Shared inbox
The Inbox is where your team reads and answers every WhatsApp chat sent to your business numbers. It has three panes: the chat list on the left, the open thread with the reply box in the middle, and the user info panel on the right (toggle it with the panel button at the top right of a chat, or click the customer’s name).
Everything updates live. When a teammate replies, assigns, tags or resolves a chat, you see it without refreshing.
Folders
Section titled “Folders”The title at the top of the chat list is a menu. Click it to switch folder; the number beside each folder is how many chats it holds.
| Folder | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Mine | Open chats assigned to you. The inbox opens here. |
| Unassigned | Open chats nobody on the team has taken yet. |
| Recently opened | Every open chat across the whole team. |
| Resolved | Chats that have been closed. |
| Assist | Chats where a teammate has asked for your help with an @mention. |
When someone needs your help, a red dot appears on the folder title so the ask isn’t buried in the menu.
Search and filters
Section titled “Search and filters”- Search — the box under the folder title searches by name or number. Press / to jump to it.
- Quick filter — the first dropdown narrows the current folder: All, Unread (messages nobody has opened yet), Open window (inside the 24-hour window, so you can type freely) or Expired (the window has closed; template only).
- Filters — filter by your chat properties and by two date ranges: Created (when the chat started) and Last active. A number or date property takes a from/to range; a dropdown, multi-select or yes/no property takes one value. Clear all resets them. Properties your admin marked masked or hidden are not offered as filters.
- Numbers — if your workspace has more than one WhatsApp number, chips (or, with more than four numbers, a dropdown) show one number’s chats at a time. See Several numbers.
Each row shows the customer, the last message, the time, an unread count, a green chat icon (window open) or amber clock (window closed), the owner (or Unassigned) and the first two tags.
Custom views
Section titled “Custom views”A custom view saves a filter you use often, so it’s one click away in the folder menu.
- Set up the Filters you want (optional).
- Open the folder menu and click + next to Custom views.
- Give it a name, optionally pick a tag under Filter by tag…, and click Save view. Whatever filters are active are saved with it.
A view needs a tag, filters, or both. It shows open chats only. Views are saved in your browser — they don’t follow you to another computer and teammates don’t see them. Hover a view and click ✕ to delete it.
Assigning, claiming and resolving
Section titled “Assigning, claiming and resolving”- Claim — on an unassigned chat, click Claim in the chat header to take it. If a teammate claimed it a moment before you, theirs stands.
- Assign — supervisors and admins get an Assign dropdown in the header: search for a teammate, or choose Unassign to return the chat to the pool. A dot next to each name shows whether they’re online, off shift or offline; you can still assign to someone who is offline. Agents see who owns the chat.
- Resolve — click Resolve in the header (or hover a row in the list and use its button) when the chat is done. Resolving moves it to Resolved and clears its owner.
- Reopen — on a resolved chat, Reopen brings it back as an open, unassigned chat. If the customer writes again, a resolved chat reopens on its own.
Admins also see a Team workload button above the chat list: how many open chats each person holds, and how many are unassigned.
Round robin
Section titled “Round robin”Whatbot assigns chats automatically when something asks it to: a flow’s assign or handoff step set to round robin, an automation rule’s round-robin action, or an AI agent handing the chat to a human. It picks the teammate with the fewest open chats, and takes turns among people who are tied.
If your workspace routes by availability, people who are offline or off shift are skipped, and if nobody is available the chat stays in Unassigned. See Team and availability for how online status and shifts are set.
Open the user info panel and use Tags → ＋ Add tag. Type a new tag or pick an existing one from the suggestions; if a tag already exists with different capitals, its existing spelling is used. Click × on a tag to remove it.
Lead-intelligence tags (Hot, Warm, Cold and the like) are applied automatically and can’t be added or removed by hand.
Adding or removing a tag can set off your automation rules.
Private notes and @mentions
Section titled “Private notes and @mentions”Switch the reply box to the Notes tab to write something only your team can see. Notes appear in the thread as blue cards (pink when they @mention a teammate) and never reach the customer. Add one with Add note or ⌘/Ctrl + Enter; hover a note and click ✕ to delete it.
Type @ in a note to pick a teammate. When the note is saved they get a notification and the chat lands in their Assist folder. Mentioning someone does not change who owns the chat. The chat leaves their Assist folder as soon as they open it.
