Connect or reconnect a WhatsApp number

Every message in the Inbox travels through a WhatsApp number that’s linked to a real phone. WhatsApp drops that link now and then, after a re-install or a session expiring. When it does, first messages queue up and never leave, and a lead writing back never reaches the inbox.

You can check and reconnect the numbers your own businesses use. A shared company line says Your district admin reconnects this one instead, and only a district admin can add a number.

Check what a number says about itself

To look at one:

1. Open Inbox.
2. Open the business picker at the top of the page.
3. Press Check on the row for that business.

The dot on each row carries the answer, and a word appears beside it whenever the answer isn’t connected. A number can read not checked, which means the check itself didn’t get through and nothing is known to be wrong. logged out means the phone is unlinked. not pointed here means the phone is fine and the number is reporting somewhere else, so messages still go out while replies never arrive. not connected covers everything else Green API reports.

The dialog names the number, its Green API instance, and the fix that belongs to the fault it actually has. It never shows the API token.

Note that Check only appears on a business that has a number attached, and the picker itself isn’t drawn on the Reports or District switches tabs.

Scan the code to link the phone again

A number that reads logged out opens straight onto a QR code. Whoever holds that phone does this:

1. Open WhatsApp on that phone.
2. Go to Settings, then Linked devices.
3. Press Link a device, and point it at the code on screen.

The code refreshes itself every few seconds, and any one code lasts about 20 seconds. Stay on the screen until the dialog says the number is connected.

Save to send downloads the code as a picture for somebody sitting elsewhere. Save a fresh one just before you send it, or it’ll have expired by the time they open it. New code draws another one.

Point a number back at this app

A number that reads not pointed here needs no scan. A district admin presses Point it here in its dialog. Green API restarts the instance, so give it a minute before you judge whether replies are arriving.

That one is admin-only. On an advisor’s screen the dialog says who to ask instead.

Add a number to the district

Only a district admin sees this. The instance id and the API token both come from Green API’s own console, on the page for that instance.

1. Open the business picker and press Add a number.
2. Fill in What to call it, Instance id, Its number and API token.
3. Answer Whose phone is this?.
4. Press Add it.

The answer to Whose phone is this? decides what the app may read. Somebody's own phone. is picked for you, and it reads only the people already in that advisor’s lead sheet, so the rest of the phone stays private. A business line. treats every chat on the number as work, so a stranger writing in becomes a lead.

A business line also offers Give it an inbox of its own., which keeps everyone who writes to that number in one place. Nothing is texted automatically until somebody writes a first message for it. See Write the first message a new lead gets.

Caution

Bring this number's past over. sits in a business line’s own dialog. It unlinks the number so WhatsApp will hand over its history on the next scan, behind a second confirmation reading Unlink it and show the code. The number sends and receives nothing between the unlink and the scan, and the phone that owns it has to be in the room.

FAQ

The number says it’s connected, so why is nothing arriving?

Read the word beside the dot again. not pointed here is a working phone reporting to somewhere else, and a scan fixes nothing. A district admin presses Point it here instead.

Can I reconnect a colleague’s number?

Only on a shared company line, and only a district admin can. Your own business’s number is yours to scan. Where it isn’t yours to fix, the button is replaced by a line saying who reconnects it.

The QR code won’t load. What now?

Press New code. Green API sometimes has no code ready for a moment, and the dialog says so rather than drawing a dead square.

Does adding a number send anything to anybody?

No. A new number is saved and pointed at this app, and nothing goes out from it until a first message or an agent is written for it.