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WhatsApp and social channel prerequisites

Your WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram conversations, along with the chats Maya holds on your website, all arrive in the same place: the Maya Communication Hub. Maya answers in each of them, and your team can step into any conversation from there.

Connecting a channel means giving Maya permission to send and receive on an account you own, so most of the preparation sits on your side, in the Meta accounts behind your number and your social profiles. This page lists what we need for each channel before it can be connected, and the limitations worth knowing before you decide how to connect WhatsApp.

WhatsApp​

WhatsApp is the one channel where the choice you make at the start still matters months later, so it is worth reading this section before you decide.

There are two ways to connect a number.

Cloud API only. The number lives entirely in the Communication Hub. Your team sends and receives from there, and the number is no longer used in the WhatsApp Business App on anyone's phone. This is the setup we recommend.

Coexistence. The same number stays on the WhatsApp Business App on a phone and is connected to the Communication Hub as well, so your team can work in both. It is the easier route when a number is already in daily use on a phone, and it carries the limitation described in the next section.

What we need before the connection can be made, in either case:

  • A Meta business portfolio, at business.facebook.com. If you do not have one yet, create it first.
  • Verified business information. Complete Business info in the portfolio. Verification can take anywhere from a few hours to a day, so start it early rather than on the day of the setup.
  • A WhatsApp Business Account with a valid payment method. Meta requires a card on the account even at low message volumes, and delivery problems are usually traced back to a missing one.
  • The number free of other providers. If it was previously connected to another WhatsApp provider or partner, that access has to be removed first — Meta allows only one at a time. You can check this under Partners on the WhatsApp account.
  • Someone with admin rights available for the setup itself. The connection is made by signing in to Meta from inside the Communication Hub, with both open in the same browser, so it has to be done by a person who can approve access to the business portfolio. We walk you through it on a call.
  • A number that is not in use on a personal WhatsApp account. A number already running on the WhatsApp Business App is fine, and is what the coexistence route is for.

If anything goes wrong during or after the setup, the quickest way for us to diagnose it is admin access to your business portfolio. Your Maya contact will ask for this only if it is needed, and will tell you exactly what to grant.

Connecting a number on Cloud API only​

This is the route where the number lives solely in the Communication Hub. A short walkthrough of the whole flow is recorded here: video walkthrough. It is worth following along with it, as the Meta screens change often.

  1. Create a business account on business.facebook.com, if you do not have one already.
  2. Add and verify your business information. Go to Business info in the sidebar and fill in what is asked. Once submitted, verification can take a few hours to a day, so do this ahead of the setup rather than on the day.
  3. Open your WhatsApp accounts. In business.facebook.com, go to Accounts, then WhatsApp accounts.
  4. Prepare the WhatsApp business account.
    1. If the account for this number already exists: check the Partners tab and remove any partner that is still connected, then open Payment settings and add a valid card.
    2. If it does not exist yet: click Add, then Create a new WhatsApp business account, and follow the steps in the video.
  5. Sign in to the Communication Hub at communication.mayatravel.ai in a separate tab of the same browser, with business.facebook.com still logged in.
  6. Create the inbox. Go to Settings, then Inboxes, then Add inbox, and choose Connect a WhatsApp business account. Meta's own sign-in flow takes over from there and hands the number back to us when it finishes.

Connecting a number through coexistence​

This is the route where the number stays on the WhatsApp Business App on a phone and works in the Communication Hub at the same time. The walkthrough for it is here: video walkthrough, including how to grant us admin access at the end if something needs debugging.

  1. Create a business account on business.facebook.com, if you do not have one already.
  2. Add and verify your business information, as in step 2 above. The same few hours to a day applies.
  3. Open both sides in one browser. Sign in to business.facebook.com and to communication.mayatravel.ai in separate tabs of the same browser — the connection flow moves between the two.
  4. Create the inbox. In the Communication Hub, go to Settings, then Inboxes, then Add inbox, and choose Connect a WhatsApp Business app. The video covers this step screen by screen.

For either route, make sure a valid payment method is on the WhatsApp account before you start. Meta requires it, and most setups that stall part way through turn out to be missing one.

Known limitations of WhatsApp coexistence​

These apply only to numbers connected through coexistence. A number on Cloud API only is not affected by any of them.

Occasionally an incoming message arrives as "This message is unavailable." instead of the customer's actual text. In coexistence, Meta has to sync each incoming message between the phone and the Cloud API, and because WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, that sync depends on the right encryption keys being available on both sides. Every so often it fails. It happens most often when:

  • The customer wrote from WhatsApp Web or Desktop — what Meta calls a companion device — rather than from their phone, or
  • It is the first message that customer has ever sent you

This is a known bug on Meta's side and we cannot fix it from ours. Every tool built on Meta's Cloud API is affected in the same way; it is not specific to the Communication Hub. In practice it is rare, well under one percent of incoming messages on the numbers where we see it at all.

The message itself is not lost. It stays readable in the WhatsApp Business App on your primary phone. Only the copy that reaches the Communication Hub is affected.

