WhatsApp inbox

The inbox is where your team reads and answers WhatsApp conversations. You will find it in the menu, under WhatsApp inbox. The agent replies on its own; here you see what it said, what the person asked, and you step in when you need to.

Conversations are on the left, most recent first. The open one is in the middle, with the reply box at the bottom. On the right, when you ask for it with the ⓘ icon, the person panel with two tabs. Details holds the contact information, designed to fit on screen without scrolling: at the top the person with the conversation status; under Contact, their phone number and WhatsApp @username, each with a copy button (and View in Contacts, if your account has the contacts base); under Conversation, which line it came in on, who is handling it and since when; the labels with who added them and when; what the assistant did (when there is something to tell); Snooze; and the internal notes. History holds every past conversation with that person and their calls. The ⓘ icons next to each title explain the section. On narrower screens that panel opens as a side panel.

Everything arrives live: a new message, the read tick, a change of who is handling it or the agent starting to type show up the moment they happen, without reloading. If the live connection drops, the screen keeps refreshing on its own every few seconds, even if you leave it in another window while you work on something else.

The indicators on every conversation

Each row shows the name of the person (or their phone number, if they have no name in their profile), the time of the last message and a preview of the last thing said. Below it sit small tags: who is handling it, whether it is closed or snoozed, how much of the window is left when it is running out, and its labels. A blue dot next to the name means there are messages nobody on the team has read yet; a star, that someone marked it as important; and a crossed-out bell, that you muted its notifications.

There are four time indicators, they measure different things, and it pays not to mix them up.

If you have more than one number connected, the preview starts with which line the conversation came in on (“on Sales”): with several lines, two different threads would look identical without it. With a single number it does not appear, because it would be the same answer on every row. In the open thread it is always shown, at the top: it says “Received on”, and that is the identity your reply goes out with.

1. 1
   12:04 left to reply

   This is the WhatsApp 24-hour window: how long you can write freely to someone, counted from the last message the person sent you. What you write —from the inbox or from your phone— neither opens nor extends it. The clock counts down on its own and also appears above the open conversation. When it reaches zero, the reply box is disabled.

2. 2
   The agent replies in 6s

   The agent has already seen the message and will answer within those seconds. The wait is on purpose: people write one idea per message ("Hi" · "I need to reschedule" · "the Tuesday one"), and waiting a moment makes the agent answer everything once instead of three times over itself. Below it tells you why it waits that long ("They only said hello: the question usually comes next"): a message that looks finished waits less. In the list it shows up short: "replies in 6s".

3. 3
   The agent is replying

   It is already writing the answer and it goes out in seconds. If you answer now, the agent discards its own before sending it; if it had already started going out, the person receives both. To avoid depending on the exact second, take the conversation. In the open conversation you see it as three dots on the assistant side, at the end of the thread.

4. 4
   You are handling it

   The conversation is in the hands of someone on your team, so the agent will not reply. This is the state a thread stays in after somebody takes it.

The counters run against the platform clock, not against the clock on your computer. And if something goes wrong and the agent never answers, the notice stops showing after a few minutes instead of getting stuck: when that happens, the conversation is yours.

Replying

The box at the bottom sends free text. Enter sends and Shift+Enter adds a line break. A message can be up to 4096 characters, which is the WhatsApp limit.

Below the box are the tools: emoji, the lightning bolt (your saved replies: pick one and it is written where your cursor is, so you can adjust it before sending), the paperclip to attach and the microphone for a voice note. If you type / at the start, your saved replies show up filtered by what you keep typing. And when the box is empty, a few are offered above it as shortcuts: tapping one sends nothing, it only writes it in. Saved replies are created and edited in WhatsApp → Service: from the lightning bolt, Manage saved replies takes you there.

When you cannot reply, the box appears disabled with the reason written next to it:

• "More than 24 hours have passed since the last message." The window closed. Right above the box you will see Send a template, which is how you pick it back up.
• "This person has not written yet." The thread exists but they never sent you a message: starting also requires a template, and the same button offers it.
• "This chat is closed." Instead of the reply box you see a notice with a Reopen chat button. If that person already has a more recent conversation, the notice tells you and takes you there, so you never end up with two open threads for the same person.
• "You do not have permission to reply." Your role lets you read, not write.

