Omnichannel overview
What Omnichannel is for, how conversations, contacts, leads and tickets fit together, and how it connects to CRM, Sales and Marketing.
What Omnichannel is for
Omnichannel puts every customer conversation in one inbox. WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, Telegram, email and website chat all arrive in the same list. Your team replies from there, turns a conversation into a CRM lead, a quotation, a sales order or a support ticket, and publishes social posts to the same accounts. Other platforms (LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, X) and custom channels are supported through adapters, each with its own capabilities.
The app opens on the Unified Inbox and has these menus: Inbox, Leads, Social, Campaigns, WhatsApp, Content, Automation, Analytics and Configuration.
Who uses it
- Agents answer conversations, add notes and create leads and tickets. The shipped role is
omni_agent. - Supervisors also see everyone's conversations, set up teams, routing and SLA, and read analytics. The shipped role is
omni_supervisor. - Content and marketing staff write, approve and publish social posts and send WhatsApp broadcasts.
- Administrators connect channel accounts and settings.
Key ideas
Channel account. One connection to a platform, for example your WhatsApp business number or your Facebook page. It can be Sandbox (no calls to the platform, for training and testing) or Live.
Contact. A person who writes to you. The system matches the same person across phone formats, and links them to an existing customer or open CRM lead where it can.
Conversation. The thread with one contact on one channel, numbered like CNV-00001. It has a status (Open, Waiting for customer, Waiting internal, Resolved, Archived, Spam), an owner, a team and an SLA clock.
Team and routing. Routing rules send a new conversation to a team or person. A team can assign automatically, in turn or to the least busy member.
SLA. The time within which you promise a first response. The inbox shows a chip such as Due in 5 min or Overdue.
Lead strategy. The rule for when a conversation becomes a CRM lead, for example After a price request.
24-hour WhatsApp window. WhatsApp allows free-text replies only within 24 hours of the customer's last message. After that you must send an approved template.
Consent. Marketing WhatsApp templates may only go to people who opted in.
How it connects to other modules
- CRM: leads and opportunities are created from conversations and lead ads. Moving a lead status moves the CRM stage.
- Sales: quotations and sales orders are created from a conversation. A confirmed order raises a draft delivery as any sale does.
- Marketing: campaigns, audiences, consent, automation rules and journeys live in Marketing; their menus open from here. Without the Marketing app the screens say it is needed, and marketing messages are not sent.
- Administration: WhatsApp and email accounts, users and roles, and app switches.
- AI: an AI model can suggest, summarise, qualify and translate. Built-in rules are used when no model is set.
Where to go next
Read Getting started with Omnichannel and then Connect a channel.