if Chatlio is already in that team. If Teams shows “An unknown error occurred.” after you select Add, wait a minute and select Add again. A very new Microsoft 365 organization can do this. See Teams troubleshooting.
Pick a standard channel for visitor alerts. Use a standard channel, not a private or shared one. Chatlio posts a card there for each new visitor.
Link the channel. In Chatlio setup, click Get linking code. In the channel, type @Chatlio, pick the Chatlio bot from the picker, then type or paste link and the code, so the message reads @Chatlio link <code>. If Teams already started a post with the Chatlio mention after Go, paste the command after that mention. The code works once and expires after 10 minutes. If it expires, click Get a new code. A new code cancels the old one.
Chatlio setup shows Connected to Teams within a few seconds. Click Activate widget so visitors can start chatting.
Under Install your widget, copy the code and add it to your website. The setup guide covers WordPress, Shopify, React and other platforms.
Select Open test page, send a message as a visitor, and reply in Teams to check everything works.

What Chatlio can read

In the team you add it to, Chatlio has two permissions:

Teams permission	Why Chatlio needs it
Read this team’s channel messages (`ChannelMessage.Read.Group`)	See replies in visitor threads without making your team mention Chatlio in every reply.
Read which apps are installed in this team (`TeamsAppInstallation.Read.Group`)	Find the ID your organization gave the Chatlio app. Chatlio needs it to add itself to a visitor’s chat.

Chatlio receives the channel messages of the team it is added to. It forwards only replies inside visitor threads to the website visitor and ignores every other conversation. It does not read teams it has not been added to.

A separate chat per visitor uses more, and only after a Microsoft 365 administrator approves it:

Teams permission	Why Chatlio needs it
Create chats (`Chat.Create`), approved once for your organization	Open a chat for each visitor.
Read the chat’s messages (`ChatMessage.Read.Chat`), in each visitor chat	See replies without making your team mention Chatlio.
Change the chat’s settings (`ChatSettings.ReadWrite.Chat`), in each visitor chat	Rename the chat when the conversation ends.
Delete the chat (`Chat.ManageDeletion.Chat`), in each visitor chat	Kept for clearing ended chats. Chatlio does not delete chats today.

Chatlio reads only the visitor chats it created. It does not read your other chats.

How conversations work

When a visitor sends their first message, Chatlio posts a conversation card in your channel. The visitor’s messages follow as replies under that card, so each visitor has one thread.

The conversation card shows:

Status: New, then In progress after the first reply, then Closed when the conversation ends.
First reply: the first person on your team who replied, or “Waiting for a reply”.
Last message: the time of the last message, in UTC.
Visitor rating and the visitor’s feedback, if they leave them.

In thread lists such as Followed threads, Teams can show the card’s summary twice, for example “Visitor 28448: NewVisitor 28448: New”. The card itself is correct.

The thread also opens with a Visitor information card. What it shows depends on the setting under Notifications and your Teams channel on the Behavior page:

Compact meta data: the visitor’s location and local time, the page they are on, their browser, email and user ID.
Full meta data: location and local time, the page they are on, the page they came from, their browser, IP address and user ID, and any details your site passed to Chatlio.
No meta data: no card.

A new widget starts on Full meta data.

A separate chat per visitor

Instead of a thread in the channel, Chatlio can open a separate group chat for each visitor. The chat shows under Chats in Teams for the people on your team, and Teams notifies them about each message, as it does for any chat.

Turn it on

A Microsoft 365 administrator of your organization approves it once. Add Chatlio to your team and link a channel first.

In the Chatlio dashboard, open the widget’s Teams setup. For a widget that is already live, go to Channel and select the Teams setup link.
Under Your Teams connection, click Allow separate chats. Microsoft opens a page that asks to let Chatlio create chats in your organization.
Sign in as a Microsoft 365 administrator and select Accept. Microsoft sends you back to Teams setup.
Under Where visitor conversations go, select A separate chat per visitor under Chats.

If you are not a Microsoft 365 administrator, Microsoft says the request needs an administrator. Send that page’s address to one. After they accept, click Check again in Teams setup.

The choice applies to new conversations. Conversations that are already open stay where they are. To go back, select A thread per visitor in the linked channel.

