Communications
How the platform talks to guests, cleaners, hosts, and you. Everything in this section is a layer on top of the WhatsApp Cloud API.
In this section
- WhatsApp Bot — the inbound bot, routing rules, the 24h window
- AI Suggest — AI-drafted replies on guest messages
- Languages — how the system decides what language to write in
- FAQ Knowledge Base — the AI's source of operator-curated answers
The three communication channels
| Channel | Direction | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp Cloud API | inbound + outbound | Primary. Guests, teammates, operator notifications |
| In-app messaging | internal | Notes between teammates, AI drafts before sending |
| Email (SMTP) | outbound | Invoices, owner statements (per-tenant SMTP; see Settings) |
Webhooks from booking channels (Hospitable, Beds24) are not communications — they're inbound data updates that may trigger communications.
The 24-hour WhatsApp window
Meta's policy: you can only send free-text WhatsApp messages to a phone number that messaged your business in the last 24 hours. Outside that window, you must use a pre-approved template.
The platform handles this automatically:
- If the window is open → free-text or interactive template, whichever is appropriate.
- If the window is closed → fall back to an approved template (
task_resolved,task_notification_v2,checkin_instructions, …).
If neither is possible (no opted-in number, no template approved for the use case, Meta error), the platform logs the failure and surfaces it in the Activity Log. A closed-window send that Meta accepts but never delivers is retried through the template path instead of being marked done.
Inbound message flow
Guest sends WA message
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WhatsApp Cloud API webhook fires → POST /api/webhooks/wa/t/<slug>
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Verify HMAC signature for this tenant
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Persist message to messages table
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LLM language detection → reservation.guest.language updated
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LLM mood + communication-type analysis → reservation.guestMood updated
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Task seeder re-evaluates rules that depend on guestMood (e.g. Rule 21 thank-you)
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AI Suggest drafts a reply (if enabled for this template)
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Surfaces on Pulse + WA Comm screens for operator
The tenant's WhatsApp phone-number ID must be set for inbound routing to work — without it, the webhook receiver can't identify which tenant an inbound message belongs to. Admins can view and edit it under Settings → Integrations.