Introduction to embedded co-browsing
Embedded co-browsing lets agents see what a visitor sees on your website as they’re navigating it. Unlike other collaboration layers, embedded co-browsing works directly within the visitor’s browsing session, preserving their login state, form data, and all other context.
How it works
Embedded co-browsing uses a technique called DOM capturing: A JavaScript snippet running in the visitor’s browser reads the visual state of the page and transfers the page’s HTML elements and their styling to the agent’s browser. The agent sees a replica of the visitor’s view without any data being persisted by the Collaboration Server.
Key advantages
- Fully in context
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Because embedded co-browsing works within the visitor’s existing browser session, all their context is preserved. If a visitor is logged in and has filled out a form, the agent sees exactly that state.
- Full control over what’s shared
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Each page you want to enable embedded co-browsing on must contain the Unblu JavaScript snippet, so embedded co-browsing only works on the pages you choose. Within those pages, you can hide sensitive elements from agents or prevent agents from interacting with specific parts of the page.
- Rich collaboration tools
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Embedded co-browsing supports mark mode, remote control, and scroll lock.
Resources and the SecureFlow Manager
Additional resources such as images and CSS files that the agent’s browser needs to display the page correctly are retrieved separately, not from the visitor’s browser.
For publicly accessible resources, this works without any additional setup. For protected or session-specific resources, you may need the SecureFlow Manager (SFM) to forward those resources to the Collaboration Server so they can be transmitted to the agent’s browser.
Limitations
Although a powerful tool, embedded co-browsing does have some technical limitations. For an in-depth discussion, refer to Limitations of embedded co-browsing.
See also
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For more general information on integrating Unblu into your website, refer to Floating Visitor UI integration.
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For information on hiding page elements from agents, refer to Hiding specific page elements and Skipping DOM elements.
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For more information on the SecureFlow Manager, refer to SecureFlow Manager usage and Managing restricted resources without the SecureFlow Manager.