With WhatsApp integration you can reply to messages delivered from your WhatsApp account to Dashly. All of the messages from WhatsApp will be saved to your Dashly inbox and the users who sent you these messages will be saved as leads.
When a user sends a message to your WhatsApp account, their phone number is added to the “Phone“ property in their Dashly user card. Your Dashly team members are also free to edit the data and leave notes in the Dashly user cards of these users.
You can tag any conversation transferred from WhatsApp and then use these tags in the Conversation report to see what kind of questions are being asked the most by your users. This will also show you how many conversations your chat operators take part in and what the average response time in your Dashly panel is.
The WhatsApp conversations passed to Dashly are secured in your WhatsApp account. These conversations are led from your WhatsApp Business account and not from your managers’ personal accounts, which means that your managers won’t keep the WhatsApp conversations they’ve had with your users in case they stop working at your company.
How the integration works
A user sends a message to your WhatsApp Business account
Their message is sent to your Dashly inbox
You reply to the message via Dashly
The user receives the reply (sent as your business account) in WhatsApp
WhatsApp integration is created by our partner platform edna.io using WhatsApp Business API. This integration method is fully in-line with WhatsApp policies. Using it, you can send manual campaigns without the risk of being blocked by WhatsApp.
With an official WhatsApp account, you can go for a verified brand account status (those have a green tick added next to their sender name). This way, users will see your messages sent as a brand account, and customers tend to trust brand names more than unknown phone numbers.
Integration features
Gathering customer messages in the Dashly inbox
When a customer sends their message to your WhatsApp Business account, this message gets passed to the “Inbox” section of Dashly the same way it works with other messenger integrations in Dashly.
Your managers can reply to this message in Dashly within 24 hours. Messages sent after this period has passed will be automatically blocked on WhatsApp's end.Sending message campaigns via edna
You can send campaigns to your customer phone base. Campaigns are sent using pre-made message templates*. One message may contain up to 1k characters and have images, pdf files and location marks added to it.
*Send a template-based outgoing message if you want to add delivery details to a message. If you’ve received a message from your client, you can simply reply to it with a chat message in Dashly.
If your client replies to your campaign message, this reply will be delivered to your Dashly inbox, as well as the template-based message you’ve sent to the client. Your unanswered campaign messages will not be delivered to Dashly.Send triggered messages
This option is available via webhooks. The method required for it is described in Dashly Developers.
Who is the integration available to
edna only works with WhatsApp Business accounts.
Using WhatsApp Business API is prohibited for alcohol and tobacco retailers (as well as e-cigarette and vaping ware retailers), pharmaceutical distributors, gambling businesses and microfinance institutions.
You can use any phone number capable of receiving SMS or a number verification call.
Who can get the Verified Business Account tick
Having this mark means your account has been verified by WhatsApp. The verification is not required for setting up the WhatsApp integration in Dashly.
After connecting WhatsApp Business API, edna creates a verification request. The decision of whether or not your account will be verified has to be made by WhatsApp (owned by Facebook). About 10% of businesses are verified by WhatsApp.
When you’re applying for verification, WhatsApp checks the following details:
The social network pages of your business: (primarily Facebook и Instagram):
- The number and quality of subscribers;
- Company details (company name, address, phone number and other details, whether the information on your website matches the information in your social networks and other sources;
- Whether your WhatsApp phone number is shown as your contact number on your Facebook and Instagram pages and on your website.Incoming message count (how popular your account is)
The information media outlets write about your company. What position your company comes up on in Google when searching for the name of your company. Whether Wikipedia has a detailed article about your company (this usually shows whether your company is well-known)
The traffic on your website
Whether your business has reached tier 2 in WhatsApp (sending messages to up to 10k users within 24 hours)
Integration price
WhatsApp Business API price must be paid to Edna and is counted by MAU (Monthly Active Users). Active users are counted by phone numbers.
Keep in mind that you get much more favorable rates when connecting Edna via our link. The link can be found in the admin panel (Integrations section -> WhatsApp). It will create an application for connecting Edna services. Their manager will contact you to calculate the cost.
Setting up the integration
Open the “Integrations” section in your Dashly panel, create a new WhatsApp integration and give it a name. After you’ve given it a name, you’ll get a personal edna registration link. Follow it and sign up in edna
❗ Important: prices listed above only apply in case you’re registering in edna via your personal link in the Dashly WhatsApp integration settings.
Click “Sign up in edna” on the first step. Proceed with the setup in edna:
Finish the registration: enter your name, surname, your company name, email, phone number and create your password.
Go through the next two second steps: get your Facebook Business Manager ID and fill in the application form.
In case you don’t have a Facebook Business Manager ID yet, you can get it by following this instruction.
You can find your Facebook Business Manager ID using one of the methods listed in this article.Go through the verification process and confirm your phone number.
If any questions about the registration process arise, feel free to contact edna support.
edna will notify you via email once your account has been successfully connected to the platform. Once that’s done, you can proceed with setting up the integration in Dashly.
In Dashly, go to the “Integrations” section and open your WhatsApp integration settings. Go through the following steps next:
Go to the “Profile” section in your edna dashboard and copy the API key from the same section in edna and paste it into the input field on the Step 4 of the integration setting in Dashly.
Enter your WhatsApp Business API phone number with the country code and without the “+” character.
Click “Save integration”.
Go to “Settings” – “Chat” – “Social Network buttons” and enter the WhatsApp Business account phone number you’ve set up the integration with. After you’ve done that, the link to your WhatsApp will appear next to your Dashly chat widget.
To make all of your WhatsApp conversations go to a separate channel in Dashly, create a new WhatsApp channel by following this instruction.