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WhatsApp

WhatsApp is where most support and sales conversations actually happen. Connect a WhatsApp Business number and your flow answers messages, sends media, and — with approved templates — starts conversations of its own.

Set the number up first: WhatsApp credentials. The node reference lives at WhatsApp trigger and WhatsApp tool.

What WhatsApp flows can do​

  • Answer incoming messages — text, images, documents, location, contacts, and voice notes transcribed to text.
  • Send media back — images, documents, audio, video.
  • Start conversations with an approved template message, which is the only way to message someone outside the 24-hour window.
  • Run campaigns — one automation, one template, thousands of recipients. See Batch runs.

Trigger events​

WhatsApp has a single trigger event — a message arrived — but the Start node lets you choose which message types actually start the flow. All 13 types are listed on the WhatsApp trigger page; the common ones are text, image, document, audio, video, location, and interactive button replies.

Restricting the types is worth doing. A flow that only handles text questions shouldn't wake up for a shared location.

Actions available​

ActionNotes
Send Text MessagePlain text, inside the 24-hour window
Send Template MessagePre-approved template — the only way to message outside the window
Send Media MessageImage, document, audio, or video
Send Interactive ButtonsMarked Coming Soon in the product

Every one of these runs through the WhatsApp tool — in a Tool node or attached to an Agent. Answering the message you just received is Send Text Message. Direct Reply is not an alternative: it writes into the Flowera transcript and never calls WhatsApp, so a flow that ends there sends the customer nothing.

Template messages and when you need them​

WhatsApp only lets a business message a customer freely for 24 hours after that customer's last message. This is Meta's rule, not Flowera's, and it shapes how WhatsApp flows are built.

SituationWhat you can send
Customer messaged you in the last 24 hoursAnything — free-form text, media, whatever the flow produces
More than 24 hours have passedOnly an approved template message
You want to start the conversationOnly an approved template message

Templates are created and approved on Meta's side, not in Flowera. Once approved, they appear in the WhatsApp tool's template picker, and you fill their variables from flow state.

warning

Meta can pause or recategorise a template at any time — usually because recipients marked it as spam. If an automation depends on a paused template, Flowera pauses the automation rather than firing it into an error. See Failure handling.

Recipe: support bot with handoff​

  1. Start — WhatsApp trigger, text and image message types.
  2. Retriever — search your knowledge base for the answer.
  3. Condition Agent — decide whether the question is answerable or needs a person.
  4. Answerable → Agent → Tool (WhatsApp), Send Text Message with messageText set to the Agent's output.
  5. Needs a person → Tool (WhatsApp) with a fixed "let me get a colleague" text, plus manual mode, so the bot stops replying while a human takes over.

Full walkthrough: WhatsApp support bot.

Limits and gotchas​

  • The 24-hour window is absolute. Outside it, a free-form send simply fails. Design campaigns around templates.
  • Templates need approval and can take hours to get it. Create them before you need them.
  • One number, one conversation per contact. Each customer phone number gets a persistent session, so memory and flow state carry across messages.
  • Voice notes are transcribed but not auto-injected into the question — reference the transcript deliberately.
  • Bulk sends need warming. Sending to thousands of contacts from a brand-new number invites a quality-rating drop. Batch runs' canary rollout exists for exactly this: it sends to a small slice first and stops if that slice goes badly.