Admin Guide: Getting Started
This manual applies to all administrators (Super Admin, Admin, and Supervisor). It is designed to help you quickly understand system features and perform operations correctly.
Agent Roles and Permissions
KinoChat provides four agent roles, each with different permission levels.Roles are assigned per workspace (business unit).
Role Definitions
Super Admin
Each organization can have up to 5 active Super Admins.
All Super Admins have the same organization-level permissions and can manage all workspaces within the organization.
Existing Super Admins can add or remove other Super Admins under Organization → Admins.
At least one active Super Admin must always remain.
When a Super Admin creates a new workspace, they are also automatically added to that workspace as an Admin.
Admin
Each workspace can have serval Admins, assigned by the Super Admin.
Has broad management permissions within the workspace.
Supervisor
Each workspace can have multiple supervisors, assigned by the Super Admin or Admin.
Focuses on team and chat supervision with limited administrative access.
Agent
Each workspace can have multiple Agents, assigned by the Super Admin or Admin.
Primarily responsible for handling chats.
Roles & Permissions
Feature / Permission
Super Admin
Admin
Supervisor
Agent
Home
✓
✓
✓
✓
Chats (All Chat Features)
✓
✓
✓
✓
Invite Agents
✓
✓
✓
✓
Edit Agent Roles
✓
✓
✓
✕
Remove Agents from Workspace
✓
✓
✕
✕
Delete Agents (Company Level)
✓
✕
✕
✕
Manage Groups (Create / Edit / Delete)
✓
✓
✓
✕
Dashboard
✓
✓
✓
✓
Workspace Management
✓
✕
✕
✕
Chat Widget Settings
✓
✓
✓
✕
Chat Settings
✓
✓
✓
✕
Forms Settings (Pre / Post Chat)
✓
✓
✓
✕
Security Settings
✓
✓
✓
✕
Help
✓
✓
✓
✓
Account Setup
Initial Your Account
After you sign up for KinoChat, you need to provide the email address for the Super Admin (highest permission) to the KinoChat Support Team(support@kinochat.ai).The KinoChat Support Team will:
Create a default business unit named Default Workspace
Set up the initial Super Admin account
You can then log in to the system using the provided email address and password.
【NEW】Manage Super Admins
Super Admins can manage other Super Admins under Organization → Admins.
Add a Super Admin
Go to Organization → Admins.
Click Add Super Admin.
Search for an existing organization member by name or email.
Select the member and click Add Super Admin.
The new Super Admin will immediately have access to the organization and all its workspaces.
Note: The member must already belong to the organization. If they are not found, add them to a workspace first.
Each organization can have up to 5 active Super Admins.
Remove a Super Admin
Go to Organization → Admins.
Find the Super Admin you want to remove.
Select Remove Super Admin from the Action menu.
Confirm the removal.
The member will immediately lose their organization-level Super Admin access. Any existing workspace roles they already have will remain unchanged.
You cannot remove yourself as a Super Admin, and at least one active Super Admin must always remain.
Edit or Create a Workspace
After logging in, you need switch to the default workspace before configuration.
If you have only one business unit, we recommend editing the default workspace only.
If you have multiple business units, you can create additional workspaces by clicking Create Workspace.
All settings (include team, chat setting, etc.) are configured separately for each workspace.If an agent belongs to multiple workspaces, they will receive chat requests from all associated workspaces simultaneously.It is super helpful when you need an agent to handle the requests from different business units.
Cross-workspace Messaging(optional)
Cross-workspace Messaging allows agents to receive and manage messages from multiple workspaces in a unified experience.
Who Can Manage
Super Admin only
Enable or Disable
Access: Account Settings → Cross-workspace Messaging
Enable
Agents receive messages from all accessible workspaces
Workspace-specific chat limits and inactivity settings are overridden
Disable
Restores workspace-level chat limits and inactivity settings
Agents will only receive messages from the active workspace
Global confirmation is required when enabling or disabling this feature.
Important Notes
When enabled, chat limits and inactivity rules apply globally
Agents receive a global notification when the status changes
Disabling may require agents to manually switch workspaces to continue chats
Build Your Team
Once a workspace is created and enabled, you can manage agents and groups within that workspace.
