Documentation

Usage guide for WA Business Connector, the GHL Apps app that links your WhatsApp number to your CRM platform so you can handle WhatsApp right from your CRM conversations.

How it works

The connector bridges WhatsApp and your CRM:

• When a contact messages you on WhatsApp, the message shows up in their conversation inside the CRM.
• When you reply from the CRM, the message goes out over WhatsApp to that contact.

Messages travel through the CRM's messaging channel, so you see them alongside the rest of the contact's history, without switching tools.

1. Install the app

1. Open the install link we shared with you.
2. Pick the sub-account (location) where you want to use WhatsApp.
3. Approve the permissions the app requests. Once done, the app is installed in that account.

An agency can install the app at the agency level and share numbers across its sub-accounts, according to the plan.

2. Choose how you connect your number

There are two ways to connect, and both end the same way: conversations land in your CRM. What changes is what you need to get started and the rules you send under.

If you handle conversations your customers start, the QR code is the fast lane. If you're the one writing first, at volume, and you want the number protected, the official channel is the one that holds up.

You can run numbers of both kinds at the same time in the same account.

3. Connect with a QR code

It's the same mechanism you use when you open WhatsApp on a computer: the phone authorises a linked session.

Before you start: have the phone with the number you're connecting at hand, charged and online.

1. Open the connector panel from your account.
2. Under Connect a new number, click Show QR code and wait for it to appear on screen.
3. On the phone, open WhatsApp → Settings → Linked devices → Link a device.
4. Point the camera at the code on your screen.
5. Once the number's status turns to connected, you can send and receive.

Notes that prevent most of the problems:

• One number per connection. Don't connect the same number twice.
• The phone stays online. The linked session depends on it; if the phone stays off for days or you log out from there, the connection drops.
• If the code expires before you scan it, request a new one from the panel.
• Use a business number, not your personal one.

If you can't scan, or someone else has the phone

The QR code isn't the only way, and often it isn't the practical one: whoever has the phone isn't always the one with access to the CRM.

• A code instead of scanning. Before asking for the QR, type the number you are going to connect in the field right there. With it, an eight-character code appears next to the QR: on the phone go to WhatsApp → Linked devices → Link with phone number and type it in. Useful when the camera cannot reach the screen, or when you are setting things up from the very phone that holds the WhatsApp. Without that number you only get the QR.
• A link for someone else. In the connect-a-number card, the Create link button gives you a URL you can send however you like. Whoever opens it sees only the code screen, without entering the CRM or seeing anything else about your account. It expires in 30 minutes; if it lapses, you create another.

4. Connect your official Meta number

1. Open the connector panel from your account.
2. Under Connect official WhatsApp Business, click Connect my WhatsApp.
3. A Meta window opens: sign in with your business account and authorise access. There you pick the number that will live in the CRM, either a new one or one you already have in your WhatsApp Business account. The number is answered from the CRM, not from the phone app; if you want to keep using the phone, that is the QR code channel.
4. Once the window closes, the number shows up in your list, ready to go. The webhook is configured automatically: you don't have to touch anything else on Meta.

If you'd rather connect it by hand, below those buttons there's a form with the four values from your Meta app: account ID (WABA ID), number ID (phone number ID), permanent access token and the app secret.

On this channel, messaging a contact first requires an approved template. You send one from the CRM inbox by typing /plantilla in the message.

5. Send and receive

• Inbound: WhatsApp messages flow into the contact's CRM conversation on their own. If the contact doesn't exist, it's created from their number.
• Outbound: write in the CRM conversation as you normally do; the message goes out through the WhatsApp number the contact is talking to you on.

Text messages and attachments (images and documents) are supported, within what WhatsApp allows.

6. Multiple numbers

You can connect several WhatsApp numbers in the same account, up to your plan's limit. Each contact keeps talking on the number they started with, so conversations don't get crossed. For a new contact, who has no number assigned yet, you choose in the panel which one the first message goes out from.

With Departments you split numbers by team (sales, support, collections) and each conversation stays with the right one.

