Chat guide

What it is for

Instead of waiting for a member of staff to learn the school hours, the fees or the calendar, a guardian gets the welcome and a menu, chooses what they want, and gets the answer at once. Whatever the menu does not answer is handed over to a member of staff.

Who uses it

The page opens for whoever holds “View WhatsApp auto-replies”, to look only, or “Manage WhatsApp auto-replies”, to work in it. In the built-in roles: Owner. A group grants these to any role under Settings → Roles and permissions, and everyone sees only what is within their own scope.

Step by step

1. Under “Settings”: type the menu button's name and the welcome message, then “Save settings”.
2. Add the options with “+ New option”: the option's name and description, and its kind: a text reply, a file, a sub-menu, or a hand-over to staff.
3. Order the options with the arrows, and add a sub-menu's own options with the “+” on its row.
4. Check “As a parent sees it”, then tick “Run the guide” and save.

How it works

The guide only runs with at least one option. A guardian chooses by tapping, or by typing the option's number or name. Menus go five levels deep at most: ten options in the welcome, nine at the second level, eight below. An option's name is 24 characters, as WhatsApp allows, and its description 72. Sub-menus get “Main menu”, and from the third level “Back”, and every text answer ends with “Send 0 for the main menu”. A file is a JPEG or PNG picture up to 5 MB, or a PDF up to 16 MB. A hand-over gives the chat to the member of staff if nobody has it, the guide rests on that chat for a day, and the guardian gets the hand-over message or the default one. While the guide runs, the keyword replies rest, and the out-of-hours reply shows above the welcome when the message came outside the hours. Deleting a menu deletes its options with it, and it is restored from “Deleted”.

On the page

• The options, and the menus sent and hand-overs to staff in the last 30 days.
• Running the guide, the menu button, and the welcome message.
• The options, and the deleted ones.
• The options in order under their menus: each one's kind, what it does and how often it went out. The arrows order, the pencil changes.
• The welcome message and the menu as the guardian sees them.
• “+ New option” in the welcome menu.

Questions

Why is the guide not answering?

Check that “Run the guide” is ticked and saved, and that it has at least one option. It does not answer a chat a member of staff answered in the last day, or one handed over today.

Why can't I add another option?

The menu is full: ten options in the welcome, nine at the second level, eight below.