Pre-chat questions are designed specifically to obtain information from the customer before the representative conversation begins. They can collect structured customer-supplied values that become available to the interaction and can subsequently be used for routing, identification, or representative context. The AB-250 study guide explicitly includes configuration of pre-chat surveys under the chat and digital channels objective.

For programmatically supplied context, the live chat SDK provides setContextProvider. Microsoft documents that the context-provider function returns contextual values that are used when the chat session is initialized. This enables a website or client application to provide values directly to the Contact Center conversation before interaction processing begins. The same SDK also supports passing custom context when startChat is invoked.

Macros execute productivity actions for representatives after the workspace session is in operation. Routing rules consume available attributes but do not themselves collect the customer's pre-conversation information. Session templates define the representative's workspace/session layout and do not provide a customer-facing data-capture mechanism.

Study Guide reference: Implement channels - > Configure pre-chat surveys; extend the chat experience by using the live chat SDK.