Configure Facebook channel

Omnichannel for Customer Service offers a suite of capabilities that extend the power of Dynamics 365 Customer Service Enterprise to enable organizations to instantly connect and engage with their customers across digital messaging channels. An additional license is required to access Omnichannel for Customer Service. For more information, see the Dynamics 365 Customer Service pricing overview and Dynamics 365 Customer Service pricing plan pages.

Many customers use social messaging channels like LINE for their personal communication needs. Many also prefer using these messaging channels to engage with businesses. The asynchronous nature of these channels gives customers the convenience of getting their issues resolved as and when they find time, unlike real-time channels like Chat for Dynamics 365 Customer Service, where the session ends when the chat window is closed.

Note

If you use access tokens in Facebook, refresh them on a 60-day schedule or as required because the tokens might randomly expire. More information: Facebook access tokens

Prerequisites

The following prerequisites must be met before you configure the Facebook channel in Omnichannel for Customer Service.

• Create a Facebook page and enable Messenger. More information: Create and Manage a Page and Messaging
• Create a Facebook application. More information: App Development
• Add Messenger and Webhooks to the Facebook application. More information: Setting Up Your Facebook App
• If you'll use a test environment, set up test accounts in Facebook so that agents can send and receive messages in Omnichannel for Customer Service.
• Values for application ID and application secret from the App ID and App Secret fields in the Facebook application > Settings > Basic.

Roles and permissions

The following Facebook roles and permissions are required for integrating your Facebook app with Omnichannel for Customer Service.

• Facebook users who don’t have a role in the Facebook app must have the pages_messaging permission to send messages to a Facebook page from Omnichannel for Customer Service. The app owner must provide the pages_messaging permission for users to be able to send messages. More information: pages_messaging

• If the Facebook app that you’re using is currently in development mode, then only those Facebook users who have roles within the app can send messages to the Facebook page; the messages can be received by or forwarded to Omnichannel for Customer Service. More information: App roles

• For Omnichannel for Customer Service to be able to retrieve the customer’s username from Facebook, the customer must request for Business Asset User Profile Access in their Facebook app. More information: Business Asset User Profile Access

Configure a Facebook channel

To configure a Facebook channel, the following steps are required:

1. Create a Facebook channel account.

2. Configure a Facebook workstream and work distribution settings

Create the Facebook channel account

1. In Dynamics 365, go to one of the apps, and perform the following steps.

   Customer Service admin center

   1. In the site map, in Customer support, select Channels.

   2. In Accounts, for Messaging accounts, select Manage.

   Omnichannel admin center

   • In the site map, in General settings, select Channels.

2. On the Accounts and channels page, select New account.

3. Enter the following details:

   1. On the Channel details page, enter a name and select Facebook in Channels.

   2. On the Add account page, in the Application ID and Application secret fields, specify the Facebook App ID and App secret that you'd copied from the Facebook application.

   3. On Add Facebook Pages to this account, do the following steps:

   4. Select Add, and in the Add Facebook Page pane, enter the following details:

      • Page name: Name of the Facebook page.
      • Page ID: ID of the Facebook page. To get the page ID, go to your Facebook page, select About, and copy the value in the Page ID field.
      • Page access token: Specify the Page access token of the Facebook application. To get the page access token, go to your Facebook application and then go to Messenger > Settings. In the Access Tokens section, select the page, and copy the value in the Page Access Token field.

   5. On the Callback information page, the Callback URL and Verify token fields are populated automatically when you save the settings. Use the information to configure webhooks in the Facebook application. The values for the fields will not be generated if the Facebook page is reused across multiple instances of the channel.

Create a Facebook workstream

1. To configure routing and work distribution, perform the steps outlined in create a workstream.

2. Select the workstream that you've created for the Facebook channel and on the workstream page, select Set up Facebook, and do the following steps:

   1. In the Available Facebook Pages area, select a page from the list.

   2. On the Language page, select the language to use.

   3. On the Behaviors page, configure the following options:

      • Custom automated messages
      • Post-conversation survey

   4. On the User features page, configure the following options:

      • File attachments: When set to yes for both customer and agent, customers and agents can send and receive file attachments. More information: Enable file attachments. The availability and support of media is dependent on the Facebook application settings. More information: Facebook updates
      • Facebook message tag: Set to Yes to enable your agents to message customers after 24 hours have passed. When set to No, agents will be unable to respond to customers after 24 hours unless the customer sends another message.

      If you enable the Facebook human agent message tag during an active conversation between the agent and customer, the agent must close the conversation and reopen it to communicate with customers after 24 hours of inactivity. Agents can start conversations with customers for up to seven days.

      To use the Facebook human agent message tag, you must also turn it on in the Facebook app. For more information, see Facebook Developer Tools.

   5. Review the Summary page, and select Create. The channel instance is configured.

3. Configure routing rules. More information: Configure work classification

4. Configure work distribution. More information: Work distribution settings

5. Optionally, you can add a bot; skip this step if your conversations are handled by human agents only. More information: Configure a bot

6. In Advanced settings, configure the following options based on your business needs:

   • Sessions
   • Agent notifications
   • Context variables
   • Smart assist bots
   • Quick replies

Customer experience

A customer can start a conversation in any of the following ways:

• Messenger on the Facebook page
• www.messenger.com
• Messenger app on a mobile device
• Messenger widget on a custom website

If a customer starts a conversation from the Facebook page and then later switches to the mobile device, the previous conversation persists, and the customer can continue the conversation.

The agent receives the notification of the incoming conversation request. More information: Use Facebook channel

After the Facebook social profile is linked to a customer or contact record by the agent, subsequent Facebook conversations are linked to the customer records and the customer summary is populated.