Maya asks rather than guesses. When Maya receives one of these placeholders, it replies asking the customer to send the message again instead of trying to answer something it cannot read.

Steps Meta recommends to reduce how often it happens:

  • Open the WhatsApp Business App on the primary phone regularly, ideally several times a day, so it stays in sync
  • Encourage customers to write to your primary number rather than through companion device setups
  • Consider moving to Cloud API only if the errors become frequent, which removes companion devices from the picture entirely

Our recommendation, if it fits how your team works, is to move the number to Cloud API only. That removes the coexistence sync and the issue disappears completely. The tradeoff to be aware of: your team would no longer send or receive on that number from the WhatsApp Business App on their phones, and every conversation would happen in the Communication Hub instead. If that is acceptable, we will plan and handle the migration with you at a time that suits you.

If incoming messages stop arriving altogether, tell us. That is a different problem and not something you should have to live with. It occasionally affects coexistence numbers when Meta quietly drops the subscription that forwards your messages to us, and we can restore it once we know.

Facebook Messenger​

  • A Facebook Page, not a personal profile, and admin rights on it
  • Access to the business portfolio the Page belongs to, if it is managed inside one
  • The person connecting signs in to Facebook from inside the Communication Hub and grants Maya access to the Page's messages, so it has to be someone with those rights on the Page

Only messages sent to the Page's inbox arrive in the Communication Hub. Comments and reactions on your posts are not part of this channel.

Instagram​

  • An Instagram professional account, business or creator — a personal account cannot be connected
  • The account linked to your Facebook Page, and admin rights on both
  • Message access allowed for connected tools, a setting in the Instagram app itself. Meta moves it around between app versions, so we point out where it currently sits during the setup

Direct messages arrive in the Communication Hub, replies to your stories included. Comments on posts do not.

Maya web chat​

Nothing on Meta's side is needed here, and there is nothing to install beyond what is already on your site.

  • Maya on your website, set up as described on the page about adding Maya to your website
  • The people who should have access, so we can create their accounts in the Communication Hub
  • At least one person with the agent role, which is what human handover needs in order to route a conversation to somebody
  • Browser notifications enabled, per person, so handovers are not missed. Each member of your team does this once, in their own browser — see the notifications section below

We create and connect the inbox itself, so once those four are in place there is nothing further for your team to do.

Notifications​

Notifications are set per person rather than per organisation, so each member of your team turns on the ones they want in their own account. This matters most for handovers: when Maya passes a conversation to a human, somebody has to notice.

Turning notifications on​

Each person does this once, in the browser they work in.

  1. Allow notifications for your browser at the operating system level. On both Chrome and Firefox this is under System Settings, then Notifications, then the browser itself. Make sure notifications are enabled there, otherwise nothing later in this list will reach you.
  2. Enable push notifications in the Communication Hub. Sign in, go to Notification settings, and turn on the Push notifications toggle.
  3. Allow notifications in the browser when it asks. A popup appears asking whether the Communication Hub may send notifications — click Allow. If you missed it, you can still change it under the site settings for that page, in the Notifications permission.
  4. Choose which events you want. Back in Notification settings, tick the events you want to be told about. The sections below explain what each one covers.

Audio alerts​

Audio alerts play a sound in the browser. They only work while the Communication Hub is open in a browser tab. The tab does not have to be the active one, but it does have to be open.

  • My assigned conversations — conversations that are assigned to you
  • Unassigned conversations — conversations that are not assigned to anyone. Read the note below before turning this one on
  • Open conversations assigned to others — conversations in the open state that belong to a colleague
  • Human handover notification — a conversation has moved away from Maya to a person, whether it was assigned to a specific agent or moved to unassigned

A note on "unassigned conversations". On the inboxes where Maya replies, a conversation is not assigned to anyone at the moment it is created — Maya is assigned to it a moment later. That means this alert fires on effectively every new conversation, not only on the ones waiting for a human. It is useful if your team wants to keep an eye on every conversation as it arrives, and it becomes noise on a busy inbox with hundreds of conversations a day. If you want to be told only when Maya actually hands something over, use the human handover notification instead.

Browser and email notifications​

Unlike audio alerts, these keep working when the Communication Hub is not open in a tab, which is what makes them the right choice for handovers.

  • A new conversation is created — every new conversation on the inbox. To receive this on an inbox you have to be added as a Collaborator in that inbox's settings
  • A conversation is assigned to you — somebody, or Maya's handover, has put a conversation in your name
  • You are mentioned in a conversation — a colleague has mentioned you in an internal note
  • A new message is created in an assigned conversation — a new message arrives in a conversation assigned to you
  • A new message is created in a participating conversation — a new message arrives in a conversation you have written in yourself, whether or not it is assigned to you at that moment
  • Human handover notification — as above: a conversation has moved from Maya to a person

If you only turn on one thing, make it the human handover notification as a browser or email notification. It is the one that tells your team a customer is now waiting on them rather than on Maya.