Home¶

The Home is the assistant's control centre and your business overview. It's the first screen you see when you enter the dashboard.

At the top there's a green band with the overline YOUR WHATSAPP ASSISTANT, your business name and the status Active, replying to messages. On the right sits the assistant's master switch: on, the assistant replies to your clients; off, everything stays silent. When your account is created it is already on. It's Wably's most important control.

The assistant's controls¶

The controls sit in three cards: how the assistant works and what it does on its own, the messages your clients receive, and what reaches you by email.

How the assistant behaves¶

The How the assistant behaves card, subtitled "How it works and what it does on its own.", holds the tone, the review request, saving new contacts and the daily safety limit.

The Tone selector has two options:

• Friendly: informal register.
• Formal: polite, formal register.

(available from the Standard plan)

Review request - "Asks the client for a review after their first appointment." When you switch it on, two selectors appear.

Sending channel has three options:

• Email: the request goes out by email only. Clients who have not left an address do not receive it.
• WhatsApp: the request goes out on the number the client wrote to you from.
• Email + WhatsApp: email when you have it, WhatsApp in every other case. It is the option that reaches the most clients.

Below the selector the dashboard always shows the cost information: WhatsApp messages are billed by Meta to your business account, and the review request falls into the Marketing category, which is dearer than a reminder. Next to it you find the current rate for your country and the link to Meta's price list. Email has no cost.

When to send it decides how long after the end of the appointment the request goes out: 3 hours, 1 day, 2 days or 3 days. Leave it alone and it stays at 1 day. No request goes out at night: the sending window runs from 8:00 to 21:00 in the time zone set in Profile, and if the calculated moment falls outside that window the request goes out the following morning.

The request goes out once per client, after their first appointment, and never a second time: if you change channel, anyone who has already received it does not receive it again.

You set the link to send in Info & services, in the Review link field. Without that link the request does not go out.

(available from the Standard plan)

Save new contacts to Google Contacts - "The assistant adds new clients to your address book." Clients who book an appointment through Wably on WhatsApp are automatically added to the Google address book connected to your account. The toggle is optional: if you leave it off, Wably still manages bookings without saving contacts to your Google address book.

Daily safety limit - "Pauses the assistant beyond this number of messages a day. We'll let you know by email." The selector has four values: 200, 360, 800 and 1500 messages a day. See the dedicated section further on.

Reminder settings¶

The Reminder settings card, subtitled "The messages your clients receive.", gathers three toggles.

Send reminders - "Send the client the appointment reminder the day before." When it's on, the Type selector and the Send time choice appear. It starts out on, with the Alert type and sending at 11:00: reminders go out on their own for every appointment, and each one is a WhatsApp message that Meta bills to your business account. If you do not want to send them, switch it off.

Type has two options:

• Alert: sends a simple informational reminder.
• Confirmation: sends a confirmation request with buttons, so the client can confirm or change the appointment directly from WhatsApp.

Send time decides what time the reminder goes out the day before: 09:00, 11:00 or 17:00. The dashboard notes that "11:00 is recommended: it leaves you the whole day to fill the slot if somebody cancels." Leave it alone and it stays at 11:00.

Below it comes Second reminder on the day itself - "A second message a few hours before the appointment. This is the one that cuts no-shows the most." It stays off until you switch it on. Once it's on, you choose how many hours before the appointment it goes out: 2, 3 or 4, with 3 as the starting value.

The second reminder is always a simple alert, with no confirmation buttons. It never goes out before 7:00 in the morning, so for early-morning appointments it leaves at 7:00, and it's skipped if the appointment is less than an hour away.

(available from the Standard plan)

Follow-up - "Writes to clients who haven't booked in a while and offers them a new appointment." When you switch it on, two selectors appear.

After how many weeks decides how much time must pass from the end of the last appointment: 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 or 12 weeks. Leave it alone and it stays at 4. The count starts again from zero with every new appointment, and if the client already has one on the calendar the follow-up doesn't go out.

Sending channel has the same three options as the review request: Email, WhatsApp, Email + WhatsApp.

As with the review request, below the selector the dashboard shows the cost information: WhatsApp messages are billed by Meta to your business account, and the follow-up falls into the Marketing category, which costs more than a reminder. Email is free.

