Send guest messages on WhatsApp
Once your workspace has connected its own WhatsApp number, the automations that message a guest can send on WhatsApp as well as, or instead of, email. You choose per automation.
Which automations can use WhatsApp
Section titled “Which automations can use WhatsApp”| Automation | |
|---|---|
| Booking confirmation to the guest | Yes |
| Door code to the guest before check-in | Yes, and the payment-and-ID gate still applies on every send |
| Thank-you after checkout | Yes |
| Your own automations whose audience is the guest on the booking | Yes |
| Your own automations sent to fixed addresses | No: those are email addresses |
| Unpaid-quote reminder | No, email only |
| Reception digests and same-day arrival alerts | No, email only |
| Daily ops report | Its own WhatsApp summary, set up on its card (Configure the daily ops report) |
The WhatsApp message goes to the guest’s WhatsApp number on their profile, or their phone when no WhatsApp number is set. The number must include the country code (for example +92 300 1234567); a number written without it is not used.
Turn it on
Section titled “Turn it on”-
Connect your workspace’s own WhatsApp on the WhatsApp page (your Meta app’s phone number ID, access token, app secret and webhook verify token). Until this is done, WhatsApp stays greyed out in the automation pickers, with the reason “WhatsApp is not connected on the WhatsApp page yet”.
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Optional but recommended: create the guest template in WhatsApp Manager (below) and type its name into Guest message template on the WhatsApp page.
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On the Agent Hub, open an automation from the table above and pick WhatsApp, Email, or both under Send on (for your own automations, under Sent by). Press Save.
The 24-hour rule, and the guest template
Section titled “The 24-hour rule, and the guest template”WhatsApp only lets a business send free text to someone who has written to it in the last 24 hours. So each send is decided at the moment it goes:
- The guest wrote to your WhatsApp number in the last 24 hours: the message goes as ordinary WhatsApp text, with the same words as the email and the same link.
- They have not: the message goes through your approved guest message template, with the message as one of its values.
- They have not, and no guest template is set: WhatsApp is not tried. What happens next depends on your channel choice (below).
To create the template in WhatsApp Manager, use the Utility category, English
(language code en), and a body with exactly two values in this order:
A message from {{1}}:
{{2}}
Reply here if you have any questions.{{1}} is your workspace’s name and {{2}} is the message. Meta reviews every
template and decides whether to approve it and in which category; until it is
approved, sends outside the 24-hour window are refused and handled as below. A
message longer than 900 characters is never cut to fit the template: it is treated
as if no template were set.
What happens when WhatsApp cannot deliver
Section titled “What happens when WhatsApp cannot deliver”Your channel choice is also your fallback setting:
- Email only: WhatsApp is never used.
- WhatsApp only: if WhatsApp cannot deliver, the message goes by email instead, when the guest has an email address. If they have none either, the send is held with the reason and tried again on every tick, so it goes by itself as soon as the guest writes to you on WhatsApp, a template is set, or someone adds the guest’s email.
- Both: both are sent. If one of them fails, the other still goes, and the run history records the one that did not.
Nothing fails silently. The run history shows, for every send, which channel it went on (“on WhatsApp”, “by email and WhatsApp”, or “by email (not on WhatsApp: …)” with the reason), and a separate failed entry when one channel could not deliver. The reasons you can see:
- WhatsApp is not connected for this workspace
- no WhatsApp number on file for the guest
- the guest has not written on WhatsApp in the last 24 hours and no guest template is set
- the message is too long for the WhatsApp guest template
- WhatsApp refused it outside the 24-hour window
- WhatsApp rejected the guest template
- WhatsApp did not accept the message
- WhatsApp accepted the message but could not deliver it (reported by WhatsApp later)
Door codes on WhatsApp
Section titled “Door codes on WhatsApp”The door code follows exactly the same rules on WhatsApp as on email. Every send re-checks that the booking is fully paid and the guest’s ID is verified, at the moment of sending, whichever channel it goes on. A held door code shows on Today. The code itself appears only in the message to the guest, never in the run history or the audit log, and a door code is never resent from the run history. See Send door codes before check-in.
Good to know
Section titled “Good to know”- Automated WhatsApp messages do not appear in the inbox thread. The guest’s reply does: it arrives in their conversation like any other WhatsApp message.
- A late failure is recorded, not re-sent by email. WhatsApp sometimes accepts a message and reports minutes later that it could not deliver it. That shows as a failed entry in the run history; the email fallback only applies to a refusal at the moment of sending.
- Demo workspaces never send WhatsApp messages.