--- title: Channels and connections summary: WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger are connected to a branch or to the whole business through a Meta window. Each connection has a mode for the online admin, and Instagram and Messenger can show the first script step as quick questions. tools: [talemo_list_channels, talemo_get_channel, talemo_get_ice_breakers, talemo_set_ice_breakers] related: [conversation-and-person, channel-window-and-templates, who-answers, handoff-to-people, draft-replies] search: [connect WhatsApp, connect Instagram, connect Facebook Messenger, Meta] --- # Channels and connections **Settings → Phone and messengers** lists the connected channels and connects new ones. Messengers belong to a branch or to the whole business, and clients write to their own salon. ## Connecting 1. **Connect a channel**, choose **What to connect** (WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger) and **Whose channel**: a branch, or the whole business, which suits a brand's Instagram that serves every branch. 2. **Open the Meta window**, sign in there with the salon's account and allow access. 3. For Instagram and Messenger choose **Which page to take messages from**. - **Instagram** is let in by Meta only through a Facebook page, so link the Instagram account to the salon's page in the Instagram settings first. - **Messenger** comes from the same page, but Meta asks for its permission separately. - **WhatsApp**: a number in the WhatsApp Business app stays there. You keep answering from the phone, and the messages come to Talemo too. If Meta asks whether to share the chat history, agree: Talemo takes it only in the first day. Only a person on the web connects, changes or disconnects a channel, because the window is a login to Meta in the browser. The assistant and programs can read channels. A channel of the whole business is managed only by a role that covers every branch. ## Settings of a connection - **The assistant may answer here** switches the channel's answers on; the one that answers clients is the online admin. When it is off, only people answer. - **When someone writes here** is the channel's mode: **Answers by itself**, **Only drafts** or **Paused**. A new channel starts with **Only drafts**. How the mode works in a conversation is in [Who answers a conversation](who-answers.md). The online admin answers only after the owner or an administrator has given it rights under **What the online admin may do** in the channel settings. ## Reconnecting and disconnecting A channel shows **Connected** or needs connecting again, with the reason: Talemo was removed in the Meta settings, a permission was taken back, or Meta stopped accepting the access, for example after a password change. Until then messages do not come in, and the case "Connect {channel} again" waits in [Waiting for you](../work/item-kinds.md) with a **Reconnect** button. **Disconnect** stops new messages and the online admin's answers. Chats that already came in stay in Talemo, and connecting again continues them where they stopped. ## Quick questions in Instagram and Messenger When a client opens a chat with the salon for the first time, Instagram and Messenger can show buttons with questions, so nothing has to be typed. On the **Script** tab, under **Quick questions in messengers**, **Show the first step** puts the options of the first step of the script there, up to four. - It is set per connection and is off by default. The owner or an administrator turns it on. The first step needs options (see [Conversation script](../admin-online/conversation-script.md)). - Talemo first shows the questions the channel has now and what replaces them. **Turn it off** returns the questions the channel had before Talemo, or none. - Questions changed in Instagram or Messenger itself are left alone. The switch goes off, and it can be turned on again. - When Meta does not accept a change, Talemo shows the time of the attempt and tries again later. WhatsApp has no quick questions. A program with a business key can read the setting and preview a change, and only a person, or the assistant after the person's approval, turns it on. ## Tools and refusals - Channels are the WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger that clients write to; each belongs to a branch or to the whole business. `talemo_list_channels` lists them (with `branch_id`: that branch and the whole business) and `talemo_get_channel` shows one by `connection_id`. They say whether a channel is connected or has to be connected again and why, whether the assistant may answer there and in which mode (`auto`, `drafts`, `paused`), and for WhatsApp whether Meta has a payment method and how many free windows of the month are used. A disconnected channel is not found. - A person connects, changes and disconnects channels in Talemo: connecting is signing in to the business account in a Meta window, so a connection from outside only reads them. If a channel has to be connected again, tell the person and let them reconnect. - Instagram and Messenger can show the options of the first step of the conversation script as quick questions in an empty chat. `talemo_get_ice_breakers` shows them for a channel: whether the salon turned them on and when, the questions that would stand, whether ours stand now, and what the salon changed in the messenger itself (`theirs`). `failed_at` says when Meta last refused to take them, and the channel tries again within 6 hours. `script_branch_id` names the branch whose script feeds them, empty for the script of the whole business. WhatsApp has none. - `talemo_set_ice_breakers` takes `connection_id` and `on`. It changes what every client sees in the salon's own account, so do it only when the person asks, and first show the `dry_run`: the questions that stand there now and would be replaced. The person switches them in Talemo: a business key or a program connected from outside only shows, and without `dry_run` the call is refused with status 401, code `auth.required`, which here means "the person does it in Talemo", not that the connection is broken. A channel that has to be connected again is refused turning on with status 409, code `channel.revoked`; a role without rights to both the conversation script and the channels of the branch, with status 403, code `role.forbidden`.