Skip to main content
Every channel can connect a customer in one of two ways: through your shared connection, or through their own provider account. Platform → Channels is where you set up the shared connection for each channel. It also holds the switch that turns a channel on or off for every account.
The Platform Channels page, listing SMS, WhatsApp, RCS and Voice with status badges, and the chosen channel's setup form.

Platform → Channels: each channel down the side, with how its shared connection stands.

The list shows each channel with a badge: For RCS, the badge counts your provider connections instead.

​
Who uses the shared connection

A customer sends through the shared connection when their product includes the channel and they haven’t connected their own. If they connect their own and it’s complete, that is used instead. If they switch back, their own details stay saved. Customers see which one they’re on in their channel settings. See Channels. If a channel’s shared connection is off or incomplete, customers without their own connection have nothing to send through on that channel.

​
Set up SMS, WhatsApp or Voice

1

Open the channel

Select the channel in the list.
2

Fill in the connection

Your SMS gateway’s Server URL, Username and Password. All three are needed.
3

Put it in use

Tick Send through FireFlo’s gateway. It won’t save while a required field is empty, and the message names the missing fields.
4

Save and test

Select Save and test. SMS logs in to the gateway and shows its balance. WhatsApp looks up the shared number, so it needs that number’s Phone number ID to test. The result is kept, so the list shows whether the connection works.
Secrets are encrypted when stored and never shown again. To keep a stored secret, leave its field empty when you save. Changing any field marks the connection Not tested until you test it again.

​
Hosted WhatsApp numbers

Besides the shared number, you can give a customer a number of their own, hosted in your WhatsApp Business Account. The customer has nothing to set up with Meta, and replies reach their Inbox. Staff assign a hosted number on the customer account’s own WhatsApp → Settings page. There, staff see a Hosted phone number ID field, marked “FireFlo staff only”. Enter the number’s ID from Meta’s WhatsApp Manager and select Save. Clear the field and save to take the number away. Hosted numbers share your WhatsApp Business Account, so they share its templates. Each hosted customer sees only the templates they submitted.

​
RCS: providers, bots and routes

RCS has a page of its own with three tabs:
  • Connections: your logins at RCS providers. Select Add connection, choose the Provider, give it a Name, and enter the login. Paste the Callback URL it shows into the provider, so delivery reports, replies, taps and template status reach OMNI. Each connection can be tested, switched off or deleted.
  • Bots and access: the bots on each connection. Providers don’t list their bots, so add each with Add bot, with its id, name, type and the countries it is launched in. Then choose which accounts can use it. Only those accounts can send through it. Deleting a bot removes the routes through it.
  • Default routes: for each country, the bot that sends there. A default route is used by every account that has no route of its own for that country, through bots it is allowed to use.
See RCS for how customers see bots and routes.

​
Who may connect their own

Any customer can connect their own provider account for a channel their product includes, with one exception. A reseller can keep a customer on the SMS gateway it sells them. The customer then can’t connect their own SMS gateway. See Resellers.

​
Switching a channel off for everyone

The switch at the top of each channel reads On for all customers or Off for all customers. Switching off asks first and tells you who it reaches: how many accounts have the channel in their plan, how many of those use their own connection, and how many open broadcasts will be cancelled. When a channel is off:
  • it disappears from every account’s menu, Inbox, contacts, broadcasts and agents, whoever’s connection they use;
  • its sends are refused;
  • its unfinished broadcasts are cancelled.
Plans, settings, templates and history are kept. Switching back on restores everything except the cancelled broadcasts. While it’s off, the page says who switched it off and when. The same switch appears for the channel under Modules.