For most businesses WhatsApp is where the customers already are — and it is usually the channel running off one person's phone, invisible to everyone else. Connecting it to Tola turns that number into a shared queue with history, assignment, automation and reporting.
Ways to connect
- Name
Guided- Type
- how most people do it
- Description
You approve the connection with Meta from inside Tola, and the number is set up for you. Fewest steps, fewest ways to get it wrong.
- Name
Existing Meta setup- Type
- if one is already in place
- Description
If your business already has a WhatsApp Business Account — often because an agency or a previous vendor set one up — that can be connected instead of starting again.
A WhatsApp number can only be connected to one platform at a time. If the number is currently in the WhatsApp Business app, connecting it here will disconnect it there — and chat history in the app does not transfer. Plan for that before you start.
Worth having ready
- A Meta Business account you are an admin on.
- A phone number that is not currently registered on WhatsApp, or one you are willing to migrate off the WhatsApp Business app. It must be able to receive an SMS or voice call for verification.
- A display name for the business, which Meta reviews.
The guided route
- Go to Channels → Add channel → WhatsApp.
- Choose Embedded signup and click through to Meta.
- Sign in with the Facebook account that administers your business, and pick or create the WhatsApp Business Account.
- Add the phone number and complete the verification code step.
- Grant the permissions Tola asks for, and return to the app.
- Choose which agents get access to this channel, and finish.
Send yourself a message to confirm it lands in the inbox.
If your Meta setup already exists
Use this route when your Meta setup already exists, or when an agency or IT team manages it for you. Whoever administers your Meta Business account will need to supply four details, all found in the Meta app dashboard:
- Name
Phone number- Type
- the number itself
- Description
In full international format, including the country code.
- Name
Phone number ID- Type
- Meta's reference for it
- Description
Meta's own identifier for that number.
- Name
Business account ID- Type
- which account owns it
- Description
The WhatsApp Business Account the number belongs to.
- Name
Access token- Type
- permission to send
- Description
A permanent token, not a temporary one. Temporary tokens work for a test and then stop after 24 hours — this is the single most common cause of a WhatsApp channel that worked yesterday and does not today.
Tola completes the rest of the connection with Meta automatically. If someone previously connected this number to another system, that connection must be removed first — two systems listening to the same number will produce duplicate messages.
The 24-hour window
This is the single most important thing to understand about WhatsApp, and the source of most confusion.
You can only send freeform messages to a customer within 24 hours of their last message to you. The clock resets every time they write. Outside that window, WhatsApp will not deliver an ordinary message at all — only a pre-approved template.
In practice:
- A customer asks a question at 9am. Your team can reply freely until 9am tomorrow.
- They go quiet for two days. To reach them again you must send a template.
- The moment they reply to that template, the window opens again and you can talk normally.
Tola shows the window state in the composer, so agents see the constraint instead of discovering it through an undelivered message.
Message templates
Templates are messages you register with Meta in advance and get approved. They are the only way to start a conversation or reach someone outside the window.
Templates are created in the Meta Business Manager, then become available in Tola once approved. They come in categories — utility (order updates, appointment reminders), marketing (promotions), and authentication (one-time codes) — and Meta prices and polices them differently. Marketing templates are held to a stricter standard and can be rejected for tone alone.
Templates support placeholders, so a single approved template — "Hi name, your order number has shipped" — becomes a personalised message for every recipient. Tola prompts for those values when you send one by hand, and campaigns fill them automatically from your contact records when you send in bulk.
Approval usually takes minutes but can take much longer. Submit the templates you will need for launch well before launch, not on the day.
WhatsApp calling
Your WhatsApp number can carry voice calls as well as messages. Enable calling in the channel's settings and choose whether to allow incoming calls, outgoing calls or both. Calls appear in the inbox beside messages, attached to the same customer.
This is often the cheapest way to offer a phone line at all — no separate number, no per-minute cost, and the call sits in the same thread as the chat that led to it. See voice and calls.
Moving a number
Numbers move. A business consolidates two of them, or someone set one up under the wrong Meta account years ago. An existing WhatsApp channel can be reconnected with new details rather than deleted and recreated — which is what you want, because deleting a channel takes its conversation history with it.
Use Reauthorize on the channel's settings page when a connection expires or changes.
Troubleshooting
Messages arrive but replies do not send. Almost always the 24-hour window, or an expired access token. Check the token first — temporary tokens are the usual culprit.
Nothing arrives at all. The connection to Meta has been lost or was never completed. Use Reauthorize on the channel's settings page.
Every message arrives twice. The number is connected to two systems at once. Disconnect the other one.
Templates are rejected. Meta rejects templates that read as promotional under a utility category, contain URL shorteners, or have unclear variable placement. Rewrite it rather than resubmitting unchanged.