Olark Destination
Destination Info
- Accepts Page, Identify, and Track calls
- Refer to it as Olark in the Integrations object
Components
Getting started
When you enable Olark in the Segment Segmentb app, your changes appear in the Segment CDN in about 45 minutes. Analytics.js then starts asynchronously loading Olark’s loader0.js
onto your page. This means you should remove Olark’s snippet from your page.
Olark’s chat box appears on your page, as configured in your Olark account, and you can start chatting with visitors.
Olark is only supported in device-mode (on the client).
Page
When you call Page, Segment calls Olark’s sendNotificationToOperator
function as looking at *url*
. You must enable this option with the pageview
flag, because it can sometimes be bothersome.
Identify
When you call Identify on analytics.js
, Segment sends the following data to Olark:
- Segment calls
api.chat.updateVisitorNickname
withtraits.name
andtraits.email
, or just theirtraits.name
or just theirtraits.email
or theiruserId
. In that order of preference. - Segment calls
api.visitor.updateEmailAddress
withtraits.email
if you send it, oruserId
if that’s an email. - Segment calls
api.visitor.updateFullName
withtraits.name
if you send it, ortraits.firstName
andtraits.lastName
appended with a space in betSegmenten, if you send both first and last name. - Segment calls
api.visitor.updatePhoneNumber
withtraits.phone
if you send it. - Segment calls
api.visitor.updateCustomFields
withtraits
.
More documentation on the Olark API can be found in Olark’s docs.
Track
When you call Track or one of its helpers on analytics.js, Segment calls Olark’s sendNotificationToOperator
function as visitor triggered *eventName*
. You must enable this option with the track
flag.
Features
Customizing the chat box
All the settings you can change from your Olark settings pages, like targeted chat and your chat box design, still work exactly the same when Olark is enabled using Segment.
Olark JavaScript API
If you’d like to use the native Olark JavaScript functions after turning on Olark using Segment, the ready
function allows you to do that. Since Segment still loads the Olark library in the background, you can access those functions like this:
analytics.ready(function(){
olark('api.box.shrink')
});
See the ready
docs for more details.
Record Live Chat events
Using Olark through Segment gives you the ability to automatically record Track events for live chat conversations. If you select this option, Segment collects the following events:
Live Chat Conversation Started
.Live Chat Message Sent
.Live Chat Message Received
.
These events are sent to other tools in your stack that can accept Track calls, so you can do things like analyze if users who chat spend more money over time.
To learn more about the live chat events you can capture with this destination, see the Live Chat spec docs.
Settings
Segment lets you change these destination settings from the Segment app without having to touch any code.
Setting | Description |
---|---|
Group ID | string , has no default value. If you want to use Olark across multiple different websites under the same account, create an Olark Group and add the ID here. |
Show the user's name or email chat console | boolean , defaults to TRUE .Show the user’s name or email from analytics.identify() in the Olark chat console |
Use inline chat box | boolean , defaults to FALSE .Configures whether the chat box should be inlined or not |
Record live chat events. | boolean , defaults to FALSE .Automatically send Live Chat message events, conversation starts and ends to other tools you have enabled. |
Log pageviews to the Olark chat console | boolean , defaults to FALSE .Log pageviews to the Olark chat console |
Site ID (required) |
string , has no default value. You can find your Site ID on the Olark Install page. It should look something like this: 9385-174-10-1457 . |
Log custom events from analytics.track() to the Olark chat console | boolean , defaults to FALSE .Log custom events from analytics.track() to the Olark chat console |
This page was last modified: 16 Oct 2025
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