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Templates and troubleshooting

Starting from a template

When you click New flow, you can either start blank or clone one of three built-in templates. Cloning creates a full copy in your account — nodes, trigger, everything — as a Draft, so you can edit freely before activating.

The New flow dialog with the template gallery highlighted, showing three cards: Welcome menu, FAQ bot, Lead captureThe New flow dialog with the template gallery highlighted, showing three cards: Welcome menu, FAQ bot, Lead capture
Pick a template, or scroll down to start blank instead.
  1. Click New flow on the Flows list.
  2. Pick a template card, or use Or start blank below the gallery if none fit.
  3. The new flow opens in the builder as a Draft — nothing is active until you review it and click Activate.

Welcome menu

Greets customers who type a keyword (support, help, hi by default) and routes them to the right agent based on whether they're an existing customer or new. Two buttons, two handoffs — see the full walkthrough in the welcome menu tutorial.

FAQ bot

Fully automated — no handoff required for the common case. A contact types a keyword (faq, question, info by default), picks a topic from a list (opening hours, pricing, refund policy, or "talk to a human"), and the bot replies with the answer and ends the run. Only "talk to a human" reaches a Handoff to agent node.

Lead capture

Triggers on a contact's first-ever inbound message — no keyword needed. Asks for name, email and company one at a time with a Collect input chain, then hands off to sales. Its handoff note references the three answers, but handoff notes aren't filled in or shown in the inbox yet, so add a Send message that repeats the answers before the handoff. The lead capture tutorial shows how.

Troubleshooting

The flow didn't start

Check, in order:

  • It isn't Active — a Draft or Archived flow never triggers.
  • It's scoped to a different WhatsApp number. A flow with no number set only serves your account's default number.
  • The customer tapped a button or list row instead of typing the keyword — taps never start a new flow, only typed text does.
  • An older active flow's keyword matched first — when more than one active flow could apply, Relay starts the one created first.
  • The contact already has an active run on that number — a second trigger match is ignored until the first run ends.

Activate is disabled, or activating fails

Read the validation panel at the bottom of the builder — every issue names the node and the problem. The most common causes are an unconnected branch (a button, row, or If/else path with no next node), a node that's unreachable from the entry node, a keyword trigger with no keywords set, or text over one of WhatsApp's limits. See the node reference for every limit.

The validation panel showing two errors and one warning after an unconnected node was added to the canvasThe validation panel showing two errors and one warning after an unconnected node was added to the canvas
Each issue is clickable — it jumps you straight to the node that needs fixing.

The bot stopped replying partway through

Two explanations cover almost every case: either an agent replied to the conversation from the shared inbox (which ends the run as Paused by agent), or the run went 24 hours without a reply and timed out. Check the run's status on the Runs page to tell which.

The customer says they're stuck

The flow is very likely paused, waiting for a tap or a typed answer at a Send buttons, Send list, or Collect input node. After 2 unrecognized replies in a row, Relay hands the conversation off automatically rather than looping forever. Open the run on the Runs page to see the current node and the full event log — that will show you exactly what the contact sent and why it didn't match.