Replying
Section titled “Replying”Type in the Reply box and press Enter to send
(Shift + Enter for a new line). The toolbar adds
WhatsApp formatting — bold, italic, strikethrough, monospace — and
emoji. An unsent draft is kept per chat in your browser, so switching chats
doesn’t lose it.
Hover any message for its actions:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Reply | Quotes the message, so the customer sees which one you’re answering. |
| React | Pick an emoji from the quick bar, or + for the full set. Click your reaction on the message to remove it. Your workspace’s ticket emoji leads the bar — reacting with it raises a ticket. |
| Edit | Text messages sent from your side, for 15 minutes after sending. The message shows Edited. Templates and media can’t be edited. |
| Create ticket / Create task / Attach to ticket | See Tickets and tasks. |
| Flag | Marks the message (for example “complaint”) so your automation rules can act on it. |
On a phone, only React and Reply are shown. Sent messages can’t be deleted or forwarded from whatbot.
Messages sent from the WhatsApp Business app on your phone (if your number is connected that way) appear in the thread in amber, so you can tell them apart.
Attachments
Section titled “Attachments”Click the paperclip, or drag a file onto the open chat, to send a PDF or an image. You get a preview and can add a caption before sending. Other file types aren’t offered.
Voice notes
Section titled “Voice notes”Click the microphone next to Send, record, then Stop. You see the recording’s length; then send or discard it. Recording works in Chrome, Edge and Firefox; Safari can’t record voice notes. Voice notes from customers play in the thread at 1×, 1.5× or 2× speed.
Catalogue products
Section titled “Catalogue products”Product opens your catalogue. Search, pick up to 30 products, and send them as one WhatsApp product message. A product just added to the catalogue can take a few minutes to become sendable, and a newly connected catalogue up to 24–48 hours.
Templates
Section titled “Templates”Templates opens the list of approved templates for the number this chat is on. Fill in the variables, attach the header image, video or PDF if the template has one, and check the live preview before Send template. Templates with header text variables can’t be filled here — send those from Broadcasts.
The 24-hour window
Section titled “The 24-hour window”WhatsApp lets you send normal messages only within 24 hours of the customer’s last message. The chat header shows how long is left (for example 20h left) or 24h window closed. See The messaging window.
When the window is closed, the reply box is replaced by the template picker: you can send or schedule an approved template, and that’s all. Attachments, voice notes, products and quick replies wait until the customer writes back. Notes keep working either way.
Flows and forms
Section titled “Flows and forms”The Flows/Forms button in the chat header starts a published flow that has a manual trigger, or sends one of your published WhatsApp forms.
Quick replies
Section titled “Quick replies”Quick replies are saved messages anyone can insert into the reply box.
- In the Reply box, type / followed by part of the shortcut or title —
for example
/greet. - Use ↑ ↓ to choose and Enter (or Tab) to insert. Esc closes the list.
- Edit the text if you like, then send as usual.
Two placeholders are filled in when you insert: {{contact_name}} (the
customer’s name) and {{agent_name}} (yours). If the name isn’t known, the
placeholder is left in so you can fix it before sending.
Admins manage quick replies under Settings → Quick Replies: a Shortcut
(1–32 lower-case letters, digits, _ or -), a Title and the
Message. A quick reply sends as an ordinary typed message, so it works only
inside the 24-hour window.
Scheduling a message
Section titled “Scheduling a message”You can schedule a message for later from the reply box.
- Type your message and click Later (the clock button). For a template, open Templates, fill it in and click Schedule… instead.
- Pick Send at — the earliest is two minutes from now.
- For a template, choose Repeat: Once, Daily, Weekly or Monthly, and an Until date.
- Click Schedule.
The rules:
- A typed message can only be scheduled before the customer’s 24-hour window closes. The panel tells you the cut-off. Later than that needs a template.
- Only templates can repeat. A series needs an end date, at most a year away.
- The window is checked again at send time. If the customer’s window has closed by then, the typed message is not sent and is marked failed — it is not retried and not swapped for a template.
- A failed send is not retried. In a repeating series the next occurrence still goes ahead; if the customer has opted out, the series stops.
Scheduled messages appear in a strip above the reply box with their time and repeat. Click ✕ to cancel one (for a series, the whole series). Recently finished ones stay in the strip with what happened — sent, or why not (for example, the 24-hour window had closed or the wallet balance was too low). Scheduled messages go out from the chat’s own number.
