Message a contact from their record

Open a contact and the card at the top carries the ways to reach them: Call, WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram and Quick response. The Chat tab under it is the WhatsApp thread itself.

A greyed-out channel says why underneath, in one line for the whole row. It reads No phone number on this record. when there’s no number at all, and WhatsApp needs a mobile number, and this one is a landline. when there is one but WhatsApp can’t open it.

Press Add a number beside the first of those. It opens Overview with the contact’s phone field ready to type in. The same button sits on the Chat tab and in Quick response. A book with no phone field at all gets no button, and the line goes on to say Add one to a phone field.

A Singapore number reads the same everywhere, on the card, in Grid and on the record: +65 9123 4567, however it was typed. Editing it shows what was saved.

Send a saved message

Quick response opens your templates, written out for this person, ready to go into a channel.

1. Open the contact and press Quick response.
2. Press a template in the list.
3. Read the message in the box, and edit it if it needs it.
4. Press WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram or Call.

The message in the box is the message that travels, and the links rebuild as you type. WhatsApp and Telegram open in a new tab; SMS hands over to your phone.

Call carries no message, so the app copies the text to your clipboard instead and says so. Paste it wherever you need it after the call.

A template pinned to one channel offers that channel alone, so a WhatsApp-only template on a landline shows the WhatsApp reason and nothing else.

Fix a template that didn’t fill in

Templates fill in @clientName, @firstName and @stage. Anything else stays as you typed it, and a client reading @policyNumber in your message is the accident this guards against.

An unknown token blocks the send. The box reads Nothing fills @X in. and the channel buttons are replaced by Send anyway. Either fix the word or press Send anyway to go ahead. Editing the text afterwards arms the block again.

Write and reorder your templates

Manage templates at the bottom of the sheet opens the list. Templates in the Contacts toolbar opens the same list, headed Message templates.

1. Press New template.
2. Type a Title and a Message.
3. Choose a channel, or leave it on Any channel.
4. Press Add template.

The token line under the box shows the exact spellings while you type. The arrows on a row move it up or down the list, and the order is the order the sheet offers them in.

Caution

Delete takes two presses and there’s no undo behind it. The first press turns the bin red; the second removes the template.

Use the WhatsApp thread

The Chat tab holds the thread with the badge counting its messages. What you see there depends on what exists:

• A thread already running opens as the conversation, with the composer under it.
• A reachable mobile with no thread yet says so, and sends you to the Inbox, where the sheet and the sending number are chosen.
• A record WhatsApp can’t reach says that instead, with the reason.

Type in the box marked Type a message and press Send, or press Enter. The line under the box names the number it goes out from. Shift and Enter together make a new line rather than sending.

Typing a / opens your quick replies for that number, and the lightning button beside the box opens the same list. The arrow keys walk it and Enter picks, so a half-typed shortcut is never sent as words.

The paperclip, Image and Doc all open the same attachment panel. Open the info mark beside them for the formats: JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF or PDF, up to 15MB.

A long thread loads the most recent messages and says how many it’s showing out of the total. A contact reached through two sheets carries a line naming the other threads, which are opened from the Inbox.

What the record remembers

Opening a channel writes a line on the record’s timeline: Dialled, Opened WhatsApp, Opened SMS or Opened Telegram. Sent from Quick response, it names the template too.

Note that this records the tap and nothing more. It’s proof a channel was opened, not proof a conversation happened.

FAQ

Why can’t I start a WhatsApp conversation from here?

The sending number and the sheet are chosen in the Inbox, so that’s where a new thread begins. See Answer a lead in Conversations.

Can I attach a video?

No. Images and PDFs only, which is why there’s no video button to press.

My draft disappeared when I opened another contact.

It didn’t. A draft is kept against the conversation it was typed into, so it’s waiting when you come back to that thread.

The Chat tab says the conversation couldn’t load.

The thread is fine; it’s the lookup that failed. Open it from the Inbox instead.