Team management is located under Settings → Team. The Team page contains three tabs:
Agents — Manage workspace members, roles, license status, VIP Agent status, and member actions.
Groups — Manage groups and group membership.
Invitations — Track invitations from submission until the invitee becomes an active workspace member.
Invite Agents
All roles, including Agents, can send invitations from Settings → Team → Invite agents.
Invitation options depend on the sender's role:
Super Admin can invite Admins, Supervisors, and Agents.
Admin can invite Supervisors and Agents.
Supervisor can invite Agents.
Agent can invite Agents only. For invitations sent by an Agent, the role is fixed to Agent, the group is fixed to General, and VIP Agent is turned off.
Both Single invite and Bulk invite are supported. Invalid email addresses are highlighted before submission and must be corrected before the invitation can be sent.
When invitations are submitted:
An existing member of the same organization who is not in the current workspace can be added directly after confirmation.
An external email receives an invitation and enters Pending Accept.
An email that already belongs to the current workspace is skipped.
Duplicate emails in the same submission are not sent twice.
Delivery or permission errors enter Failed.
After submission, open Settings → Team → Invitations to review the results.
Manage Invitations
The Invitations list tracks each invitation for the current workspace.
Pending Accept
The invitation has been sent and is waiting to be accepted.
Available actions:
Resend — Sends a new invitation and invalidates the previous link.
Cancel — Cancels the invitation and invalidates its link.
Copy invitation link — Copies the latest valid link without generating a new link or extending its validity.
Invitation links are valid for seven days. When a link expires, the record remains Pending Accept and Resend becomes the primary action.
Manage Your Groups
General is the default group and contains all workspace agents. The default group is always listed first and cannot be archived.
Select a group to open its details. Depending on your permissions, you can:
Edit the group name.
Search workspace members by name or email and add them to the group.
Remove a member from an active, non-default group. This does not remove the member from the workspace or other groups.
Archive a non-default group.
Restore an archived group.
Archived groups cannot be selected when adding members or sending new invitations
Set Up Chat Settings
If you manage multiple workspaces, switch the global workspace to configure chat settings separately for each one.
Set Up Chat Assignment
Administrators (Super Admin, Admin, Supervisor) can set the chat assignment mode to:
Automatic Assignment(Recommended): Chats are evenly distributed to agents with online status. If all agents reach capacity, new chats go to the Unassigned Chats list for manual claim.
Manual Selection: New chats enter the Unassigned Chats list. Agents receive notifications and can claim a chat to respond.
Enable Pre-chat Form
You can enable the pre-chat form to collect information before a customer starts a chat.
Information: Customize the welcome message
Name: Customize the label to collect customer names
Email: Customize the label to collect email addresses
Group Selection: Customize chat routing options based on the customer’s selection. You can route chats to different groups according to the options chosen by the customer. Click Add Answer to add multiple groups.
Button: Customize the button label (default: Chat Now)
Add Element: Add additional form components
When disabled, the pre-chat form is hidden.
Customize Rating Form
Enabled by default. When enabled, the rating button appears in both interfaces, and customers are prompted with a rating form after the chat ends.
Chat Rating: Customize the rating prompt text
Rating Setting: customize the rating system
1-5 point rating system: classify into five levels: Poor、Fair、Neutral、Good、Excellent.
1-3 point rating system: classify into three levels: Poor、Neutral、Excellent.
When disabled, the rating button is hidden across both interfaces and the form submission is blocked.
Customize Your Chat Widget Appearance
Access: Settings → Chat Widget → Appearance
Chat Bubble
You can customize the chat entry icon displayed on your website in every workspace
Options
Upload an image (JPG / JPEG / PNG, max 2MB)
Choose from the built-in gallery
Uploaded images are automatically resized for display and applied to the preview.
Theme Color
Set the primary color for the chat widget.
Affects buttons and highlighted elements
Supports preset colors and manual color input
Invalid color input will not override the current color
Brand Icon
Upload a brand icon used in the chat header and messages.
Supported formats: JPG / JPEG / PNG
Max size: 2MB
Image is cropped into a circular shape
Deploy Your Chat Widget
After completing all configurations, you can add the chat widget to your website.The widget supports:
Popup chat window
Full-screen chat window:
Copy your code to your developer team and embed the chat widget to your website.
Your developer team can follow this article to install the chat widget.