The follow-up goes out only once per cycle, during the day, between 10:00 am and 7:00 pm in the time zone set in Profile, and if the client doesn't come back they receive no further messages. Anyone who replies on WhatsApp talks directly to the assistant, which offers them times and confirms the booking in the same chat. How it works and who it's for is explained on the client follow-up page.

(available from the Standard plan)

Alerts for you¶

The Alerts for you card, subtitled "What reaches you by email", gathers three toggles.

Daily summary by email - "Receive a daily email at 7:00 pm with everything the assistant has handled." See the section below.

Monthly report by email - "On the 1st of every month, a summary of what the assistant has handled and the time it has saved you." It arrives on the first day of each month and sums up the month just closed. It starts out on, like the master switch, reminders and the cancellation alert: the other toggles on the Home start off and you switch them on yourself. If you do not need the report, switch it off. It is included in every plan, Starter included, unlike reminders, the formal tone and the review request.

Upcoming appointment cancellation alert - "Receive an email as soon as a client cancels or reschedules an appointment within the time window you select." When it's on, the Alert me if less than selector appears, with the 24, 48 and 72 hour thresholds. It starts out on, with the 48 hour threshold. See the dedicated section further on.

The daily summary by email¶

With the Daily summary by email toggle on, you receive an email at 7:00 pm with everything the assistant has handled.

The email only goes out if there was something to report: if the assistant recorded no new bookings and no changes in the last 24 hours, you get nothing.

The toggle is optional: if you leave it off, you won't receive any summary.

Alert for cancellations of upcoming appointments¶

When a client cancels or reschedules an appointment by writing to your assistant on WhatsApp, and that appointment was close, you get an email within a few minutes. So you know a slot has freed up while there's still time to fill it.

With Alert me if less than you choose the threshold: 24, 48 or 72 hours. If the client cancels an appointment set beyond that threshold we don't disturb you: you'll find it in the daily summary.

The email shows the slot that has freed up, how long is left, the client's name and the service, with a button to message them on WhatsApp in one tap. If several slots free up at the same time, they all arrive in a single email.

Daily safety limit: how to protect your WhatsApp costs¶

The messages the assistant sends on WhatsApp aren't billed by Wably: they're billed by Meta, straight to your business's WhatsApp Business account. They're your expense, so we give you a simple way to keep them in check.

The Daily safety limit pauses the assistant if it goes past the number of messages you picked within 24 hours. It's there for the odd situations: a spam run, a number that writes obsessively, another automated system that answers the assistant in a loop. Rare cases, but if they happen overnight they push your spend up without you noticing.

The default value is 360 messages a day: more than enough for a practice with a full diary. The other values available are 200, 800 and 1500.

When the limit kicks in, the assistant stops replying until midnight in the time zone you set in Profile, then starts again on its own. At the same moment you get an email straight away with:

• the messages sent during the day,
• the limit you had set,
• the time the assistant switches back on,
• the numbers that triggered the most replies.

With those numbers in front of you it's a one minute decision: if a contact is abusing it, you block them straight from your WhatsApp app; if it was simply a busy day, you raise the limit from the Home and the assistant picks up again right away.

Anyone who messages the assistant during the pause gets a polite note once only, pointing them to you directly, then the assistant stays quiet: no repeated replies, no cost that multiplies.

The month's summary¶

The panels show the assistant's activity for the current month:

• APPOINTMENTS HANDLED / MONTH: the appointments booked and changed by the assistant.
• REMINDERS SENT / MONTH: the reminders sent.
• FOLLOW-UPS SENT / MONTH: the follow-up messages sent to clients who have not booked for a while.
• REVIEW REQUESTS / MONTH: the review requests sent to clients.

The last two panels appear only on the Standard plan, which includes follow-up and review request.

Integrations¶

At the bottom of the Home, the Integrations card lists the connected services: WhatsApp Business, Google Calendar (with the name of the calendar in use) and Google Contacts. Each one shows the status Connected.

At the bottom of the card you'll find the Manage integrations link, which opens the Integrations screen: that's where you connect or disconnect services and choose which Google calendar the assistant should work on.