How it works

The chat. Chatlio names it after the visitor, for example “Visitor 28436 · website chat”. It opens with the conversation card and the Visitor information card.
Who is in it. Everyone in the linked team, up to 20 people. Chatlio adds people when it creates the chat, so someone who joins the team later is in new chats only.
The linked channel. It gets a card for each new visitor with an Open visitor chat link. Replies under that card do not reach the visitor, and Chatlio says so there.
Replying. Reply in the chat. You do not need to mention Chatlio. Commands such as @Chatlio end work in the chat.
Ending. When the conversation ends, Chatlio renames the chat, for example to “✅ Visitor 28436 · closed”, so you can tell finished chats from open ones. Teams keeps the chat. A visitor who writes again later gets a new chat.
Reminders and team mentions. Chatlio posts neither in a separate chat, because Teams already notifies everyone in a chat about each message.
If Teams is slow to add Chatlio to a new chat. Chatlio waits about 20 seconds. If Teams still has not added it, that conversation continues as a thread in the linked channel, and Chatlio marks the empty chat closed with a note.
If Microsoft refuses to create a chat. This happens when the approval is withdrawn or the Chatlio app is removed from your organization. The conversation continues as a thread in the linked channel, so the visitor is still answered, and Teams setup shows a notice. See Teams troubleshooting.

Where the rest of this page says thread, the same applies to a visitor’s chat unless it says otherwise.

Replying to visitors

In the thread. Open the visitor’s thread and reply. Every reply there goes to that visitor. You do not need to mention Chatlio. A reply that starts with the Chatlio mention also goes to the visitor, unless a command follows the mention.
Who can reply. Everyone with access to the linked channel can reply.
Other posts in the channel. A new post in the channel, or a reply in a thread that is not a visitor’s, is not sent to anyone.

What the visitor sees:

Names. By default replies appear under your widget’s agent label. To show each operator’s Teams name instead, choose Use Teams profile name when chatting under Avatars and agent labels on the Behavior page. Teams profile photos are not shown yet.
Edits and deletes. If you edit a reply, the visitor sees the new text. If you delete a reply, the visitor sees “Message deleted” in its place.
Saved replies and question groups. Send them with @Chatlio reply <name> and @Chatlio question-group <name> in the thread. See Teams commands.
Saved replies that send themselves. Give a saved reply trigger phrases and turn on Send automatically. When a visitor’s message contains one of the phrases, Chatlio sends them that reply and says so in the thread. It does not count as an answer from your team: the conversation card still shows “Waiting for a reply” until a person replies.

Chatlio’s own notes in a thread, such as “Sent visitor message:”, are for your team. The visitor does not see them.

Files

Files and screenshots a visitor sends from the widget appear in their thread.
Files you attach to a reply in Teams do not reach the visitor yet. The text of your reply still arrives. Under it, the visitor sees “An attachment could not be delivered:” and the file’s name.

Ending a conversation

Type @Chatlio end in the visitor’s thread. Chatlio ends the conversation, marks the conversation card Closed, and sends the transcript email and the transcript webhook if you turned them on.
Type @Chatlio discard to end it without a transcript, for example for spam or a test chat. No transcript is emailed or posted to your webhook.
A visitor can also end the chat from the widget.

Chatlio builds a Teams transcript from the messages it stores, so transcripts need Chat History Storage. New accounts start with it on. On an existing account, an account admin turns it on in the dashboard, under Account & users. While it is off, Chatlio sends no transcript email and no transcript webhook, and @Chatlio email and @Chatlio send-to-webhook answer that Teams transcripts need Chat History Storage.

Teams keeps the thread, so Chatlio adds a note that messages sent there no longer reach the visitor. If the visitor writes again later, Chatlio starts a new thread for the new conversation.

Conversations nobody ends

A conversation that nobody ends closes by itself. Chatlio closes it once it is more than 12 hours old and neither side has written for 15 minutes. It checks every half hour.

The visitor’s widget shows the conversation as ended, and the conversation card changes to Closed.
Chatlio sends the transcript email and the transcript webhook, as after @Chatlio end.
Chatlio posts nothing in the thread. If someone replies there later, Chatlio answers that the conversation has ended.

Availability: when the widget shows online

New Teams widgets use manual availability: the widget shows as online whenever Chatlio is on. You control it in two ways:

On and off. Type @Chatlio off and @Chatlio on in Teams, or use the switch under Status on the widget’s Behavior page in the dashboard.
Operating hours. Set the days and hours you answer chat on the Operating Hours page, and turn scheduling on. Outside those hours the widget goes offline by itself. @Chatlio on during off hours is a manual override that lasts until the next start or end of your hours; @Chatlio auto returns to the schedule right away.

While the widget is offline, visitors see a contact form or no widget at all. Choose which on the Behavior page under When Chatlio is off.

@Chatlio status shows the current state and which mode is in control.

Automatic availability from Teams presence is not available yet. Chatlio does not read your team’s presence in Teams, so the widget does not go offline by itself when everyone is away.

Notifications

Teams notifies a person about a new visitor thread only if that person turned on channel notifications for all new posts, or if Chatlio mentions them.