Reactions and quoted replies

When someone reacts to a message with an emoji, the reaction appears attached under that message, not as a loose bubble. If they change it, you see the latest one; if they remove it, it disappears. Yours are shown differently from theirs.

And when a message replies to another — that WhatsApp gesture of swiping to quote — you see which one above the bubble. You can tap it to jump to the original. If retention already deleted that message, it says there was one and it is gone, instead of drawing an empty quote.

And now you can send them too: hover over a message and the reply arrow and five emoji appear. The arrow puts that message above the composer — with a button to drop it if you change your mind — and the person receives your reply quoted on their phone, just as if you had swiped the bubble. Tapping an emoji reacts; tapping it again removes your reaction.

Neither is offered on a message that has not been sent yet, and that is not fussiness: as far as WhatsApp is concerned that message does not exist yet, so quoting it would make it reject your whole reply. We would rather not offer the button than lose what you wrote.

Writing to someone first

WhatsApp only allows free text within 24 hours of the person’s last message. Outside that window — and to start a conversation with someone who never wrote to you — the only way is an approved template. The inbox offers it in both cases, without making you build a campaign for a single message.

• To pick a thread back up: open it and, above the text box, click Send a template. It only appears when the window is closed — with the window open you do not need it, and a template is billed by the provider.
• To write to someone new: the round + button (Write to someone), in the list header. You pick which number to send from, type the phone with its country code, and choose the template.

In both cases you fill in the template variables ({{1}}, {{2}}…) and you see the final text before sending it, with the values already in place. Only approved templates are listed: one that Meta has not approved cannot be sent, and offering it would waste your time. Templates are written and submitted for review in WhatsApp templates, which has its own guide: if you have no approved one yet, the window tells you and offers Create template, and Manage templates takes you to the list, where you see what status each one is in.

When the agent is about to reply

If you open a conversation the agent has in hand, a notice appears above the box with a Take the conversation button. The notice does not block you: you can write anyway, and sometimes jumping in is exactly the right call. It only tells you what will happen if you do.

1. 1
   Take the conversation

   At the top of the conversation, under Handling, pick your name (or tap Take the conversation in the notice). The thread goes under your name and the agent stops replying — even an answer it was already writing is discarded before it goes out.

2. 2
   Hand it back to the agent

   In the same Handling menu, pick The assistant and it handles the thread again from the next message. The conversation stops being assigned to you, so nobody on the team sees it as theirs when it is not.

3. 3
   If the conversation is closed

   It does not change hands: it is already over. You will be able to handle the new thread that opens when the person writes again.

The status of your messages

Under every message that leaves the platform you see where it stands: Sending, Sent (it left our side), Delivered (it reached the phone), Read, Played (for a voice note) or Not sent. It is the same vocabulary as WhatsApp: one check means it went out, two checks mean it arrived.

Which agent handles each number

You choose that on the WhatsApp screen, Numbers tab, in each number's Agent selector. Every number has its own. With No agent the messages still land in the inbox, but nobody answers automatically: your team does.

When you pick an agent, the platform checks it before connecting it. If it finds something that keeps the agent from working in writing, it does not link it and shows you the list of what to fix, with the same wording you see in the agent editor. There are three cases:

• The script names a tool the agent does not have. On a call the agent improvises; in writing it promises the customer something it cannot do, and that stays on the record.
• It uses a variable nobody declared. It is replaced by nothing, and in a chat that gap is written down and the person reads it.
• The agent cannot end the conversation. A call ends when somebody hangs up; a chat stays open forever and keeps burning replies.

Photos, audio and documents

When someone sends you a file, it appears in the conversation as a button with its name and size. Nothing downloads until you click: the link is generated at that moment and expires after 15 minutes.

