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Enhanced Chat and Messaging Glossary
When you’re setting up Enhanced Chat or Messaging, it’s helpful to understand the terms that we use to talk about these services.
Required Editions
| View supported editions. | |
This article applies to:
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Enhanced In-App Chat, Enhanced Web Chat v1, Enhanced Web Chat v2, Enhanced WhatsApp, Standard and Enhanced Facebook Messenger, Standard and Enhanced SMS, Enhanced Apple Messages for Business, Enhanced LINE, and Bring Your Own Channel |
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Asynchronous | Enhanced Chat sessions can be started, stopped, then re-engaged at any time. Closing the chat conversation window doesn’t delete the conversation history, giving service reps and customers more flexibility. |
| Channel | A way for customers to exchange messages with your business. Salesforce supports these channel types in Messaging: Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Apple Messages for Business, SMS, LINE, Enhanced In-App Chat, Enhanced Web Chat, Bring Your Own Channel, and Bring Your Own Channel for CCaaS. To connect a third-party account such as a WhatsApp account to Salesforce, you create a Messaging channel in Setup. In your channel settings, you can customize the service rep experience and add automation. |
| Conversation | A conversation includes one or more messaging sessions associated with a single messaging user (customer). Some conversations include a single messaging session, while others include multiple. If you have the Agentforce Contact Center Digital add-on, a conversation is an exchange of three or more messages between a business and a messaging user that takes place within a 24-hour period. A conversation can start in three ways:
In Enhanced Chat, the conversation boundaries determine how much chat history customers see. Review the table in Considerations and Limitations for Enhanced Chat. |
| Conversation Channel Definition | A record in Salesforce that contains metadata for any Bring Your Own Channel and Bring Your Own Channel for CCaaS channel integration. It's also linked to your messaging channel via a ChannelDefinition foreign key that populates the Conversation Channel Definition field. You must unlink the Conversation Channel Definition field before you can uninstall your Bring Your Own Channel or Bring Your Own Channel for CCaaS. |
| CORS Allowlist Entry | Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) lets web browsers request resources from other domains. When you add your top-level domain when setting up an Enhanced Web Chat channel, the CORS allowlist prevents requests to Salesforce Lightning apps unless the request comes from your approved URL list. |
| Custom Parameter | A way to further customize the Messaging experience or routing for a particular channel. For example, create a custom parameter to share a customer’s name and email address with a service rep or to link a customer’s pre-chat form values to an Enhanced Chat channel. Manage custom parameters in your messaging channel’s settings in Setup. |
| Embedded Service Deployment | Create deployments to implement Enhanced Chat on your app or website and control the functionality. Manage your deployments on the Embedded Service Deployment Settings page in Setup. There, you can edit your messaging settings, select branding, add pre-chat values, install a JavaScript code snippet to deliver conversations to your website, and download a configuration file to provide conversations from your mobile app. |
| Enhanced Messaging | A platform that supports a wide range of content formats and messaging capabilities. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS, LINE, Apple Messages for Business, Bring Your Own Channel, and Bring Your Own Channel for CCaaS are available as enhanced channels. You can upgrade standard channels to enhanced channels. Going forward, new features are available exclusively in enhanced channels. Standard Messaging preceded Enhanced Messaging. Standard WhatsApp was retired on Oct. 22, 2025, and Standard Facebook Messenger and SMS were retired on February 14, 2026. |
| Inbound Messaging | Messaging sessions initiated by your customer—for example, a customer sends you a message in Facebook Messenger. |
| Messaging Component | Structured content that service reps can send to customers in a messaging session to share or gather information. Several types of messaging components are available, including enhanced links, questions with options, time selectors, and forms. These content formats help you standardize your external messaging and let customers and service reps communicate in familiar ways. |
| Messaging Session | An exchange of one or more messages between your business and a customer that takes place over a Messaging channel. Messaging sessions end differently depending on your channel and device:
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| Messaging User | A record representing a user who communicates with your company over a particular channel, such as Facebook Messenger. When a customer sends a message to your company, a messaging user record is created for the customer to track their activity in that messaging channel. Depending on which data is available, the record can include the customer’s name, phone number or Facebook name, and consent status. You can link a messaging user record to a contact or other type of record so all the customer’s messaging sessions are in one place. Messaging user records are required for your recipients, even if you’re sending messages to contacts, employees, or person accounts. |
| Parameter Mapping | A way to map standard and custom parameters to flows or service rep tasks. Manage your parameter mappings in your messaging channel’s settings in Setup. |
| Persistent | Conversation history remains in the conversation window after the conversation is over. In Enhanced Chat, conversation history is also shared across devices if User Verification is active, and all underlying messaging channels associated with your devices share a Configuration Name. In other Messaging channels, conversation history persists across devices without the need for User Verification. |
| Pre-Chat Fields | A way to collect customer details before a service rep starts a conversation in an Enhanced Chat channel. Ask customers to fill out visible pre-chat fields, or use our API to fill in hidden pre-chat fields. Send this data to your team using Omni Flow. |
| Proactive Messaging | Messaging sessions initiated by a service rep or automation in Salesforce; for example, a service rep messages a customer in your WhatsApp channel, or a flow or process sends an automatic notification or broadcast. Reps can proactively message customers in all enhanced channels except Enhanced Web Chat. You can also set up automated message notifications in enhanced WhatsApp channels, enhanced Apple Messages for Business channels, and Enhanced Chat. |
| Routing | The logic that determines how customer inquiries in a Messaging channel are routed. The Salesforce routing tool is Omni-Channel, and you can configure it to route customer messages to queues, bots, or service reps. Queue-based routing is ideal for simple routing scenarios. Omni-Channel flow routing lets you use Flow Builder to define routing rules and dynamically route messages to the most qualified available service rep or bot. Omni-Channel flows unify the routing setup for all supported channels, including voice calls, chats, messaging, cases, leads, and custom objects. You can also route all messages in a particular channel to a specific user or to an Agentforce Service agent. |
