Digital Engagement (live message) has been around for some time, yet there is barely any documentation. I recently completed a set-up of WhatsApp, embedding it into Omnichannel, and I thought it would be useful to have a step by step for others to refer to, as well as gain insights on how it actually works!
Set up WhatsApp for Business
Even before signing up for Digital Engagement, you need to set your number for Whatsapp for business.
To be able to use the service you need to let WhatsApp know you are using the service on behalf of a business; this allows users of the WhatsApp messaging app to communicate with a business which then enables you to take advantage of the Digital Engagement integration.
Once you are ready you can follow these steps for the number enablement for your Digital Engagement add-on: Set Up WhatsApp in Messaging.
Sessions To Queue
To direct the WhatsApp messaging sessions to OmniChannel the very first thing you need to do is to add that object into a queue. Queues are the backbone of records waiting for users to pick them up.
Create a queue (or multiple if required) to handle the work, and define the type of work that can come in. It can be an existing queue you already have set up or a separate one.
OmniChannel Set Up Steps
As Digital Engagement works hand in hand with OmniChannel, if this is the first type of work you are doing, you will have to do the standard OmniChannel set up steps:
- Enable OmniChannel
- Revise if the Default presence configuration suits or you may want also to create multiple configurations for different groups of agents who support different channels
- Define presence statuses
- Decline Reasons (optional)
- Routing Configurations to map how items are routed to agents, relative priority & size (you could have one per Service Channel)
- Set the Service Channel – on provisioning of Digital Engagement you should have a Service Channel called LiveMessage, as below:
Lastly, before you move away from OmniChannel set up, you need to give the users access to the Statuses from a Profile or Permission Set. This often gets missed which will lead to users unable to change their status in the OmniChannel widget in the Service Console!
Digital Engagement Set Up Steps
Now we move into the specifics of setting up Digital Engagement. At last!
For the users that are going to use these channels you will need to do a couple things:
- Give each user the Permission Set Licence “Messaging User”
- Create a Permission Set for the following permissions and assign it to you as a system admin: Permissions: Configure Messaging, Messaging Agent, End Messaging Session.
- Create and assign a second permission set for your users with Messaging Agent and End Messaging Session permissions.
This step will enable you to set the following which is key:
- Go to Messaging Settings where you can add the contracted channels available to you like WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook for business…
2. After you click next you can then select the queue you have created already or create a new one all together:
3. Once active under Messaging Settings –> you will need to edit the WhatsApp channel and the related OmniChannel queue that you want to handle the inbound entries.
4. From here you can set Consent Settings (intro message, opt-out Keywords and confirmation), auto-acknowledgement, Start & End conversation message. Just like the image below or even give it your own brand spin for tone of voice:
5. Once that’s done, you are ready to test it out.
Make It Easy For Your Users
The last step will be to sort the Console behaviour and page for your Message Sessions as you would do with Live Chat. I’d suggest if you have live chat already enabled, keep both these pages and quick actions very similar; consistency is appreciated by your users. It helps with adoption and lowers confusion.
Final Thoughts
The tricky part with all this setup is: timing.
Why? Because once you have activated the WhatsApp side of things, any conversation from your customers to that number, will start to try to go into Salesforce. Unfortunately, until the setup is complete, messaging sessions will not be created and you will not have any way to retrieve them (not even via support, I’ve tried that route too). Therefore you must get the WhatsApp setup complete, then the Salesforce setup ASAP!
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