• Photos, stickers and videos show up inside the conversation, and audio and voice notes play right there. Tap a photo to see it full size; the arrows take you through the rest of the chat.
• To download any file: the download button on top of the photo or video, the one next to the audio, or Download at the top right while the photo is full size. It saves right away, in the same tab.
• Documents —PDFs included— download when you tap them. PDFs download on purpose instead of opening inside the portal: that is the most common way for something harmful to slip in.
• While the file is on its way you will see "Downloading file…". That is normal in the first seconds.
• If something went wrong, the conversation tells you what happened: it is larger than allowed, that file type cannot be received, it arrived damaged, or it could not be downloaded.
• The message arrives even if the file fails. They are two different things and they are shown separately, so an attachment that did not download is never read as a message that did not arrive.

You can send a voice note too

Next to the clip there is a microphone. Press it, talk, and when you stop you listen to it before sending: if you did not like it, discard it and record another. Nothing goes out until you press send.

• It reaches the person’s phone as a real voice note — with its waveform and speed — not as a file with a paperclip.
• The maximum is 5 minutes, and the clock shows how much is left from the first second.
• If your browser cannot record in a format we can send, the microphone does not appear. That beats a button that does nothing.

How the team has been responding

Tap Summary (the chart icon, in the list header): a panel opens with How the team has been responding, which gives you two numbers for the last 30 days, and the label summary. It lives apart on purpose: it is something you check now and then, and it keeps the list free for conversations.

• How long the first reply takes, with the assistant and your team kept separate. That is deliberate: the assistant replies in seconds and a person takes longer, so a single averaged number would hide exactly what can be improved. Each one comes with how many cases back it and with "9 out of 10 within X", which is where you see the tail an average hides.
• Resolved without a person stepping in: what percentage of closed conversations ended with the assistant alone. It always comes with its denominator ("8 of 12"), because 67% over 12 cases and the same 67% over 600 call for different decisions.

And one clarification that is on the screen: a closed conversation counts as resolved by the assistant when no person wrote in it. If someone took it, read it and handed it back without writing, it still counts as the assistant’s.

What the assistant did

Before taking over a chat the assistant was handling, open the conversation details (the ⓘ icon, at the top right) and look at What the assistant did, below the labels. It shows how many times it replied and over what stretch, what it tried to do with the calendar step by step and how each attempt turned out, and whether anything was left half done. Next to the title, a badge tells you right away if there is something to check (for example, "1 not confirmed").

• Checked availability is not a problem even though it "achieves" nothing: checking does not book. It shows with a grey magnifier.
• Booked / moved / cancelled shows a green ✓ if the calendar confirmed it, and a red ✗ if it did not.
• Turns that never got to reply: the thread has no mark at all for a turn that failed, so from the outside it looks like the agent chose to stay quiet. Here it appears with its reason.
• Two different models in the same conversation means someone switched them midway: the first part may read differently from the second.

Who to hand the conversation to

In the who is handling it menu, each teammate appears with how many open conversations they have next to their name, sorted from the most free to the busiest. The team queue shows its size too.

Who can do what

• View conversations — enter the inbox, read the threads and open attachments. Read only, Operator and Administrator roles have it.
• Handle — reply, take a conversation, hand it back to the agent and create or edit saved replies. Operator and Administrator have it.
• Manage — connect or disconnect accounts, choose which agent handles each number, define the labels and create templates. Administrator only. Delete chat also requires being an Administrator of the organization with your own session.

If you built custom roles (Settings → Roles), these three permissions show up there as WhatsApp checkboxes and you combine them however you want. Someone who can only view enters the same inbox: they read everything, but the reply box is disabled with its reason, and on the WhatsApp Numbers tab they see who handles each number instead of the selector.

The conversation menu

At the top right of each conversation, the ⋯ button (More options) gathers everything you can do with it, grouped and with its icon. Only what your role allows and what makes sense at that moment shows up: a closed chat does not offer a transfer, for example.

