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Activating and Deactivating Messaging Channels
Several types of enhanced Messaging channels in Agentforce Service include the option to activate, deactivate, or refresh the channel. These options give you more control over when a channel goes live. Review tips for activating a channel, deactivating a channel, and refreshing a channel’s connection to an external messaging app such as WhatsApp.
Required Editions
| View supported editions. | |
This article applies to:
|
Enhanced WhatsApp, Enhanced SMS, Enhanced Facebook Messenger, Enhanced Apple Messages for Business, and Enhanced LINE channels |
This article doesn’t apply to:
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Enhanced In-App Chat, Standard and Enhanced SMS, Enhanced Web Chat v1, Enhanced Web Chat v2, Standard Facebook Messenger, and Bring Your Own Channel |
Activating a Channel
After you create and customize a channel, select Activate Channel on the channel record home page to start the flow of messaging traffic into Salesforce. We’ll ask you to verify that you completed the tasks on the activation checklist before activating.
If your channel is an enhanced WhatsApp channel, try to activate it within 14 days of creating it. If more time has passed, you must reverify your number with WhatsApp in one of two ways:
- Log into Meta Business Manager, go to your number settings, and reverify it.
- Repeat the New Channel setup flow on the Messaging Settings page using the same phone number.
Deactivating a Channel
To pause messaging traffic in an enhanced Messaging channel, select Deactivate Channel on the channel record home page. Deactivating stops the flow of messages to and from Salesforce in the channel, including auto-responses. However, customers can still send you messages.
You can reactivate a channel at any time, but keep these items in mind:
- When a LINE, WhatsApp, or Apple Messages for Business channel is deactivated, there’s no way for you to view and respond to messages sent to your messaging account.
- When a Facebook Messenger channel is deactivated, you can go to the Facebook Messenger admin dashboard to view and respond to messages sent to your messaging account.
- If you’re deactivating your channel as a temporary measure, we recommend reactivating within 48 hours to avoid missing customer messages. Here’s why: 48 hours after deactivation, all open messaging sessions in your channel will be ended. Open sessions include those in which a customer sent you a message while the channel was deactivated. If you reactivate the channel later, those sessions are available in Salesforce, but they aren’t routed to your support team because their status is Ended. By reactivating before 48 hours have passed, you ensure that those new messages are routed to your support team.
Refreshing a Channel's Connection
Sometimes, a connection to an external messaging app gets interrupted or stuck in a pending state. Refreshing restores the connection so your team can continue helping customers. It doesn’t affect open messaging sessions. Depending on the channel type, we may ask you to reenter some channel details.
Certain channel actions are limited in enhanced WhatsApp channels:
- Don’t refresh an enhanced WhatsApp channel’s connection more than 10 times in 72 hours.
- Don’t activate and deactivate an enhanced WhatsApp channel more than 5 times in 72 hours. Refreshing a sandbox deactivates any active channels in the sandbox.
Checking a Channel's Status
To see whether a channel is active, go to the Messaging Settings page in Setup. Find your channel in the list and look at the Active column. If the checkbox is selected, the channel is active.
