Messaging channels

Your customers write wherever they happen to be: on WhatsApp, by email, from your Facebook page messenger. Here you connect those channels to the app, and from then on every message lands in the same inbox, next to the customer's record and their open jobs.

You'll find this page under Settings›Integrations. It needs the manage_integrations permission.

The channels you can connect#

• WhatsApp Business — receive and reply in real time. It's the channel workshops use most. You can connect the number you already use in the WhatsApp Business app on your phone: it stays active there, and messages land here too.
• Email — your own SMTP server, for transactional email: customer reports, booking confirmations, receipts.
• Facebook Messenger — the conversations coming in from your Facebook business page.
• Instagram Direct — direct messages from your business profile (it needs a profile linked to a Facebook page).
• SMS — not available yet. The card only offers a button to register your interest.

Connecting a channel#

Each channel has its own card, with the status at the top (Connected, Not connected, Pending, Error) and the controls on the right.

1. Try the one-click connection first

   If the channel supports it, the card shows a Connect with button followed by the provider's name. It sends you to the provider, asks for your consent and brings you back: no credentials to paste. This is the recommended route.

   For WhatsApp the button opens Meta's dialog: choose whether to connect the number you already use in the WhatsApp Business app or a new number reserved for the app, and when you come back the channel is already configured. Details below, under “The number you already use in the WhatsApp Business app”.

2. Or open “Advanced” and enter the credentials by hand

   Manual setup is for when the one-click route isn't available. You generate the values yourself in the provider's own console — CrankPal cannot fetch them for you:

   • WhatsApp Business: Phone Number ID, Business Account ID, API Token. The Webhook URL field is read-only: you don't fill it in.
   • Email: SMTP host and port, username, password, sender name and sender email.
   • Facebook Messenger: Page ID, Page Access Token, App Secret.
   • Instagram Direct: Instagram Account ID, Access Token.

3. Name the account and enable the channel

   The account name is what you'll see in the inbox next to the messages: if you run two numbers, this is how you tell them apart. Then tick Enable this channel and save.

4. Test the connection

   The Test connection button really tries the saved credentials against the provider and updates the status at the top of the card. For email it connects to the SMTP server, negotiates the encrypted connection and logs in; for WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram it queries the account at Meta.

Credentials are stored encrypted and shown back to you masked: a secret field displayed as **** followed by a few digits is already saved. Leave it as it is to keep it, type over it to replace it.

A channel connected with one click is detached with Disconnect. While it stays disconnected, nothing arrives from that channel.

The number you already use in the WhatsApp Business app#

With Connect with WhatsApp you can keep the workshop's number on your phone and receive its messages in the app too: Meta calls it “coexistence”. In the dialog you pick the app's number, confirm from the app itself (a code arrives) and decide whether to share the last six months of chats.

What changes:

• messages you send from the phone show up in the inbox with the label from the WhatsApp Business app; the ones you write from the app leave from the same number;
• the history you shared comes in batches, marked imported history, without counting as unread: the channel card shows how far it has got;
• WhatsApp turns off disappearing messages, view-once media, live location and broadcast lists on that number, and unlinks linked devices (you can link them again afterwards);
• the number is capped at 20 messages per second, more than enough for a workshop.

Disconnect on the card detaches the app, not the number from the Meta platform: for that go to the WhatsApp Business app, Settings › Account › Business platform. If you do, the card says so and nothing arrives from there until you connect again.

WhatsApp message templates#

WhatsApp only allows free text within 24 hours of the customer's last message. After that, you can only write using a template approved by Meta. That's why, once the WhatsApp channel is connected, a dedicated panel appears below the configuration.

The panel lists the templates CrankPal uses — bike ready, booking confirmed, maintenance reminder, extra work approval, quote ready, pickup reminder, payment link, review request and others — each with its status: To be created, In review, Approved or Rejected. If a template is rejected, the panel also shows the reason Meta gave.

With the channel on, these go out on WhatsApp: the “bike is ready” notice, the extra work approval request, a quote as soon as it is sent, the payment link (from the button in the checkout window), a home pickup or delivery as soon as it is scheduled, the reminder for tomorrow's appointment, the pickup reminder, the maintenance reminder and the review request (these two only with the customer's marketing consent), and replies from the inbox. Within 24 hours of the customer's last message the text goes as it is; beyond that, the matching template. Every message stays tracked in the inbox.

Create / update templates creates the missing ones on your account; Refresh statuses re-reads from Meta where they stand. Approval is not instant: a freshly created template stays in review for a while.

Common problems#