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Chat Widget Customization

Last Update a month ago

Changing the appearance of the tawk.to chat widget How to modify your widget content Changing your widget language Customizing the widget header and body cards Change how the widget behaves on your site

Set Up a Pre-Chat Form with Department Selection

The instructions below are for desktops and laptops only.

Allow your website visitors to select a department directly in the Pre-Chat Form before initiating a chat. This ensures conversations are immediately routed to the appropriate team.

What is a Pre-Chat Form?

A Pre-Chat Form is a tool used to gather essential information from visitors before the chat session begins. It typically collects visitor details such as name and email address. 


By including a department selection option, visitors can choose which department they wish to connect with, helping your team respond more effectively and efficiently.

To learn more about configuring the Pre-Chat Form, see this guide:

Using the Pre-Chat Form

Adding the Department option in the Pre-Chat Form

Before you begin, ensure you’ve already created departments and assigned agents to them. See this guide to learn about creating departments:

Creating and managing departments

Follow these steps:


1. Log in to your tawk.to account.

2. Select the correct property.

3. Click Administration on the top menu.

4. Click Channels in the left menu and select Chat Widget.

5. Scroll down to Widget Content and click Edit Content.

6 In the Widget Content editor, click Pre-Chat under Widget State. Ensure Enable Pre-Chat is switched on.

7. If you don’t already have a Form under Body Cards, click + Add and select Form.

8. Click + Add department.

9. The Department field will be added to the form. You can click the star icon to make it a required field. Then, click Update.

Visitors will now see the Department dropdown on the Pre-Chat Form when they initiate a chat.

How it works

  • Once a visitor selects a department, their chat is routed to the agents assigned to that group.

  • If the department is required, visitors must make a selection before continuing.

  • If no department is selected (or if the field is disabled), chats are routed based on your default settings or active triggers.

  • Chats routed to a department are still visible to all agents who are logged in to the Dashboard. However, only agents assigned to the selected department will receive sound notifications for those chats.

  • The department list in the Pre-Chat Form is automatically populated based on the departments you’ve already created in your property settings. You must set up departments separately before enabling this option.

Additional considerations

  • The Department field only appears if you have at least one department set up.

  • Ensure agents are correctly assigned to departments so chats are routed properly.

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