WhatsApp: your agent on your business number

Coming soon. WhatsApp is not available yet. This guide describes how it will work once it opens.

Your agent can answer the WhatsApp messages of your business number. It is the same agent that answers your phone and your website chat, with the same instructions, knowledge, data sources, tools (calendar booking included) and safety checks. You decide who answers and when: the agent, your team, or the agent after your team had time to answer, and anyone on your team can step into a conversation at any moment.

WhatsApp is included from the Growth plan up. Voiceland charges nothing for connecting it.

Before you start#

• A WhatsApp Business number of your own business: a new number, or the one you already use in the WhatsApp Business app on your phone.
• Your business at Meta, where you can sign in. You sign in to Meta in Meta's own window; Voiceland never sees your Meta password.
• A payment method for WhatsApp at Meta. Meta sends no message until your business has one, and Meta invoices you directly, separately from Voiceland.

Choose how to connect#

You choose each time you connect a number:

• Keep my WhatsApp Business app. For a business that already answers WhatsApp on its phone. Your team keeps answering in the app and sees every reply the agent sends there; the agent steps aside in a conversation where a person answers. Who answers starts from Team first, agent after 5 minutes.
• Move the number to Voiceland. For a new number, or when you want everything in Voiceland. The number leaves the WhatsApp Business app, and your team answers from the console. Who answers starts from Agent answers everything.

Keeping the app changes a few things in it, and the console asks you to confirm them before anything happens at Meta:

• broadcast lists, disappearing messages, view-once messages and live location are turned off;
• groups are not synced;
• WhatsApp for Windows and WearOS stop working; other linked devices are unlinked and can be linked again;
• the app needs version 2.24.17 or later;
• the app must be opened on the phone at least every two weeks, or Meta disconnects the number.

A number that keeps the app can move to Voiceland later (see Move to the Cloud API only). A number moved to Voiceland cannot go back to the app from Voiceland.

Connect a number#

1. Open Integrations in the project's sidebar (under Deploy) and click Connect a number on the WhatsApp card.
2. Choose how to connect. If you keep the app, tick that you understand what changes in it.
3. Accept the WhatsApp Business Policy: your agent serves your own customers about your business, because WhatsApp does not allow general-purpose assistants.
4. If you keep the app, choose what to bring over (see Bring your history and contacts over).
5. Click Open Meta's window and follow Meta's steps: choose or create your business at Meta, then verify the number with a code by SMS or call. To keep the app, enter the number instead, open the WhatsApp Business app on the phone at Settings > Account > Business Platform > Connect to the Business Platform, share the chat history and enter the code the app shows.
6. Voiceland finishes the setup in a few seconds and shows the number with the name your customers see, its quality and its messaging limit.
7. If the console asks for it, add the payment method at Meta (next section).

A project can connect several numbers. A WhatsApp business account belongs to one project, and it must be owned by your own business at Meta, so that Meta bills you and nobody else. Allow pop-ups for the console if your browser asks. Connecting needs your own sign-in at Meta, so it is not available while you act as another person in the console.

Add the payment method at Meta#

When the number shows Add a payment method in Meta:

1. Click Open WhatsApp Manager. It opens in a new tab.
2. Add a card to your WhatsApp business account there.
3. Come back to the console. The number checks again every few seconds, or click Check again. It goes live as soon as Meta accepts the payment method, without connecting again.

Who answers#

Each number has its own answer settings, on its Who answers tab. A change applies from each customer's next message.

Start from a preset#

A preset fills the whole form, and every field stays editable:

• Agent answers everything: the agent answers at once.
• Team first, agent after 5 minutes: your team has 5 minutes to answer; if nobody does, the agent answers.
• Agent outside business hours: your team answers during business hours (filled from the project's opening hours), the agent outside them.
• People only: the agent never answers; your team does, from the phone app or the console.
• Custom: any of the above as a starting point.

Wherever a preset lets the agent answer, a reply from your team pauses it in that conversation for 60 minutes, and while it is paused, a customer message that nobody of your team answers within 10 minutes brings it back.

Time windows#

The settings are grouped in time windows, in the number's time zone: Business hours, up to 8 windows of your own (for example Lunch or Saturday), and a last window for every other hour. Up to 200 closed days, such as public holidays, use the settings of that last window. Where windows overlap, the one higher in the list wins. The week shows who answers at every hour, before you save.

In each window:

• The agent answers in this window: off means people only, whatever else is set. Operations boards still run.
• Who answers first: the agent or your team.
• With the agent first, a delay of up to 10 minutes before it replies lets a person who is watching answer first.
• With your team first, how long the agent waits for your team: from 1 minute to 24 hours, or never.
• When the agent steps in, it answers every unanswered message since the last reply, or only the latest one.

What pauses the agent in a conversation#

Each of these is on or off, with its own duration:

• a reply from your team in the WhatsApp Business app on the phone;
• a reply from your team in the console;
• a person taking the conversation over in the console (the agent stays paused while it is held);
• the agent handing over to a person, when the customer asks for one or a safety check escalates (the agent stays paused until a person replies).

