Support contact form: Add site-selector for free users

[KokkieH]

Steps to reproduce

1. Log in as an account that owns an upgrade plan
2. Navigate to https://wordpress.com/help/contact
3. Note that contact form contains a site picker so user can indicate which site they need help with
4. Next log in as an account that owns no upgrades
5. Navigate to https://wordpress.com/help/contact

What I expected

To still see a site picker to select which site I need help with.

What happened instead

No site picker is visible for free account even if account owns multiple sites. Instead, the primary site is automatically indicated in the forums as the site the user needs help with, which is not always accurate and leads to delays in helping the users.

Screenshot / Video

Paid user:

Free user:

Context / Source

Change requested by forum moderators and volunteers in 852573-f and 848339-f

cc @dllh

[jsnajdr]

Howdy @KokkieH 👋 The reason why you don't see the site selector in the free account is because the site selector display depends on the support method. If you look at the screenshots carefully, you can see that the paid used is starting a Happychat session, which supports site selection.

The free user, however, doesn't have access to Happychat, and their question will be sent to forums, or maybe to Directly. Neither of these methods supports the site selection control.

In the code, this looks like a conscious decision rather than a bug. See the showSiteField values in this switch statement:

wp-calypso/client/me/help/help-contact/index.jsx

Lines 292 to 398 in 2e51d42

	switch ( variationSlug ) {
	case SUPPORT_HAPPYCHAT: {
	// TEMPORARY: to collect data about the customer preferences, context 1050-happychat-gh
	// for non english customers check if we have full support in their language
	let additionalSupportOption = { enabled: false };
	if ( ! isDefaultLocale( currentUserLocale ) && ! this.props.hasHappychatLocalizedSupport ) {
	// make sure we only record the track once
	if ( ! this.state.wasAdditionalSupportOptionShown ) {
	// track that additional support option is shown
	this.props.recordTracksEvent( 'calypso_happychat_a_b_additional_support_option_shown', {
	locale: currentUserLocale,
	} );
	this.setState( { wasAdditionalSupportOptionShown: true } );
	}
	if ( localizedLanguageNames && localizedLanguageNames[ defaultLanguageSlug ] ) {
	// override chat buttons
	buttonLabel = translate( 'Chat with us in %(defaultLanguage)s', {
	args: {
	defaultLanguage: localizedLanguageNames[ defaultLanguageSlug ].localized,
	},
	} );
	}
	// add additional support option
	additionalSupportOption = {
	enabled: true,
	label: translate( 'Email us' ),
	onSubmit: this.submitKayakoTicket,
	};
	}
	return {
	additionalSupportOption,
	onSubmit: this.startHappychat,
	buttonLabel,
	showSubjectField: false,
	showHowCanWeHelpField: true,
	showHowYouFeelField: true,
	showSiteField: hasMoreThanOneSite,
	showQASuggestions: true,
	};
	}
	case SUPPORT_TICKET:
	return {
	onSubmit: this.submitKayakoTicket,
	buttonLabel: isSubmitting ? translate( 'Sending email' ) : translate( 'Email us' ),
	showSubjectField: true,
	showHowCanWeHelpField: true,
	showHowYouFeelField: true,
	showSiteField: hasMoreThanOneSite,
	showQASuggestions: true,
	};
	case SUPPORT_DIRECTLY:
	return {
	onSubmit: this.submitDirectlyQuestion,
	buttonLabel: translate( 'Ask an Expert' ),
	formDescription: translate(
	'Get help from an {{strong}}Expert User{{/strong}} of WordPress.com. ' +
	'These are other users, like yourself, who have been selected because ' +
	'of their knowledge to help answer your questions.' +
	'{{br/}}{{br/}}' +
	'{{strong}}Please do not{{/strong}} provide financial or contact ' +
	'information when submitting this form.',
	{
	components: {
	// Need to use linebreaks since the entire text is wrapped in a <p>...</p>
	br: <br />,
	strong: <strong />,
	},
	}
	),
	showSubjectField: false,
	showHowCanWeHelpField: false,
	showHowYouFeelField: false,
	showSiteField: false,
	showQASuggestions: true,
	};
	default:
	return {
	onSubmit: this.submitSupportForumsTopic,
	buttonLabel: isSubmitting
	? translate( 'Asking in the forums' )
	: translate( 'Ask in the forums' ),
	formDescription: translate(
	'Post a new question in our {{strong}}public forums{{/strong}}, ' +
	'where it may be answered by helpful community members, ' +
	'by submitting the form below. ' +
	'{{strong}}Please do not{{/strong}} provide financial or ' +
	'contact information when submitting this form.',
	{
	components: {
	strong: <strong />,
	},
	}
	),
	showSubjectField: true,
	showHowCanWeHelpField: false,
	showHowYouFeelField: false,
	showSiteField: false,
	showQASuggestions: true,
	};
	}
	};

For Directly and forums, it's simply set to false. For Happychat and tickets, it's true if the user has multiple sites, no matter if free or paid.

Mentioning some folks that touched the code last: @mattwondra @southp

[KokkieH]

the code, this looks like a conscious decision rather than a bug.

I'm not saying it's a bug, and this issue isn't labeled as a bug report. When I created this issue I labeled it as an enhancement request to add this option to the contact form, as enabling users to indicate the correct site they need help with would enable us to provide better support to them.

The new issue in #38280 is a bug, or at the very least a regression, because up until Friday last week the primary site was being indicated on forum threads created using the support contact form.

[jsnajdr]

I'm not saying it's a bug, and this issue isn't labeled as a bug report.

Sorry I misread the issue labels. If we start adding the selected site name to the forum posts, is there any risk associated with the fact that the forum posts are public? Private sites come to mind, for example.

[KokkieH]

If someone creates a new forum thread directly in the forums at https://en.forums.wordpress.com/?new=1 the site picker there lists all sites in the account, public, private, and Jetpack, and it's up to the user to choose which site to display, though the primary site is selected by default.

And up to last week (as per the new issue I created today), creating a post via https://wordpress.com/help/contact always listed the primary site, regardless of whether or not the site is private, so I wouldn't say it's a problem. We can remove the link from the post easily enough if the user requests it.

[github-actions]

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[Aurorum]

PR for this issue in #52979. :)