• Close chat or Reopen chat, depending on the status. Reopening creates a new conversation with the same person and takes you to it; if the person already has a more recent one, it takes you there instead of opening another.
• Snooze (or Wake up, if it is already snoozed), Send template and Label: the same as in the details panel, one tap away.
• Transfer chat: hand it to another teammate or to another AI agent, with a mandatory note for whoever receives it (what the person asked, what was done and what is left). The note stays as an internal note on the chat: the customer never sees it.
• Assign agent: the quick change of who is handling it, without a note.
• Mark as important: the whole team sees the star, and the Important view gathers them.
• Mute notifications: turns off the notifications for that chat only for you, for one hour, eight hours, a day or until you turn them back on. The rest of the team still gets them. If the person writes again later, the new conversation stays muted for you; unmuting the current one breaks that chain.
• Export conversation: downloads a text file with every message in order, with date and author. Internal notes are not included.
• Copy information: copies name, phone number, @username, line, status and the direct link to the conversation, to paste wherever you need it.

Deleting a chat

Delete chat permanently erases the content of the conversation: the messages, audio, photos and files, the internal notes and the labels. The only thing kept is the cost figures (with no data about the person), so your usage and your bill do not change. The conversation disappears from the inbox for the whole team, and if the person writes again, a new conversation starts.

New message notifications

The bell in the list header decides how the portal lets you know when someone writes, on any screen of the portal, not just the inbox. Each person picks their own:

• Sound: a short tone when a message comes in. Test sound lets you hear it first.
• Desktop notification: a notice from your computer with the name of the person. Clicking it takes you to the conversation. The first time your browser asks for permission; if you declined, the bell tells you how to enable it.
• Which conversations: All, the team ones (yours and the ones nobody has) or only yours.

The person history

In the person panel (ⓘ), the History tab gathers every past conversation with them —across all your lines— and, if your role can see calls, their calls (by phone and by WhatsApp), most recent first. Each conversation shows which line it came in on, its status, the last thing said and its labels; tap it to open it. The one you are looking at is marked Current.

If an old conversation no longer has messages because the retention period passed, it is still shown, with the notice Content expired by retention: you know it existed even if it can no longer be read.

Your contacts base builds itself

If your account has Contacts, every new person who writes to you on WhatsApp, calls you, talks to your assistant from the web or enters a campaign is saved as a contact, with what is known about them: phone number, WhatsApp @username and profile name. If they already existed, only the missing details are filled in: what your team edited is never overwritten. And permission to send them marketing messages stays unknown until the person gives it: writing to you is not agreeing to advertising.

Frequently asked questions

Voice notes: the agent listens and replies out loud

When someone sends a voice note, the agent listens to it: it is transcribed automatically and he answers what the person actually said, not something generic. You see the player and the text below it, so you can read the whole thread at a glance and only listen to the one you need.

And he can reply out loud. You set this in the agent editor: put the control at the top on WhatsApp and go to Identity. It has three positions:

1. 1
   Text only

   Never replies with audio, even to a voice note.

2. 2
   Match the person (recommended)

   Replies out loud only to someone who sent a voice note. It is what a person does: you write to whoever writes, and you send a note back to whoever sends one.

3. 3
   Always with audio

   Every reply is spoken. It costs considerably more than replying in writing, so it only makes sense if your case calls for it — the screen tells you when you pick it.

When it replies out loud, the person gets both: the voice note and, right below it, the same text. So they can listen or read depending on where they are —in a meeting, without headphones, somewhere noisy— and they keep it in writing to re-read, copy or search. It is exactly what you see in the inbox.

You can turn it off with Send the text too, right below the three options. Sending that text has no extra cost, so switch it off only if you prefer a single message per reply: with it off, whoever gets the voice note will not be able to read what the agent said or search for it later.

Long replies still go out as text even if you choose audio: nobody listens to a two-minute voice note made by an assistant, and for a long message text can also be re-read and searched.

Who handles each conversation

Above every conversation there is a single control that says who is handling it. The assistant appears in the same list as your teammates, because it is the same decision: whose turn it is.

1. 1
   The assistant

   He replies. This is how new conversations arrive.

2. 2
   Someone on the team

   The assistant stops replying immediately and the conversation lands in that person’s inbox. Any reply he had half-written is discarded.

3. 3
   Unassigned

   Nobody is handling it and the assistant does not take it back either: it waits for someone on the team. To hand it back to the assistant, pick him.

