Maintenance — pause the widget with a custom message

Sometimes you need the widget off — you're rotating an API key, you've got a CRM migration that breaks lead-webhook delivery for an hour, your support team is on a company offsite. The Maintenance page lets you flip the widget into a paused state with a custom message, optionally translated into every language you support, and flip it back when you're done.

This is not the same as canceling — your subscription stays active, your knowledge base is preserved, your conversations from before the pause are visible in the admin. You're just hiding the bubble for now.

How to pause

  1. Admin → Widget → Maintenance.
  2. Toggle Maintenance mode on.
  3. Write the Pause message — what visitors see if they try to open the widget. Keep it short. The default is fine for most cases.
  4. (Optional) Translate the message into each allowed locale. The page shows your default seven locales with a more affordance for the rest.
  5. Save.

The change takes effect on the next widget config refresh, which is at most a minute or two for visitors with cached configs.

What visitors see

When maintenance is on, the widget either:

  • Doesn't show the bubble at all (cleanest), or
  • Shows the bubble but replaces the chat pane with your pause message.

You'll see the live preview on the right of the page so you know which it is before you save.

Translations

The pause message is one of the few free-form pieces of customer-facing copy. If you have multi-language on, you want this in every locale you serve.

The page shows:

  • Your default seven locales by default — English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish.
  • A more affordance reveals the remaining locales.

Each language has its own field. The auto-translate button on each row machine-translates from your master locale; the result is editable afterwards, so use it as a starting point and tweak as needed.

Locales with manual overrides are visually distinguished and have a reset button if you want to drop back to auto.

When to use this

  • Planned downtime — your CRM is migrating; lead webhook will bounce. Pause the bot rather than let leads vanish into 500 errors.
  • Cost control mid-period — usage is about to blow past the hard cap. Pause for the last day or two of the period. (Better long-term: set the hard cap and let it auto-stop.)
  • Bot performance is bad — you've identified the knowledge base is missing critical content and the bot is making things up. Pause, fix the knowledge base, unpause.

Don't use this for normal closed-business-hours signalling. The bot runs 24/7 by design — that's the value. If you need different behaviour after hours, use a contact card via contacts with a "when to show" hint instead.

Common questions

  • How do I pause the widget? Widget → Maintenance → toggle on, write the message, save.
  • Does pausing cancel my subscription? No. Your subscription stays active. To cancel see billing.
  • Does pausing delete data? No. Existing conversations, leads, snippets are preserved. The bot just stops accepting new conversations.
  • How long can I pause for? No limit. Hours, days, weeks. You flip it back on when you want.
  • The widget is still showing — why? Visitors' browsers cache the widget config for up to a minute. Hard-refresh to confirm.
  • Can I show different messages to different locales? Yes — every locale has its own field on this page.
  • Should I use this for after-hours? No, use a contact card instead. The bot still works after hours; you want a "talk to Maria when we're closed" rule, not a global pause.

See also billing for actual subscription cancellation, contacts for after-hours routing, and languages for the translation policy.

Where to find us

Stuck? Email [email protected].