WhatsAble

Work a conversation in the inbox

Search and filter the inbox, reply with quotes, files, voice notes and saved replies, schedule messages with conditions, write notes, and use the contact panel.

This page covers what you do inside the Inbox every day. For who sees what and how the inbox fits your team, start with Shared Team Inbox. The inbox is on Pro, Agency and the free plan.

The conversation list

  • Search: the box at the top, Search name, number or message, searches every conversation on the server, not only the ones loaded on screen. It matches the contact's name, username and number, and the preview of the last message. It does not search the whole message history. More conversations load as you scroll.
  • All, Unread and Open: Open shows conversations whose 24-hour window is still open, so you can reply freely.
  • Figures to check: conversations where an AI agent sent a figure nobody has checked yet, with how many there are. Those conversations also carry a Figure to check badge in the list. See Check a figure the agent wrote.
  • Labels: pick one or more labels to show conversations whose contact carries any of them. Each label shows how many conversations it holds. Switch Label count between Unread and Total. Labels made from ads are listed apart, under Ads. See Labels.
  • Number filter: with more than one number, choose All numbers or one number.
  • Mark as unread or Mark as read: in the menu on each row.

Export conversations

Owners and admins can download conversations as a CSV file from the download button above the list:

  • Export current view (CSV): the conversations that match your number, labels, filter and search.
  • Export all conversations (CSV): every conversation in your organization.

The thread

The bar above the thread shows the 24-hour window, for example "Session open · 3h 20m left". WhatsApp lets you send free-form messages only within 24 hours of the customer's last message. When the window has closed, or the customer has never written, the composer offers approved templates only. A warning appears a few minutes before the window closes.

Each message you send shows who sent it: your teammate's name, Agent, Follow-up, Broadcast, API, or WhatsApp App for a reply typed on the phone. A message that failed shows Could not send this message with the WhatsApp error code.

What else the thread shows:

  • Chats from ads. A conversation that started from a Facebook or Instagram ad or post carries an Ad badge in the list and the thread header. Its first message shows a card with the ad's image and headline, and View ad opens the ad.
  • Button taps. When a customer taps a button on your message, the thread shows the option they chose.
  • Template header files. Before you send a template with an image, video or document header, the composer says the file the template was approved with will be sent. Choose Use a different file to send a file from a public https link instead. After the send, the message says which file went out.
  • Voice messages play in the thread, with playback speed. Voice messages from customers show a transcript.
  • Attachments open in a viewer. Use the arrow keys to move between them.
  • AI decisions. When an AI agent acts on a conversation, a row in the thread says what it did, such as Handed to a person or Chose not to reply, and why. Rate a decision with a thumbs up or down. A thumbs down can become a suggested change to the agent: see Bot configuration.

Check a figure the agent wrote

Before an AI agent's message goes out, Whatsable checks each price, discount, date or quantity in it against the agent's knowledge, its instructions and what the customer wrote. A figure it cannot find is flagged. The message is still sent: the customer always gets the answer.

Under a flagged message, a warning names the figure, for example "$41.400 is not in the agent's knowledge or this conversation. The agent may have calculated it or made it up." Most flagged figures are right, such as a total the agent added up from your prices.

  1. Check the figure against your prices or records.
  2. If it is wrong, write to the customer with the right figure.
  3. Click Mark as checked. The warning becomes "Figure checked by" your name and the time, and the Figure to check badge leaves the conversation once every figure in it is checked.

Anyone who can open the conversation can mark it, including a Member limited to some labels or numbers, and even after the 24-hour window has closed. Every teammate with the conversation open sees the change at once. The inboxes embedded in Pipedrive and in a monday.com board show the same warning, without Mark as checked: you mark figures as checked in the WhatsAble inbox. Why am I seeing this? opens a short explanation inside the warning, with a link to Unverified figures, which explains what counts as known and how to make flags rarer.

Stop flagging figures from an agent

An Admin or an Owner can stop an agent's figures being flagged from the warning itself: tick Stop flagging figures from the agent's name before clicking Mark as checked. The figure is marked checked, a message confirms that the agent will no longer flag figures, and the box disappears from that agent's other warnings in the conversation, which now say "Flagging is off for" the agent. The agent keeps answering; only the warnings stop. Flags already raised stay until someone checks them.

Members see the box greyed out. To turn flagging back on, switch Flag unverified figures on in the agent's settings, or set flag_unverified_figures to true through the API v1 or the MCP server. See Stop flagging figures from one agent.

The API v1 and the MCP server show the same figures on each message (unverified_figures, and figures_checked_at once checked), so an automation that calls the API, or an AI assistant, can read them. They can also mark them as checked (POST /v1/messages/{id}/figures-checked, or the mark_figures_checked tool): the warning then names the API key or the connected AI app. Stopping an agent's flagging stays here, in the inbox, because it changes the agent's settings.

