AI & Automation

WhatsApp auto-replies & templates

How it works

WhatsApp templates in Duwam follow the same structure as official Meta templates:

• Header — a bold line at the top of the message (optional).
• Body — the core message.
• Footer — a small line at the bottom (optional).
• Options (buttons) — up to 5 buttons the customer picks from.

Every field supports:

• Variables substituted automatically on send: {{company.name}} (company name), {{now}} (current time), {{customer.phone}} (the phone number of the customer who messaged you).
• Spintax to vary phrasing automatically so consecutive messages don't read as identical copies — write {Hi|Hello} and Duwam picks one branch at random on each send.

Settings → WhatsApp auto-replies & templates → Templates card opens the template editor with a live preview rendered as a WhatsApp bubble that updates on every keystroke — including a character counter for the poll question when you use tap options.

Message types

When creating a template, pick the message type first:

A customer's tap on a quick-reply button or a list row is exactly equivalent to typing the option number — it opens the linked follow-up template. And if an interactive message can't be displayed for a given customer (an old client, say), the system automatically degrades to a poll and then to numbered text — the message always arrives.

Options display mode (plain text)

For plain-text templates with buttons, choose how they're shown to the customer:

Important: WhatsApp poll questions are limited to roughly 250 characters. If the header + body + footer text exceeds that, the template automatically falls back to a numbered list on send — no content is lost, only the display format changes. The editor shows a live character counter right under the "Tap options" toggle so you know ahead of time if you're going to cross the limit.

Customer auto-replies

Turn on "Auto-reply" from the same page and configure:

• Audience — who the auto-reply applies to:
  • Unregistered numbers only (default) — never auto-replies to your own employees, only to external customer numbers.
  • Everyone who messages the number — includes your own employees too.

Priority order for every inbound message (stops at the first match, highest wins — menu reply → keyword → welcome → fallback):

1. Numbered reply to a previous menu — if the customer's reply matches an option from a menu Duwam sent them within the last 24 hours, the template linked to that option is sent immediately (this is how branching menus — main menu → submenu — get built).
2. A matching keyword rule — if the above doesn't apply, and the message text matches one of the configured keyword rules, its linked template is sent — and this wins even while the customer is still inside the welcome cooldown window.
3. Welcome template — if no keyword matched, and this is either the number's first contact or the cooldown period (24 hours by default) since the last welcome has elapsed — so a customer returning after a long gap gets welcomed again instead of being treated as an ongoing conversation.
4. Fallback template — if none of the above applies. If no fallback template is configured, no auto-reply is sent.

• Human-reply pause (30 minutes by default) — if an employee replies to the customer manually, the auto-reply engine backs off for this entire window (applied before the priority order above — no auto-reply goes out during it regardless of what would otherwise match) so it doesn't talk over an ongoing human conversation.

Click "Test on my number" to send the current welcome message to your own phone and check how it looks before turning auto-reply on for real.

Automation integration

Beyond direct auto-replies, inbound and outbound WhatsApp messages can also drive general automation rules:

• The "WhatsApp Customer Message" trigger fires whenever a customer sends a message to the company's WhatsApp number, with an optional keyword filter to narrow scope (e.g., only run the rule when the message contains "complaint").
• The four WhatsApp send actions — usable from any automation rule, not just on inbound messages — WhatsApp to Assignee, WhatsApp to User, WhatsApp to Phone, and WhatsApp to Team — each include a "Template" option that overrides the manually written message text, letting you reuse the same Meta-style templates you built on this page instead of writing free text in every rule.

Channel limits — the honest version

Duwam's WhatsApp channel is unofficial (it connects to your number directly, not through Meta's official WhatsApp Business API). That has direct consequences:

• A daily cap with a warm-up ramp — a newly linked number starts at a low cap (30 messages/day) that ramps up over a week to the full cap (200 messages/day), to avoid the number getting flagged as spam.
• Auto-reply responses to inbound messages bypass quiet hours — since the customer initiated contact, they get an instant reply regardless of the time of day.
• Other automated messages (reminders, automation alerts, notifications, etc.) do NOT bypass quiet hours — they're deferred until outside the quiet window configured in company settings.
• A reply can be silently skipped if it hits the global send throttle (one message per 10 seconds) — rapid consecutive taps on the same template can cause one of them to be dropped without an error notice.
• A customer's tap on a poll option reaches automation keyword filters as the option's NUMBER, not its label text — if you build an automation rule matching a keyword after a poll menu, match against the number, not the button's wording.

FAQ

Q: My template has a header, body, footer, and buttons, but the message arrived without tap options. Why? A: The message text most likely exceeded the 250-character poll limit and fell back to a numbered list. Check the character counter in the editor.

Q: I turned auto-reply off, but customers are still getting automatic responses. A: Confirm the main toggle is actually off in Settings, and that the reply isn't coming from a separate automation rule using a WhatsApp action with a template attached.

Q: Does auto-reply also fire on messages from my own employees? A: Not by default — audience is set to "Unregistered numbers only." Switch it to "Everyone who messages the number" if you want that.

Q: Why do some automated messages not arrive at night? A: Default quiet hours run 11 PM to 7 AM Riyadh time. The only exception is the auto-reply engine responding to an actual inbound customer message.

Quick reference