Nothing frustrates an online shopper more than starting a chat, typing out a detailed question, and then waiting indefinitely for a reply that never comes. Clear availability signalling solves this problem before it happens — and it is now built directly into Veyra.

The three statuses

Every Veyra agent can be in one of three states at any given time. Online means the agent is actively monitoring the dashboard and ready to respond. Away means the agent is logged in but temporarily unavailable — stepped out, in a meeting, or on a break. Offline means the agent has logged out or their session has expired.

These statuses are not just labels for internal use. They directly control what the visitor sees on your website.

How presence affects your chat widget

If at least one agent in your account has Online status, visitors see the chat widget and can start a conversation immediately. If all agents are Away or Offline, the widget switches automatically to an offline contact form — visitors can leave their name, email address, and message, and your team follows up when they are back.

This is a significant improvement over binary business-hours settings. Your team does not always follow a perfect 9-to-5 schedule, and now the widget reflects reality rather than a calendar approximation.

The heartbeat system

Veyra uses a heartbeat mechanism to handle the case where an agent closes their browser without explicitly logging out — which happens constantly in real-world use. When an agent has Online status, the dashboard sends a silent ping to the server every 60 seconds. If the pings stop arriving, the server considers the agent offline after 2 minutes.

The practical result: the chat widget switches to offline mode within 2 minutes of the last agent closing their laptop, without anyone having to remember to click a button. This prevents the widget from showing as active overnight or on weekends when your team is gone.

Best practices for teams

Set yourself Online when you open the dashboard in the morning and Away before any break longer than a few minutes. The toggle is a single click in the bottom-left corner of the sidebar. At end of day, log out properly — this immediately sets you Offline and sends a clean signal to the system.

For teams with overlapping shifts, the Online status is OR-based: if any one agent is Online, the widget is active. This means handoffs between shifts work naturally — the incoming shift agent logs in and goes Online, and the widget stays active through the transition even before the outgoing shift logs out.

Business hours as a safety net

Business hours, configured in Settings, act as a fallback layer. If you have hours configured and all agents happen to be Away during those hours, the system considers support available based on the schedule. Outside configured business hours, the offline form is always shown regardless of agent status. Agent presence always takes priority over the schedule when agents are actively online.