Manage WhatsApp flows
Structured, form-like interactions inside a WhatsApp chat — for the things that genuinely are a form, and not for the things that are a conversation.
A WhatsApp flow is a structured, form-like interaction rendered inside the chat: fields, choices, a submit. It is a different thing from a bot conversation, and choosing between them correctly is most of the value here.
The test is simple. If you know every question in advance and the order never changes, that is a form and a flow is right. If what you ask next depends on what they just said, that is a conversation and an AI bot is right. Flows used as a substitute for conversation produce the same rigid experience as an IVR menu.
Before you start
- A connected WhatsApp channel.
- A task that is a fixed form.
- A decision about what happens to the answers afterwards.
Steps
Open Manage flows on the WhatsApp channel
Flows sit on the WhatsApp card beside templates and canned messages — three WhatsApp-only features that do three different jobs.
A template starts a conversation from outside the window. A canned message is saved text an agent sends inside one. A flow is a structured form rendered in the chat. Reaching for the wrong one is the most common mistake here.
Use a flow only where a form is honest
Collecting a delivery address, capturing structured booking details, taking a complaint with defined fields. Those are forms.
Keep it short
Every extra field costs completions, and on a phone that cost is steep. Ask for what you genuinely cannot proceed without, and collect the rest later in conversation.
Decide what happens to the answers before you launch
Captured submissions land on the contact's activity feed. Decide in advance whether a workflow should act on one — assign somebody, create a task, move a lead stage — or whether it will sit there unread.
A form nobody acts on is worse than no form, because the customer believes they have told you something.
Test on a real phone as a customer
Not in a preview. Run the whole thing through on your own handset before it goes anywhere near a campaign, and check the submission arrived on the contact.
Check it worked
Submit the flow yourself and then open that contact. The submission should be on the activity feed, and whatever you decided should happen next should have happened.
The parts people get wrong
- A flow is not a substitute for an AI bot. The strongest pattern is a bot handling the open-ended conversation and handing to a flow for the structured part.
- Flows are a WhatsApp feature and exist on no other channel type.