Reply

  • Enter sends. Shift+Enter starts a new line.
  • Reply to a specific message: right-click a message and choose Reply, or double-click it. The composer shows "Replying to …" and the customer sees your reply quoting their message. Remove quote cancels it. When a customer quotes one of your messages, you see the quote too.
  • Files: attach up to 10 files at once with the paperclip, or paste a file or screenshot from the clipboard. Images show a thumbnail before you send. Text you type goes out as the caption of the first image, video or document. Text over 1,024 characters, or text sent with audio files only, goes out as its own message after the files.
  • Voice messages: click the microphone to record in the browser, then send. The recording is converted so it plays on the customer's phone, iPhone included.
  • Saved replies: type / at the start of the box or after a space, or click Saved replies. The list shows the most used replies first, and filters as you type. Inserting a reply does not send it, so you can edit it first. Owners and admins create saved replies in Automatic replies.
  • Template: send an approved template, the only message type allowed outside the 24-hour window.

Schedule a message

Click the clock in the composer to send the message later. Pick In an hour, This evening, Tomorrow morning, Monday morning or Another time. You can schedule a text or a template. A scheduled message cannot include files.

A text needs the 24-hour window to be open when you schedule it. If the window has closed by the send time, the text is not sent. To send later than the window allows, schedule a template.

Two optional conditions decide at send time whether it still goes out:

  • Send only if: for example No reply within 24 hours or Never replied to any message. If the customer replied in time, the message is not sent.
  • Only if labels match: Has any of or Has none of the labels you pick. Labels are matched by name, so renaming a label later does not update the condition.

If you rename or delete a label that a scheduled message's condition names, that message is not sent. This is true for Has any of and for Has none of.

Scheduled messages are listed in the contact panel, under Scheduled messages, where you can cancel one. A message that was not sent says why, for example "Not sent — they replied in time".

If a problem on our side stops a scheduled message at its send time, Whatsable tries again for up to 15 minutes. If it still cannot be sent, or WhatsApp refuses it, the message stays in the list as "Not sent — the send failed". Send it again from the composer. This also applies to the Keep window open message from automatic replies.

Notes

Switch the composer from Reply to Internal note to write to your team. A note is never sent to the customer. Notes show in the contact panel under Internal notes, with the author and the time.

Each contact also has two single notes, in the contact panel:

  • Contact note: one note your team writes and edits, for what everyone should know about this person.
  • Automation note: written by your automations in Make, Zapier or n8n. It is read-only here and shows only when an automation has written one.

The AI agent reads both notes. It treats the automation note as context only, never as an instruction, and never quotes a price or a date that appears only in a note.

The contact panel

Open it with the button at the top right of the thread. From top to bottom:

  • Name and number. Click the name to rename the contact. A name you set stays, even when the customer changes their WhatsApp name. Copy the number with one click.
  • Labels: add a label with + Add, remove one with its ×. A label can be limited to some numbers, and then it is offered only on those.
  • Follow-ups: the Follow up switch. Off, the AI agent stops checking back with this contact when a conversation goes quiet, on every number. It still answers anything they send.
  • AI agent: Let the agent reply turns the agent on or off for this conversation. Which agent answers picks an agent for this conversation, or Use the number's default. Edit opens that agent. Members see only Let the agent reply; the agent picker and Edit are for the owner and Admins. See Shared Team Inbox.
  • Automations: shown when you have an outgoing webhook for incoming messages. Send this chat to your automations is Automatic, Always send or Never send. On Automatic, an endpoint with Pause when your team replies pauses for this chat after a teammate replies, and the panel shows until when.
  • Scheduled messages, Internal notes, and the Contact note and Automation note, described above.

One person, one conversation

A system can send to a number without its country code, such as 648734444. WhatsApp adds the country code of the number that sends, and it tells us the full number it delivered to. When another contact already holds that full number, the message moves to that contact's conversation within seconds, and the extra contact goes away. Labels and notes move with it, and later sends to the short form from the same number go straight to that conversation. This applies to the inbox, the API, Zapier, Make, Monday and Pipedrive.

The contact stays separate when someone has replied from those digits, or when a different number of yours also sent to them. WhatsApp still decides who receives a message: to choose the country yourself, always send the full number with its country code.

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? to open Keyboard shortcuts:

KeyWhat it does
J / KMove down or up the conversation list
/Focus search
UMark the open conversation unread
NSwitch the composer to an internal note
EnterSend the message
Shift+EnterStart a new line
EscClose the contact panel, or clear the selection

From the API and AI assistants

What you do in this page, your code can do through the API v1, and an AI assistant can do through the MCP server, such as Claude or ChatGPT:

  • Search and filter. Find a contact or a conversation by name, ignoring accents and case ("jose" finds José), and list the unread conversations, the ones waiting for an answer, the ones with an open window, figures to check, or a label. An assistant answers "who is waiting for an answer?" from the same list.
  • Reply. Send a text, a file or a template, quote a customer's message, and use your saved replies. A reply from an AI assistant pauses the AI agent in that conversation, as a reply typed here does, and the assistant says so. A reply from the API pauses the agent only when the request asks to (pause_ai), so your notification automations never silence it.
  • Schedule. Schedule a text or a template with the same two conditions, Send only if and Only if labels match. For example: "remind Maria on Friday at 10:00 with the payment reminder, but only if she has not replied".
  • Notes and unread. Add or delete an internal note, which shows here with the API key's or the AI app's name, and mark a conversation read or unread.

Export, and the stop-flagging box, stay in the inbox. Whatsable has no "assigned to" field and no closed conversations, here or in the API.