If you prefer not to embed the chat widget on your website, you can contact us(support@kinochat.ai) to obtain an external chat link instead.
Speed Up Chatting
Set Up Public Quick Reply
Public Quick Replies allow admins to define standardized response templates shared across the workspace.
Access
Settings → Public Quick Reply
Create a Public Quick Reply
Shortcut: required, single shortcut, max 20 characters
Reply Content: required, text only, max 500 characters
Best Practices
Use clear, descriptive shortcuts
Keep replies policy-aligned and professional
Avoid temporary or sensitive information
After you finish setting up, the agents can search/insert quick reply as chatting.
Prioritize VIP Customers
Set Up VIP Customer Routing
VIP Customer Routing allows admins to prioritize high-value customers by assigning them to VIP Agents first when available.
Configure VIP Customer Tiers
Access
Settings → User Identity → User Segments
For each User Tier:
Set a Priority Level (1–20)
Enable the VIP toggle if the tier should be treated as VIP
Configure VIP Agents
Access:
Team → Agents
Admins can enable the VIP Agent switch for selected agents within the current workspace.
How VIP Routing Works
Conversations are still routed based on the pre-chat form configuration
VIP customers will first attempt to be assigned to available VIP Agents within the matched group
If no VIP Agent is available, the system automatically falls back to normal assignment logic
Best Practices
Reserve VIP status for high-value customer tiers
Ensure enough VIP Agents are available during peak hours
Use consistent priority rules across user segments
Regularly review VIP Agent workload and capacity
After Setup
VIP customers will automatically receive prioritized assignment during the conversation routing process.
Set Up Automatic Away Mode
Automatic Away Mode helps prevent inactive agents from staying online for too long by automatically switching them to Away status after a period of inactivity.
This helps:
Reduce ghost online agents
Prevent incorrect chat assignments
Keep queues moving smoothly
Improve SLA accuracy
Configure Automatic Away Mode
Access
Settings → Chat Settings → Agent Inactivity
Configuration
Enable Automatic Away Mode to allow KinoChat to automatically switch inactive agents to Away.
Admins can configure:
Inactivity Timeout
The amount of inactive time before the warning popup appears.
Limits:
Min: 1 minute
Max: 60 minutes
Default: 5 minutes
Warning Countdown
The countdown duration shown before the agent is automatically switched to Away.
Limits:
Min: 10 seconds
Max: 300 seconds
Default: 60 seconds
How Automatic Away Works
When an agent stays inactive for the configured period:
KinoChat displays a warning popup
The countdown begins
If there is still no activity after the countdown
The agent is automatically switched to Away
Once switched to Away:
The agent stops receiving new chats
Existing conversations remain active
The agent stays logged in
Agents can switch back to Active at any time using the status bar action.
What Counts as Activity
The inactivity timer resets when the agent performs actions such as:
Sending messages
Typing in the input box
Clicking within the page
Switching conversations
Editing the message input
Returning focus to the page
Keyboard input
(Not Required) Set Up Away Reasons
Away Reasons help your team understand why an agent is currently away.
When Away Reasons are enabled, agents must select a reason when switching their status to Away. This gives supervisors better visibility into team availability without changing how chat assignment works.
Away Reasons do not affect routing or assignment. Agents in Away status will not receive new chat assignments, regardless of the selected reason.
Access
Settings → Agent Settings → Presence → Away Reasons
Configure Away Reasons
Admins can manage Away Reasons at the workspace level.
You can:
Enable or disable Away Reasons
Add custom Away Reasons
Edit reason names and emojis
Archive reasons that are no longer used
Restore archived reasons
Reorder reasons shown to agents
Archived reasons are removed from the agent selection list, but historical records will keep the original reason for future reference.
How Away Reasons Work
When Away Reasons are enabled:
An agent switches their status from Online to Away.
KinoChat asks the agent to choose an Away Reason.
The selected reason is shown in the agent status area and Team page.
The agent stops receiving new chat assignments while remaining logged in.
System-triggered Away status, such as Automatic Away Mode, may use a system-generated reason such as Inactive.
Agents can switch back to Online at any time when they are ready to receive new chats again.
Announcement
You can use the announcement feature to send notifications, quickly reaching all agents or customers.