If the customer is not identified based on name, a new contact record can be created.

The customer can send attachments only if you enable them. When the option isn't enabled for the customers, they can still attempt to send the file. However, agents won't receive the file and will see an error.

Privacy notice

By enabling this feature, your data will be shared with Facebook and flow outside of your organization's compliance and geo boundaries (even if your organization is in a Government Cloud Community region). Consult the feature technical documentation for more information here.

Customers are solely responsible for using Dynamics 365, this feature, and any associated feature or service in compliance with all applicable laws, such as laws relating to monitoring, recording, and storing communications with their end users. This includes adequately notifying end users that their communications with agents may be monitored, recorded, or stored and, as required by applicable laws, obtaining consent from end users before using the feature with them. Customers are also encouraged to have a mechanism in place to inform their agents that their communications with end users may be monitored, recorded, or stored.

Configure a Facebook channel in Omnichannel Administration

Important

Support for the Omnichannel Administration app ended on April 30, 2022. The app will be removed in July 2023. We recommend that you use the Customer Service admin center app to configure the latest features, such as unified routing and voice channel. More information: Omnichannel Administration app is deprecated

After completing the prerequisites, you can add the Facebook channel for your organization by following these steps:

1. Create a Facebook workstream
2. Create a Facebook channel
3. Create routing rules
4. Modify settings for a specific Facebook page

Create a Facebook workstream

1. Sign in to Omnichannel Administration.

2. Go to Work Distribution Management > Work Streams.

3. Select New to create a Facebook workstream.

4. On the Work Distribution tab, in the Channel field, select Facebook.

5. Specify other details as required. To learn more, see Understand and create workstreams.

6. Select Save.

Create a Facebook channel

1. Go to Channels > Facebook.

2. Select New to create a Facebook channel.

3. On the New Facebook Application page, provide the following information:

   • Name: Name of the Facebook application.

   • Application Id: ID of the Facebook application. To get the application ID, go to your Facebook application, select Settings > Basic, and copy the value in the App ID field.

   • Application Secret: Application secret of the Facebook application. To get the application secret, go to your Facebook application, select Settings > Basic, and copy the value in the App Secret field.

4. Select Save. After you save the record, the Facebook Pages section is enabled, and it allows you to add the Facebook pages through which a customer can connect to an agent.

   Note

   In this release, you can create only one Facebook application per organization. However, you can add multiple pages in a Facebook application.

5. In the Facebook Pages section, select Add New Facebook Page to add a Facebook page.

6. On the New Facebook Page page, Account setup tab, provide the following information:

   • Page Id: ID of the Facebook page. To get the page ID, go to your Facebook page, select About, and copy the value in the Page ID field.

   • Page Name: Name of the Facebook page.

   • Page Access Token: Page access token from the Facebook application. To get the page access token, go to your Facebook application and then go to Messenger > Settings. In the Access Tokens section, select the page, and copy the value in the Page Access Token field.

   • Facebook Application: The Facebook application record is auto filled from which you added a Facebook page.

   • Work Stream: Browse and select the workstream you created for the Facebook channel.

7. Select Save to create the record.

After you add a Facebook page, values for Callback Uri and Verify Token are generated automatically. These values are used to configure webhooks in the Facebook application.

Note

You can add multiple Facebook Page Id (pages) to a Facebook Application channel. However, a Facebook Page Id can be linked to one Facebook Application only. If you link the same Facebook Page Id to multiple Facebook Application channels, then Callback Uri and Verify Token won't be generated automatically.

Create routing rules

1. Go to Work Distribution Management > Work Streams.

2. Open the workstream you created in Step 1.

3. On the Routing rules items tab, create a routing rule to transfer the message to an appropriate agent. Select the entity as Facebook Engagement Context.

   For example, you can create a rule to transfer Facebook chat from a customer named Lesa to the default queue.

When you create conditions for routing rules, the Facebook Engagement Context (Conversation) entity enables you to set the following attributes:

• Customer name: The customer name is shown in the format "first name, last name".
• Locale: For a list of locales, see Facebook developer documentation.
• Timezone: Timezone is shown as a number relative to GMT, for example, “5.5”.
• User Page Scoped Id: This is shown as a number string.

Modify settings for a specific Facebook page

1. In the Omnichannel Administration app, go to your Facebook application and select the Facebook page you want to modify.

2. On the General settings tab, provide the following information:

   • Language: Select the preferred language for your Facebook page.

   • Work stream: Select an existing workstream or create a new one.

   • Enable file attachments for customers: Set to Yes to allow customers to send file attachments to agents. Otherwise, set to No.

   • Enable file attachments for agents: Set to Yes to allow agents to send file attachments to customers. Otherwise, set to No.

   Note

   • To learn more about attachments, see Enable file attachments.
   • To learn about uploading media in Facebook, see the Facebook developer documentation. The availability and support of media is dependent on the Facebook application settings. More information: Facebook updates

   • Turn on your Facebook human agent message tag: Set to Yes to enable your agents to message customers after 24 hours have passed. When set to No, agents will be unable to respond to customers after 24 hours unless the customer sends another message.

     If you enable the Facebook human agent message tag during an active conversation between the agent and customer, the agent must close the conversation and reopen it in order to communicate with customers after 24 hours of inactivity. Agents can start conversations with customers for up to seven days.

     To use the Facebook human agent message tag, you must also turn it on in the Facebook app. For more information, see Facebook Developer Tools.

3. On the Automated messages tab, configure automated messages.

4. On the Surveys tab, configure a post-conversation survey.

See also

Understand and create workstreams
Create and manage routing rules
Configure automated messages
Configure a pre-chat survey
Configure a post-conversation survey
Delete a configured channel
Support for live chat and asynchronous channels