Channel notifications. Each person who answers hovers over the channel in Teams, selects More options, then Channel notifications, and turns on notifications for all new posts.
Mention your team when a new visitor starts a chat. This setting is on the widget’s Behavior page under Notifications and your Teams channel. When it is on, Chatlio replies in the new visitor thread and mentions up to 10 people from the linked team by name. Response reminders mention them too. A new widget starts with this off.
Response reminders. While nobody has answered a visitor, Chatlio posts a reminder in their thread, for up to five minutes. A new widget starts with reminders on, one a minute. A reminder notifies nobody by itself unless the team mention is on.

On the Operating Hours page, Post in Teams channel when the schedule turns Chatlio on or off is on for a new widget.

What a new widget starts with

A new Teams widget starts with the settings a new Discord widget has:

Setting	Starts as	Where to change it
Visitor information in the thread	Full meta data	Behavior, Notifications and your Teams channel
Response reminders	On, every minute	Behavior, Response reminders
No-answer follow-up (asks the visitor for an email when nobody replies in time)	On	Behavior, Response reminders
Conversation rating on the ended screen	On	Appearance
Operating-hours posts in the channel	On	Operating Hours
Availability	Manual	See Availability

Who can use Chatlio commands

Everyone who can post in the linked channel can reply to visitors and run Chatlio commands, including @Chatlio off, @Chatlio ban and @Chatlio email. Teams has no separate permission list for an app’s commands. To limit who can run them, limit who is in the team.

Privacy: who can see visitor conversations

Visitor threads are posts in the channel you linked. Everyone in the team can open a standard channel and read every visitor conversation there, including names, emails and any files visitors send.

If the team includes people outside your support staff, create a team for support and link a channel in that team instead.

With a separate chat per visitor, only the members of a visitor’s chat can read that conversation. The card in the channel shows the visitor’s name and the conversation’s status.

Change the channel

In the Chatlio dashboard, open the widget and go to Channel.
Click Change channel and confirm. The dashboard takes you to Teams setup. The widget is offline until its new channel is linked, and visitors see what you chose under When Chatlio is off.
If the new channel is in another team, add Chatlio to that team first. In Teams, open Apps, find Chatlio under Built for your org, select Add, pick the channel, then select Go.
In setup, click Get linking code and post @Chatlio link <code> in the new channel. The widget comes back online by itself. You do not need to click Activate widget.

Open conversations in the old channel are closed when you change channels: their cards change to Closed, and nothing new is posted there. A visitor who writes again gets a new thread in the new channel. The old channel is free to link to another widget right away. Only an account administrator can change the channel.

To rename the channel, rename it in Teams. The new name shows in the dashboard within a few minutes.

Teams does not tell Chatlio what a team’s first channel is called. That channel is often named General. The dashboard calls it “the main channel of” your team until you rename the channel in Teams.

Disconnect Teams

Disconnect Teams cuts the link between the widget and its channel, and keeps the widget and its settings.

In the Chatlio dashboard, open the widget, go to Channel, and select the Teams setup link.
Click Disconnect Teams and confirm.

The widget goes offline and visitors no longer see it. Conversations still open in the channel are closed: their cards change to Closed, nothing new is posted, and no transcript is sent for them. The channel can be linked again at once, by this widget or another. To bring the widget back, link a channel in setup and click Activate widget.

If Chatlio or the channel is removed in Teams

When someone removes Chatlio from the team, deletes the team or deletes the linked channel, Chatlio can no longer reach the channel:

The widget goes offline. Visitors see what you chose under When Chatlio is off on the Behavior page, a contact form or no widget.
Open conversations are closed. Nothing is posted in Teams and no transcript is sent for them.
The dashboard says why. The widget’s status reads Removed from Teams, Teams team deleted or Teams channel deleted, and the widget page and Teams setup explain what happened.

The widget comes back by itself, in the same channel and with the settings it had, when Chatlio is added back to the team or the team or channel is restored in Teams. You do not need to link again or click Activate widget. A visitor who writes after that gets a new thread.

If the widget does not come back, or you want another channel, open the widget’s setup, get a code and post @Chatlio link <code> in the channel you want.

Uninstall

Remove the Chatlio widget code from your website.
In the Chatlio dashboard, open the widget and go to Channel. Under Delete widget, click Delete, then confirm. This deletes the widget and its settings, and any site still using its code stops showing chat. If it is your only widget, Chatlio disconnects and resets it instead. Conversations still open in the channel are closed, and the channel is free to link to another widget.
In Teams, remove Chatlio from the team.

Existing threads stay in your Teams channel after you uninstall. To keep the widget and its settings and only cut the link to Teams, use Disconnect Teams instead of deleting the widget.

Chatlio for Microsoft Teams