A duration is a number of minutes (up to a week), until the end of the day, until the current window ends, until the conversation is quiet for some minutes, or until resumed by hand. A new pause never shortens the one already running.

The agent never talks over a person: if someone of your team answers while the agent is writing, the agent's reply is not sent.

When the agent answers again by itself#

• When the pause ends: the agent answers the next customer message, and with Also answer at once a message left unanswered it answers what is waiting straight away.
• Team silence fallback: while the agent is paused, a customer message nobody of your team answers within the minutes you set brings it back.
• When the window changes: at the start of a window where the agent answers first, paused conversations are released.
• After the conversation is quiet: after the hours you set with no message from anyone, the next customer message is answered as if the conversation were new.
• Never automatically: only Let the agent answer here brings the agent back.

The agent does not announce itself when it comes back, unless you turn on a short re-entry line, written per language.

The 24-hour window#

WhatsApp lets a business reply freely only within 24 hours of the customer's last message. A wait never runs into the last 3 minutes of that window, so the agent still has time to answer. An answer that would come later is not sent: the conversation shows Window closed and your team is notified. From then on only a template, sent from an operations board, can reach the customer.

Conversations#

The Conversations tab lists the conversations of the number, newest message first, with who answers each one now: for example Agent answering, Agent waiting 5 min for the team or Paused until 15:40 (staff reply in the app). Open one to read it and act:

• Pause the agent here, for the duration you choose.
• Let the agent answer here: the agent answers what is waiting now. Tick And keep answering, even when your team writes to keep it answering until the time you choose.
• Take over keeps the agent paused while you handle the conversation; Hand back returns it to the answer settings.
• Reply as your team: your reply goes out on WhatsApp from the number, and pauses the agent as the answer settings say.
• Forget summary: the agent forgets what it summarised of earlier conversations with this customer. The messages stay.

Hand actions win over the automatic rules until the next hand action or until their duration ends. A reply, a pause, a resume or a take over is always done by a signed-in person, so it is recorded under that person's name; an API key cannot do it.

Each session of the agent also appears in Calls as a WhatsApp chat, with its transcript, your team's replies included.

Notifications#

The number's notification recipients (up to 10 email addresses; empty means the account's owner contact, or up to three of its administrators when there is none) get an email when a conversation is handed to a person, when an answer missed the 24-hour window, when the number is blocked or can send again, when its quality turns low, when Meta disconnected it, when Voiceland's access to the number is about to run out and when an import of history failed.

The email about a conversation handed to a person carries two buttons, Pause the agent here and Let the agent answer here, so the person who reads it can decide from a phone without typing in WhatsApp, where a typed command would reach the customer. A button opens a confirmation page and acts only when you confirm; it works for 72 hours and is replaced by any later hand action. The project's Slack, Discord or Telegram notices link to the conversation in the console.

Number settings and memory#

The Settings tab holds:

• Agent for messages: the agent that answers this number, or none (people only).
• Time zone: the clock of the windows and of "until the end of the day".
• Create a contact on a customer's first message: off by default.
• Notification recipients.
• AI disclosure line: a short line in the agent's language (one text for each language of the agent), sent before the agent's first reply in a conversation, again after a person from your team replied, and again when the memory lookback has lapsed. On WhatsApp it is the only sign that an AI answers, so you can change its words, and only your provider can turn it off.

The Memory tab sets what the agent remembers of a customer from one session to the next:

• Idle close: a session ends after this many minutes without a message (15 by default, from 1 to 60), and the next message starts a new one. A longer session bills more active chat time.
• Recent messages carried into a new session: 20 by default, from 0 to 60, your team's replies included.
• Rolling summary of older sessions: older history is summarised once, when a session closes, instead of being sent again with every reply. It is off when the project stores personal details with placeholders.
• How far back memory reaches: 90 days by default, at most your project's retention. Older messages are not used, even when they are still stored.

More memory gives the agent more context and makes its replies slower. Memory belongs to one conversation: the agent never sees another customer's messages.

What the agent handles#

• Text, with WhatsApp's bold and italic. A long reply is split into parts.
• The customer sees the message read and a typing indicator while the agent works.
• Voice notes up to 5 minutes are transcribed and answered in text; a longer one reaches the agent as a voice note that could not be transcribed.
• Images and documents are kept with the conversation, and the agent is told that a file arrived. It does not read them.
• Shared locations and contacts reach the agent as text.
• No greeting or farewell is sent, and a session closes silently.
• The agent never starts a conversation. Messages your business starts go out through operations boards, with templates.

Bring your history and contacts over#

When you keep the WhatsApp Business app, you choose each time you connect:

• Chat history: the last 30 days (the default), the last six months, or none. It gives the agent context and fills the contacts timeline.
• Contacts: import them into the project's contacts, matched on the phone number, or not.

Meta sends the history and the contacts once, within 24 hours of the connection, so the import starts as soon as the number is connected. The number's overview shows the progress, how many messages were imported and how many contacts were created or matched. If the import stops or runs out of time, reconnect the number to import again; nothing already imported is doubled. If the history was not shared from the phone, the messages from the connection on are still kept.

