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3. Release 5.2

 Release 5.2
===========

 Released 1st Jul 2026

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**Escalations** let a user send their request to your team without leaving the chat, and chat availability now has a page of its own so you can control whether the chatbot is live.

Major Features
--------------

### Escalations

When the chatbot cannot resolve a question, or the user asks for a person, it can offer to raise the request with your team. The user reviews a pre-filled form in the chat window, adjusts it if needed, and receives a reference number once it is submitted to the system your organisation nominates.

![The chat window showing the chatbot offering to raise a support request and the escalation form open with pre-filled fields](https://assist.knowledge.civ.io/storage/KkWsMdkiJ2aiQIgeuxV9NkTNIwdQ1OojqHA3HHdy.png)

[Learn more about when the chatbot hands over to your team](/articles/escalation-and-redirects)

### Control when your chatbot is live

Chat availability controls whether your chatbot is open for business, and it now has a page of its own in the dashboard with a single setting your team can change directly. **Enabled** is normal running, **Disabled** removes the chat from your website, and **Maintenance** replaces the usual chat with a maintenance message, so users know the service is temporarily unavailable rather than broken.

![The Chat availability page in the dashboard, with the setting dropdown set to Enabled and the Save button above it](https://assist.knowledge.civ.io/storage/0jwHCECWGMzRRn2IVPVvYkmON2ydeQaoMc7NWnVr.png)

The change takes effect on your live website as soon as you save it, which makes it the setting to reach for during a website migration or a service outage where the chatbot's answers would be wrong.

[Learn more about turning your chatbot on, off or into maintenance mode](/articles/chat-availability)

Fixes
-----

- Every entry on a reply's **References** tab shows the page's title and a short description, with a neutral placeholder where a page has no preview image. *Learn more about [how the assistant answers questions](/articles/how-the-assistant-answers-questions).*
- Additional knowledge entries carry a content type, chosen when the entry is created, and the chatbot draws on them reliably in its answers. *Learn more about [creating an additional knowledge entry](/articles/manual-context).*

   Questions about this release?
-----------------------------

 Many of these changes came from customer feedback. Tell us what you would like next, or let us know if something is not behaving.

 [ Submit a support request ](https://nginx.deploy-lagoon-production.civio-assist-docs.dh1.amazee.io/portal/login) 

 [    Previous release Release 5.1 ](/releases/release-5-1) [  Browse All releases   ](/releases) 

 In this release 

 Release details 

  Released 1st Jul 2026 

 Previous  [ Release 5.1 · 11th Jun 2026 ](/releases/release-5-1)  

 Read more 

- [   Creating an additional knowledge entry ](/articles/manual-context)
- [   The chatbot is not appearing on my site ](/articles/chatbot-not-appearing-troubleshooting)
- [   Turning your chatbot on, off or into maintenance mode ](/articles/chat-availability)
- [   When the chatbot hands over to your team ](/articles/escalation-and-redirects)

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