Auto-replies

The group's fixed answers to incoming messages: by a keyword such as “location”, or outside working hours, labelling the chat and assigning it if you like.

What it is for

When someone writes “location” or messages the group at night, the group's answer reaches them at once, without waiting for a member of staff. Each reply has its fixed text, and may label the chat and give it to a member of staff who follows it up.

Who uses it

The page opens for whoever holds “View WhatsApp auto-replies”, to look only, or “Manage WhatsApp auto-replies”, to work in it. In the built-in roles: Owner, Manager. They are granted to any role under Settings → Roles and permissions.

Step by step

1. Press “+ New auto-reply”. Adding takes two steps and a review: “When it answers”, then “The reply”; “Next” says what a step still lacks, if anything. On the first step, type the reply's name and choose its kind.
2. For a keyword: type the words separated by commas, and choose “Contains the word” or “Exact match”; it answers at any hour. For out of hours: the times the working day starts and ends, or tick “All day (24 hours)” for it to answer at every hour.
3. On “The reply”, write it as it will arrive, and choose a label and a member of staff if you like. Then “Next: Review”: the reply as it will work, with “Edit” beside each line to go back to its step; then “Add the reply”.
4. To change a reply: the pencil on its row; every section is open there, so go to what you want to change and save from any section. To delete it: the bin; it is restored from “Deleted”.

How it works

The keyword replies are tried first, in the order they were added, then the out-of-hours reply if the message came before the working day starts, from its end, or on one of the group's weekend days; at most one reply to a message, and one active out-of-hours reply. The hours belong to the out-of-hours reply alone: the group's working hours, two times of one day, the start before the end, in the group's own time; the reply is sent outside them and on weekend days, or at every hour if you tick “All day (24 hours)”. A keyword reply has no hours: it answers at any hour. Each reply answers a chat once a day, and never a chat a member of staff answered in the last day. When a reply would have answered a message, by its word, or because it came out of hours or the reply answers all day, but was not sent because the chat already had its reply in the last 24 hours, the reply says so under its name, with the time: “Last time it was not sent: the chat already had its reply in the last 24 hours”; changing the reply clears it. Up to twenty words, each 40 characters at most, and hamza, diacritics and letter case do not matter. The text is fixed, up to 1,000 characters, and no one's personal details go in it. The label is put on the chat, and the chat given to the member of staff if nobody has it, who is told in the bell. If the sender writes “إيقاف” or STOP, they get the fixed stop confirmation shown on the page, and no other reply. If they later write “تشغيل” or START as a message on its own, their optional messages come back and they get the fixed confirmation shown on the page, once for each return, and no other reply; from a number that never stopped, it is a message like any other. If the chat guide is on, it answers first, and the keyword replies rest while it runs.

On the page

• Active replies, what was sent in the last 30 days, and stop confirmations.
• The replies, and the deleted ones.
• Each reply's kind, when it answers, its text, the label and the member of staff, and how many it sent, and under its name the last time it was not sent, if that happened. The pencil changes it, the bin deletes it. Twenty replies a page.
• What the sender gets for “إيقاف” or STOP, what they get for “تشغيل” or START after it, and the order replies are tried in.
• “+ New auto-reply”: the name, the kind, the words or the hours, and the text.

Questions

Why did the system not answer someone who wrote?

It may have answered them already in the last 24 hours, and the reply says so under its name in the list: “Last time it was not sent: the chat already had its reply in the last 24 hours”; or a member of staff answered in the last day, or no word matched, or the chat guide was on. Try from a number that has not written in the last 24 hours.

Why can't I add a second out-of-hours reply?

One active out-of-hours reply is allowed. Change the existing one, or delete it first; a deleted one does not come back while another is on.