Keep the phone app active#

Meta disconnects a number that keeps the WhatsApp Business app when the app has not been opened on the phone for about two weeks, and sends no warning first. The number's overview shows the last activity Voiceland saw from the app: a message your team sent from it, a change in the phone's contacts, the connection itself. Reading chats is not seen. When no activity has been seen for about ten days, the notification recipients get a reminder by email, and another one a couple of days later. If you open the app every day, you can ignore it.

If Meta disconnected the number, open the app on the phone, then click Reconnect.

Move to the Cloud API only#

To take a number out of the WhatsApp Business app and let Voiceland handle it alone, click Move to Cloud API only on the number's overview. The guided switch walks you through it: disconnect the number in the app (Settings > Account > Business Platform > Disconnect), remove the WhatsApp Business account from the phone, then connect the number again, this time moved to Voiceland. The agent is away for a short time until the number is connected again, and the chats already in Voiceland stay. Finish within 24 hours of starting the move. Afterwards your team answers in the console, and the console offers to switch the answer settings to Agent answers everything.

Operations boards#

Operations agents can use WhatsApp once a number is connected:

• WhatsApp message received starts a board on customer messages, never on your team's replies. Filter by number, message type, the first message of a conversation or a message that opens a new 24-hour window, and text.
• Your team replied on WhatsApp starts a board on your team's replies, from the console or the phone app.
• Send WhatsApp message sends a text, an image or a document inside the 24-hour window. With the window closed it fails at once, so wire its failure branch to a template.
• Send WhatsApp template sends one of your approved templates, inside or outside the window. Tick that the recipients agreed to receive WhatsApp messages from you, or the board does not save.

Ready boards: Send a WhatsApp summary after every call, Booking confirmation on WhatsApp, Forward WhatsApp messages to your CRM, Missed call → WhatsApp: we will call you back, and Log your team's WhatsApp replies to the CRM. Messages a board sends appear in the conversation as sent by automation and do not pause the agent. See Operations agent: triggers and Operations agent: steps.

Templates are created and reviewed in Meta's WhatsApp Manager. The Templates tab lists the number's templates as Meta last reported them, and Refresh from Meta reads them again.

Contacts and privacy#

• A conversation is linked to a contact by the customer's WhatsApp user id first, then by the exact phone number; when several contacts share the number, none is linked.
• A contact's page shows its WhatsApp conversations next to its calls.
• A customer who hides the phone number in WhatsApp is still answered, and appears as Hidden number.
• WhatsApp messages are kept as long as your plan keeps call records, and their files as long as it keeps recordings.
• When the project replaces personal details as conversations are stored, WhatsApp messages are stored with placeholders too.
• An erasure request by phone number or WhatsApp user id covers the conversations, your team's replies, the imported history and the files, and a legal hold covers them too.

What it costs#

• At Voiceland, the agent's WhatsApp replies are chat usage on your plan, billed exactly like the website chat: each agent session bills its active time (the customer's and the agent's messages, at least 30 seconds) at your plan's chat rate. A session opens only when the agent answers, so waiting for your team is never billed, and your team's replies do not lengthen a session. WhatsApp steps in operations boards use automation minutes, like any other step. There is no Voiceland fee for connecting WhatsApp, for each number, for the history import or for syncing the templates.
• At Meta, the charges for your WhatsApp messages go on Meta's own invoice to your WhatsApp business account. Meta sets the prices of all its messages, and Voiceland never adds them to its invoice.

Disconnect#

Disconnect on the number's overview stops receiving and answering its messages; the conversations are kept. A number that kept the WhatsApp Business app keeps working in the app on the phone. If your plan no longer includes WhatsApp, the number's messages are still received and kept, but the agent does not answer them.

Troubleshooting#

• Payment method needed: add the payment method at Meta (see above). When Meta refuses a message for payment, the agent stops sending on that number at once, your team is notified, and sending resumes by itself once Meta clears it.
• Blocked by Meta: the overview shows Meta's explanation and its fix.
• Quality: Low: customers blocked or reported the number's messages. Meta can limit a number whose quality stays low, so check what your boards send and to whom.
• Reconnect needed: Voiceland's access to the number expired or was removed at Meta. Click Reconnect to open Meta's window again. An email comes a week before the access runs out.
• Disconnected: the overview says why, for example the phone app was not opened for about two weeks. Fix the cause, then reconnect.
• Connected elsewhere: the number receives its messages in another Voiceland environment. Disconnect it there first.
• Window closed: send a template: the customer last wrote more than 24 hours ago. Reach them with a template from an operations board.
• Not answered: the customer sent too many messages at once: the messages are kept and shown, and the agent answers again when the customer slows down.
• No WhatsApp card, or no way to connect: on a Starter plan the card is shown locked, with a Growth badge and a way to upgrade; from Growth up you can connect. If there is no card at all, this Voiceland deployment does not offer WhatsApp. When the console is open at an address not registered with Meta, the card names the address to connect from.