Rules for each number

Under every number in the panel there are three controls that decide what reaches the CRM through that line. None of them affects what goes out: a number with all of this turned off keeps sending just the same.

• Receive messages in the CRM. Turn it off and the number becomes send-only: neither what people write to you nor what you reply from the phone shows up in conversations. Useful for a campaign line that's handled elsewhere.
• Create new contacts. Turn it off and only messages from people already in your CRM come through; a stranger gets no record created and no message logged. For when your leads come from a form and you don't want the database full of loose numbers.
• Block a number. Type the phone and hit Block: their messages are dropped before they reach the conversation. The list belongs to that number, not to the account, so you can block someone on support and keep serving them on sales. To remove them, click the cross next to the number.

7. Sending limits

Each plan sets a per-hour message limit. Limits exist to protect your numbers: sending too fast is one of the main causes of WhatsApp suspensions. If you hit the limit, the extra messages are flagged in the CRM and logged in the Activity tab, so you know exactly which ones didn't go out.

8. Looking after a number connected by QR

On this channel you build the number's reputation yourself. A brand-new number that starts out blasting hundreds of messages is the first case WhatsApp restricts. Warming it up is a matter of patience, and these two weeks save you many painful months.

Before connecting it: if the number was just registered on WhatsApp, use it from the phone alone for a week or two, in normal conversations, before connecting it to any system.

Days 1 and 2. Ten to fifteen messages a day, to people who will reply. Volume isn't what matters, replies are: a two-way conversation is what tells WhatsApp the number is real.

Days 3 to 5. Twenty to thirty-five messages a day. Mix people you know with customers who already deal with you. Keep writing one by one, using each person's name.

Days 6 to 10. Fifty to a hundred messages a day. You can now add contacts from your database who opted in, and start using simple automations.

Days 11 to 14. Raise volume by 15% to 20% a day, with no sudden jumps, and keep an eye on deliveries staying normal.

What sinks a number:

• Sending the exact same text to lots of people. Personalise at least the name.
• Putting links in the first message to someone who has never written to you.
• Messaging cold, bought or otherwise unfamiliar lists.
• Jumping from low volume to high volume at once.
• Writing at any hour. Send during business hours, in the recipient's time zone.

What protects it: questions that invite a reply, honouring opt-outs immediately, spreading volume across several numbers instead of squeezing one, and respecting your plan's per-hour limit.

9. If a number stops working

Connected by QR, showing as disconnected. WhatsApp ended the linked session: it happens when the phone stays offline, when you log out from the device, or by a WhatsApp decision. Open the panel, request a new code and scan it again. History and settings are kept; only the session is restored.

You don't have to keep watch: when that happens we send a WhatsApp message to the number that dropped, which reaches your phone because what closed is the CRM's session, not your WhatsApp. That warning carries a reconnect link: open it from that same phone, scan, and you're back, without entering the CRM. It lasts 24 hours and only works for that number. It goes out through another of your connected numbers, so if the one that dropped was your only one, the warning can't go out and is logged under Activity; there, in the panel, every dropped number has its own Reconnect link button.

Connected by QR, restricted by WhatsApp. If the restriction is temporary, disconnect it from everything, wait for it to lift on its own and send nothing for a few days. When you come back, start the warm-up in section 8 from the beginning, more slowly than the first time. A second restriction is usually permanent.

Official number that stops sending. There's no session to drop here: what changes is what Meta lets you do. Check the quality rating and sending limit in your business's WhatsApp manager, which is where WhatsApp states the reason. It almost always comes from reports and blocks by the people receiving your messages.

10. Troubleshooting

11. Uninstall

When you uninstall the app from the CRM, we stop operating your account and revoke the access tokens. Your CRM conversations stay; what stops is the bridge with WhatsApp.

Before you start

WhatsApp, under its own policies, is what decides your number's quality rating, its sending limit and whether it stays active. Message only people who opted in, and honour opt-out requests. Review the Terms & Conditions before using the Service.

Support

Questions or something not working? Write to us at [email protected].