At the workspace management view, you can send notifications across all workspaces
At the workspace view, you can only send notifications within the current workspace
Create an announcement
Click “Create announcement” in the top right corner and complete the following fields:
Audience
The target audience of the announcement (internal agents or customers)
Title & Description
The main message you want to communicate to the selected audience
Notification type
Silent Notification: Displayed only in the announcement panel on the agent side or in the widget feed
Urgent Alert: Shown as a centered pop-up on the agent or widget side. Agents must click “Confirm” to continue
Target workspace(only at workspace management view)
The workspace you want to send
Send date
Send immediately
Schedule for later: select a time to send the announcement
You can save as a draft that can be edited again or publish.
Then you can see the announcement you created in the table.
You can edit or delete announcements in draft status, and also archive published announcements.
View an announcement
Agents in the target workspace will receive the announcement when they log in to KinoChat.
Silent Notification
Displayed only in the announcement panel on the agent side or in the widget side
Only the latest three announcement will be displayed in the widget
Urgent Alert
Shown as a centered pop-up on the agent or widget side. Users must click Confirm or Got it to continue
In the widget side, all urgent Alerts are displayed as pop-ups in reverse chronological order. To ensure a good user experience, limit the number of active announcements and archive outdated ones promptly.
Also, agents can view published announcements in the Content section of the left-hand menu.
If an announcement is archived, agents will no longer be able to view it in the list.
Review Closed Conversations
The Conversation workspace gives supervisors a dedicated place to search and review closed conversations.
It is separate from Agent Inbox. Agent Inbox is mainly used by agents for daily chat handling and short-term follow-up, while Conversation is used by supervisors for broader closed conversation review.
Access
Conversation
Only Supervisors and above can access the Conversation workspace.
What You Can Do
In Conversation, you can:
Search closed conversations in the current workspace
Filter conversations by date, group, agent, rating, and close reason
Open a conversation to review full chat details
Save frequently used filter combinations as My Views
Views
Views help you reuse common search conditions.
A View saves the filter conditions, not fixed results. Each time you open a View, KinoChat searches the latest conversations that match the saved filters.
Default views are created by the system and cannot be renamed or deleted.
My Views are created by you. You can rename, update, duplicate, or delete them.
Monitor Operations
Operations is a top-level workspace for Supervisors, Admins, and Super Admins. It separates real-time operational monitoring from member configuration.
Agent Status
Go to Operations → Agent Status to see whether agents can receive new chats.
Available
The agent is online and below their active chat capacity.
Yes
Away
The agent is not accepting new chats. An Away reason is shown when available.
No
Busy
The agent is online and has reached or exceeded their active chat capacity.
No
Online describes login or connection status only. It does not mean that an agent can receive a new chat.
The page includes:
Summary counts for Available, Away, and Busy.
Filters for Group and Status.
Agent, Status, Active chats, Last status change, and Action columns.
Active chats displayed as current conversations against capacity, for example, 3 / 5.
Automatic updates, a Last updated timestamp, and a manual Refresh action.
Away reasons appear inside the Status field only when the agent is Away.
Force logout
Supervisors, Admins, and Super Admins can use Force logout from the Agent Status page. The action signs the agent out of active sessions across devices, browser tabs, and workspaces. The agent must sign in again to continue working.
Force logout is different from switching an agent to Away. Existing conversations continue to follow the workspace's current offline handling rules.
Queue
Go to Operations → Queue to monitor conversations waiting to be assigned.
The summary displays:
Waiting — Total conversations currently waiting. VIP conversations are included in this number.
Oldest wait — The longest current waiting time. When there are no waiting conversations, this displays -.
Available agents — Online agents below their active chat capacity.
Busy agents — Online agents who have reached or exceeded their active chat capacity.
The Queue by group list displays Group, Waiting, Oldest wait, Available, Away, and Busy.
Select a group to expand its waiting conversations. The expanded list shows the Conversation, Customer, and Waiting time. VIP customers are identified with a VIP label; they do not use a separate queue and are not counted in addition to the Waiting total.
Queue data updates automatically. Waiting time increases while a conversation remains in the queue, and assigned or closed conversations are removed. A manual Refresh action and Last updated timestamp are also available.
Contact Us
Enjoy your chat journey with KinoChat! We are glad to hear your feedback!
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