Bulk actions
Section titled “Bulk actions”Hover a row in the chat list and tick its checkbox. Once one is ticked, every row shows a checkbox; Shift-click selects a range. The filter row turns into a bulk bar:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tag | Add or remove one tag on every selected chat. |
| Assign | Claim for me, assign to a teammate (supervisors and admins), or Unassign. |
| Resolve / Reopen | Resolve the selected chats, or reopen them when all are resolved. |
You can act on up to 100 chats at a time. Each chat is handled on its own: the result says how many were updated and how many were skipped (for example, a chat a teammate had already claimed), and skipped chats stay selected so you can see which. Press Esc or the ✕ to clear the selection. Changing folder, view, search or filter clears it too.
Chat properties
Section titled “Chat properties”Chat properties are your own fields on a conversation — deal stage, order number, budget — that agents fill in and the inbox can filter by.
Defining them (admins): Settings → Chat Properties. Each has a Key
(letters, numbers and _, starting with a letter or _), a Label, a
Type and a Visibility to agents setting.
| Type | Holds |
|---|---|
| Text | Free text, up to 500 characters |
| Dropdown (single) | One of the options you list |
| Multi-select | Any of the options you list |
| Number | A number |
| Date | A date |
| Yes / no | Yes or no |
Visibility is Shown as-is, Masked (phone-shaped values keep their last digits) or Hidden from agents. Deleting a property keeps the values already set on chats but stops showing them.
Filling them in: open the user info panel and expand Properties. Each change saves on its own, and values are checked against the type — a dropdown only accepts its options. Filtering: use Filters above the chat list, and save the result as a custom view.
AI help
Section titled “AI help”| Feature | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| AI Reply | Button under the reply box | Drafts a reply from the recent conversation and your team’s latest notes. Nothing is sent: Use this reply puts it in the box to edit, or Regenerate / Discard. |
| Predictive text | Chips above the reply box | As you type (two characters or more, inside the window), up to three short ways to finish your sentence. Click one to add it to your draft. |
| AI summary | User info panel | ✦ Summarise conversation writes a short recap so you can catch up without reading every message. ↻ Regenerate refreshes it. |
Lead details in the user info panel shows the contact details you imported or sent through the contacts API. If the chat is linked to a lead in your CRM, Shift + L opens Lead Intelligence: the AI’s read of that lead.
Tickets and tasks from a message
Section titled “Tickets and tasks from a message”Hover a message and use Create ticket from this message, Create task from this message or Attach to ticket. The user info panel’s Tickets & tasks section lists everything open on the chat. See Tickets and tasks.
Several numbers
Section titled “Several numbers”If your workspace has more than one WhatsApp number:
- Every chat stays on the number the customer wrote to. Replies, templates, reactions and scheduled messages always go out from that number — WhatsApp ties the 24-hour window to that business number, so you can’t switch.
- The chat header shows via and the number; the reply box says Replying from and takes the number’s colour.
- If the same customer has a chat on another of your numbers, the header shows Also on — click it to open that chat.
- The template list shows that number’s templates only.
- New chat (the + button above the list) lets you pick which number starts the conversation. Enter the customer’s number with country code and an optional name, then Start chat. A new chat has no open window, so it starts with a template.
- If a chat’s number is disconnected, you can’t reply from it until an admin reconnects it in Settings → WhatsApp Numbers. Notes still work.
Phone numbers and privacy
Section titled “Phone numbers and privacy”Customer phone numbers are masked by default. Under the customer’s name the
chat header shows the conversation’s reference (for example a W- reference, or
a masked number) — the one to quote to teammates and support. If your workspace
allows it, the user info panel has buttons to show or copy the full number;
every reveal and copy is recorded. See
Phone number masking.
Keyboard shortcuts
Section titled “Keyboard shortcuts”Press ? anywhere to see the list. On Windows and Linux, use Ctrl where this says ⌘.
| Keys | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌘ + K | Search pages, chats and actions |
| ? | Show all shortcuts |
| J / K | Next / previous chat |
| / | Search chats |
| R | Reply to the open chat |
| A | Assign the open chat (if you have the Assign dropdown) |
| E | Resolve (or reopen) the open chat |
| Esc | Leave the reply box or search; clear a bulk selection |
| Shift + L | Open Lead Intelligence |
| Enter / Shift + Enter | Send / new line in the reply box |
| ⌘ + Enter | Add a note |
| ↑ ↓ then Enter or Tab | Pick from the quick-reply or @mention list |
The single-letter shortcuts don’t fire while you’re typing in a box or have a menu or dialog open. Press Esc to leave the box first.