How do I connect WhatsApp?

WhatsApp lives under Communication → WhatsApp. Conversations land in an inbox there, the AI agent can answer them (ai-agent-basics), and every thread supports human takeover.

Two number modes

Connect the number in the web portal under Workspace → AI agent → Setup, on the WhatsApp number card. Once connected, you can answer its conversations in the web portal and the mobile app:

• Shared number — the fastest start. Your workspace uses a platform WhatsApp number; the page gives you a personalised link and QR code that opens a chat routed to your inbox. Put the QR on your site and counter, and you are reachable today.
• Your own number — your brand in the customer's contact list. Enter the number and a contact email address, press Connect number, and finish the connection on WhatsApp's own connection page. When it completes, the number becomes your workspace's WhatsApp identity.

Switching to your own number later

Start shared, switch whenever. During a number change the platform serves replies from the shared number until the new one finishes onboarding — the page says so explicitly, so a brief "interim shared" phase is expected, not an outage.

The connection page did not open, or the attempt is stuck

Pressing Connect number normally opens the connection page in a new tab. If your browser blocks that tab, the message you get says so — "Connection started — your browser blocked the new tab, so use the link below" — and the card keeps the same link beside it:

• Open the connection page opens it again. It is an ordinary link, so no popup blocker refuses it.
• Copy link puts the address on your clipboard, for finishing the connection in another browser or on another machine.
• Check again re-reads the connection's state after you have finished on WhatsApp's side.

If the card reports the connection failed, Retry is worth one press: it finishes a connection WhatsApp actually granted but never reported back. It cannot rescue an attempt that failed before any number was granted, and on that one it does nothing visible.

An attempt that will never finish — a tab you closed, a grant you abandoned, a number you mistyped, one Retry that changed nothing — is cleared with Start over. The card returns to its start state, with the shared number and the connect form, and you can begin again with the right number. Starting over does not touch a connection that already succeeded: if the number went live in the meantime, the card tells you to release it instead, and Disconnect number is the control for that.

While an attempt is in flight your customers are still answered on the shared platform number, so clearing a stuck attempt costs you nothing.

The 24-hour window

WhatsApp's rules, not ours: a business may reply freely within 24 hours of the customer's last message. The inbox shows the window per thread, and drafted agent replies carry a countdown (suggest-mode). When a window has closed, the conversation resumes the moment the customer writes again.

Starting a conversation yourself

Start conversation, in the inbox header, messages a customer who has never written to you, or whose 24-hour window has closed. WhatsApp does not allow a free-text opener in either case, so you pick one of your workspace's approved templates instead, enter their phone number and whatever the template asks for, confirm they actually agreed to be contacted, and send. The message goes out immediately — no waiting on a webhook — and the AI agent stays free to answer if they reply.

Templates live under Workspace → AI agent → Templates. Drafting one — its wording, category, language — is self-service with New template; getting it in front of Meta for approval is not, since that needs a staff login on the agent platform, so a freshly drafted template sits at "Pending review" until a colleague on our WhatsApp team submits it. Request a template opens a pre-filled email instead, for when you would rather have someone draft it for you. An empty list means nothing exists for this workspace yet, not a setting you are missing.

Threads that show who is writing

An incoming number is compared with the phone numbers your workspace already knows — the people at your dealers and partner tuners, plus any number you have linked by hand. An exact match heads the thread with that account; no match shows only the sender's WhatsApp profile name or the bare number. Link to account on an unmatched thread teaches the inbox once: the answer is stored against the number, later messages from it match on their own, and a link you made by hand is never overwritten by the automatic matching. A number that could belong to more than one account deliberately stays unmatched rather than guessed.

Who sees what

WhatsApp threads are workspace conversations like any other: your team works them from the same inbox, takeover and release apply, and nothing about a thread leaves your workspace.

Each row keeps the Status you selected — New, Open, Won, Lost or Closed — visible beside separate Replied, Needs reply and agent-attention indicators. Changing the status does not erase a reply or replace the selected status with the conversation's reply state.

Still not connected

If the connection keeps failing, or the number has been verifying for days, open a support ticket with the number you are connecting, the contact email you entered, and what the card says under Connecting. Those three are enough to find your attempt with the WhatsApp provider.