The inbox views

Above the list there are eight views, all visible at once and each with how many conversations it holds, and they answer different questions: All (every conversation, closed ones included; snoozed ones show up when they come back), Unread (what nobody on the team has opened since the last message), Important (the ones someone starred), Mine (what is yours), Unassigned (what is waiting for someone to take it), Assistant (what runs on its own), Snoozed and Closed.

The search box is always visible and finds by name (ignoring case and accents: “julian” finds “Julián”), by number —even if you paste it with the “+” or with spaces, the way a phone copies it—, by WhatsApp @username (with or without the @) or by something said in the conversation. Below the views, the Filters button lets you pick a label and, if you have more than one number, the line it came in on. Every active filter stays visible above the list as a tag with its own remove button, and Clear all removes them at once.

Opening a conversation marks it as read for the whole team, and so does a new message that arrives while you have it open and in view. The Unread count goes down on its own.

Search inside a conversation

In the thread header, the magnifying glass (Search in conversation) opens a bar above the messages. Type at least two letters and you see how many matches there are ("1 of 5") and a list of each one with its time. The arrows —or Enter— take you from one to the next, and the message is highlighted for a moment so you can spot it. Escape closes the search.

It searches the whole conversation, not only what is on screen, and also what was said in voice notes (their transcript). If the match is from long ago, the inbox loads older messages until it gets there; if it is too old, it tells you.

Your draft waits for you

If you start replying and move to another conversation, what you wrote stays saved in THAT conversation: when you come back, it is there. In the list, that row shows a Draft tag so you do not forget it. Once you send it, the draft is cleared.

Close several at once

1. 1
   Select

   In the list header tap Select. Every conversation shows a checkbox; tick the ones you want to close (up to 50 at a time).

2. 2
   Tag and close

   A bar appears at the bottom with how many you picked. Tap Tag and close: you can pick one label for all of them —it is applied before closing each one— or leave them untagged.

3. 3
   The result

   We tell you how many were closed, how many were already closed and which ones could not be closed and why. Cancel (or Escape) leaves selection mode without touching anything.

Who on the team is online

In the Handling menu and when transferring, teammates who have the portal open right now show a green dot and Online. It helps you hand a conversation to someone who will see it now, not to someone who left: with the portal open they get the notification even on another screen.

And the list no longer stops at 200 conversations: when you reach the end, it loads the next ones on its own.

On your phone

On a small screen you see one thing at a time: the list, and when you tap a conversation, the whole conversation. To go back, use the arrow at the top left or your phone’s back button. The details (ⓘ) open full screen and close the same way.

Internal notes and snoozing

In the conversation details (ⓘ), under Internal notes, you can leave a note for your team: a “they have complained twice” or “Marcela calls them Thursday”. The customer never sees them, and neither does the assistant — they are not part of what he reads to reply.

And under Snooze, with a single tap (One hour, Three hours or Tomorrow), you take it out of the inbox: it leaves and comes back on its own when the time is up. It is different from closing it: the conversation is still alive, it just stops getting in your way.

Labels: what people write to you about

A label is a tag in your own vocabulary — “Billing”, “Warranty claim”, “VIP customer” — that you put on a conversation so you can group them. It answers a question you could not answer before: what do people write to us about?

You apply it from the conversation, picking from a list. You cannot type a new one per thread, on purpose: if everyone on the team writes their own, “Billing”, “billing” and “invoice thing” become three different labels and the summary splits the same cases across all three. Whoever administers the channel defines the list, in WhatsApp → Service.

1. 1
   Define the first ones

   In WhatsApp → Service, tap New label: type a name, pick a color and create it. Five or six is enough to start: adding one is easier than cleaning up twenty.

2. 2
   Label as you go

   In the conversation details (ⓘ), Labels section, pick one from the list. You can add more than one: a warranty billing claim is both things.

3. 3
   Read the summary

   In the inbox, Summary → What people write about shows how many conversations each label covered in the last 30 days, and how many were left unlabeled. Tapping a label filters the list to exactly those conversations; the filter stays visible above the list until you clear it. From there, Manage labels takes you to WhatsApp → Service.

Two details that avoid surprises: “Urgent” and “urgent” are the same label (a capital letter does not create a duplicate), and the name shows exactly as you typed it — we do not lowercase it.