WhatsApp

My Work: start your day here

Inbox opens on My Work: your list of who to contact next and why, in this order: Hot reply (the patient just answered), New lead waiting, Patient waiting, Follow-up due and No next step. Work from the top. When the list is empty you see “Nothing waiting. Nice work.”

• Missed calls at the top (Avlu Calls): patients who called and were not answered. Call them back; only a call clears it.
• New leads assigned to you (Avlu Lead Distribution): see Lead distribution.
• Team leaders and admins can show the list of someone else or of a team with Show the queue of.

The order of the list depends on your job function and is set by the admin in Settings → Work queue.

The inbox list

Switch from My Work to Inbox for all the chats you can see:

• Tabs: Mine, Team (team leaders), Unassigned, Waiting (new leads waiting for lead distribution, for the people who may assign them) and All.
• Search, Sort by (Most recent, Waiting longest, Priority, Follow-up date) and filters: status, stage, last contact, follow-up (Due today, Tomorrow, This week, No follow-up), priority, labels, the WhatsApp number and More (for example Needs reply, No reply yet, Favorites, the 24-hour window, snoozed chats, country).
• Views: Save current view keeps a filter for yourself, your team or everyone; Manage views renames, reorders, shares or archives them.

Working a conversation

The chat is in the middle and the patient's side panel on the right: the patient, the patient file, notes, calls, treatment plans (Avlu Treatment Plan) and the flight-ticket deposit (Deposits extra).

The buttons at the top of a chat:

• Claim (“Take this conversation”): only for a chat that is not a new lead, for example a patient who writes again.
• Assign (team leaders and admins): Find a person, or Unassigned. A patient advisor in a TC pod sees Hand over to and the coordinator's name.
• Follow-up, Log call, the star (Add to favourites) and Priority: Urgent, High, Normal or Low.
• Status: New, Open, Pending or Closed. Closing a chat with an open follow-up asks “Close this conversation?” first.
• Labels (“Find or create a label”) and Snooze: 1 hour, Later today, Tomorrow, 3 days, Next week or Custom….
• More actions (⋯): No reply needed, Search in conversation, History, Mark do-not-message, Copy link.
• Call (Avlu Calls with the call button on).

Replies and private notes

Under the chat there are two tabs: Reply and Note.

• Reply: type and press Enter to send (Shift + Enter for a new line). Attach photos and documents, record a voice message, add emoji, or type / for your quick replies. Replying in an unassigned chat shows Claim and send and makes the chat yours (if the clinic allows it).
• Note: “Private note: only your team sees this.” Type @ to mention a colleague, then press Add note. The patient never sees notes.

When an advisor types an amount, the app may show “Prices come from the doctor's treatment plan. Check before sending.” The admin switches this hint in Settings → Company → Messages.

A contact that has only a WhatsApp username and no phone number shows Ask for phone number, which sends the clinic's request text.

Templates and the 24-hour rule

WhatsApp lets you write freely only within 24 hours of the patient's last message. The top of the chat shows the window: open, with the time left, or closed.

When the window is closed: “The 24-hour window is closed. The patient must write first, or send an approved template.” The reply box then offers Choose template, Log call and Set follow-up.

1. Press Choose template. Only approved templates you can use are listed.
2. Search, or filter by language and category (utility or marketing), and pick the template in the patient's language.
3. Fill in every variable (and the header file, if the template has one) and send.

• Utility (service) templates are about the patient's own request: photos, the treatment plan, an appointment. They are delivered everywhere, including the USA.
• Marketing templates are offers, lists of treatments or “are you still interested?”. Meta decides the category from the text. They are never delivered to US (+1) numbers: “Only utility templates reach US numbers.”
• No prices, discounts or “free” in templates.
• The clinic sets daily limits and the waiting time between unanswered templates (Settings → Company → Templates policy).

Starting a conversation from a patient file

1. On the patient's file press WhatsApp in the header.
2. In Start a WhatsApp conversation, check the phone number. If your clinic has more than one WhatsApp number, press Next and choose the number under Send from which WhatsApp number?
3. Press Choose template, fill it in and send. “Template sent. The conversation is now yours.”

Writing templates

Templates in the menu has three tabs: WhatsApp templates, Quick replies and Review queue (team leaders and admins).

1. Press New template. Fill in Basics: a Title for the team, the Language, the Purpose and Visible to.
2. Add a Header (optional), the Body with its variables, the Examples for Meta's review, a Footer (optional) and Buttons (optional): up to 10 buttons, at most 2 links and 1 phone number. Never write prices: they come from the doctor's treatment plan.
3. Press Save draft.
4. Agents press Request review: a team leader submits it to Meta. Team leaders and admins press Submit to Meta. Meta reviews it, usually within minutes, sometimes up to a day.

A template's status is Draft, In review, Pending, Approved, Rejected, Paused or Disabled (and a few rarer ones from Meta). Approved templates cannot be edited: duplicate one to change it. Admins can press Sync from Meta to refresh the statuses.

Quick replies

Quick replies are your own ready texts, sent inside the 24-hour window. Templates → Quick replies → New quick reply: a Shortcut, a Title, the Message (it can use the patient's first name or name and the clinic's name and city), an attachment and Visible to. In a chat, type / and the shortcut to insert it.

Follow-ups

A follow-up is a promise: “I will call or write on this day.” The patient comes back to your My Work on that day; late ones show OVERDUE in red.

1. In a chat press Follow-up (or F).
2. Pick Tomorrow, 2 days, 3 days, 1 week or a custom date and time, the channel (WhatsApp, call or either) and a Note (optional).

Follow-ups in the menu lists all of them: “Promised calls and messages.” Groups Overdue, Today, Tomorrow, This week and Later; Mine or the team's. On a row: Open, Done, or Move to Tomorrow, 2 days, 3 days or 1 week with the same channel and note.

Do-not-message

When a patient asks you to stop: More actions (⋯) → Mark do-not-message, with a Reason (optional). Templates are then blocked; you can still reply while the patient writes to you. Only team leaders and admins can Remove do-not-message.

The admin can list opt-out words in Settings → Company → Opt-out keywords: a patient message that is exactly one of these words marks the patient do-not-message by itself.

Labels

Labels group chats, for example by treatment or campaign. In a chat press Labels (or L) and pick or create one. Settings → Labels renames, recolours or archives labels; New label asks for a name, a colour and Visible to: only you, a team or everyone (team and company labels depend on your role).

The Team page (team leaders)

Team in the menu shows the workload per person right now: open chats assigned, needing a reply, unanswered for more than 1 hour, due today, without a next step, and the oldest waiting. Click a number to open those conversations in the inbox.

Your WhatsApp number's quality

Meta rates every business number. The top of the inbox shows it when it drops:

“WhatsApp number at risk (Yellow). Send templates only to patients who expect a message from you, no extra reminders. Focus on open chats and calls.”

Patients have blocked or reported messages. Slow down on templates until the rating recovers.

“WhatsApp number is Red: templates are paused. Reply only in open chats (last 24 hours). Call the other patients.”

The app stops template sends to protect the number. Keep replying in open chats and call the others.

The admin sees the rating, the messaging limit and Meta's alerts in Settings → WhatsApp.