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Connecting WhatsApp

If your tenants report by WhatsApp (standard in the Gulf), you can point your agency's WhatsApp Business number at PMFriend. From then on, every tenant message lands in the same inbox as email — read and classified by the AI, matched to the tenant by phone number, one tap from becoming a dispatched work order.

What you need​

  1. A WhatsApp Business number for your agency. Ideally the number your tenants already use — nothing changes on their side.
  2. A connection set up with PMFriend. WhatsApp business numbers are managed through Meta (Facebook); connecting one involves a couple of identifiers from the Meta side. Today this is a short assisted step — contact support and we complete it with you in one session. A self-service "Connect WhatsApp" button in Settings is on the roadmap.

How routing works (and why it's safe)​

  • Messages are routed by which number the tenant texted — your number maps to your agency, one-to-one. Your inbox only ever contains messages sent to your number.
  • The sender is matched against your tenant list by phone number. Unknown senders queue as "unresolved" for a quick manual match — to make future messages from them resolve automatically, save that number as the mobile on the tenant's record.
  • In the inbox, WhatsApp messages carry a WhatsApp badge so you can tell channels apart at a glance; email and WhatsApp otherwise behave identically.
  • You keep ownership of your number and (at scale) your own Meta business account — PMFriend is the AI layer on top.

Automatic confirmations — in the tenant's language​

When a message arrives from a tenant on your books, PMFriend immediately replies on WhatsApp: "Thank you — we've received your message and are onto it. We'll keep you updated." — in the language the tenant wrote in (Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali, Sinhala, Tagalog and more; English otherwise). The same confirmation goes out for email reports.

Unknown senders get a different automatic reply — a request for their building and apartment address, in their language — and their message queues under Unresolved for your one-time match (see below).

Photos and replies​

  • Tenant photos come through. When a tenant sends a photo of the problem, it appears in the inbox next to their message — and when you promote the message to a maintenance request, the photos travel with it and the AI reads them when suggesting category and urgency.
  • You reply from PMFriend. Every message in the inbox has a reply box — your answer goes back to the tenant on WhatsApp. One WhatsApp rule applies (set by Meta, not us): free-form replies work within 24 hours of the tenant's last message; after that, PMFriend tells you the window closed instead of silently failing.

Voice notes, locations, and everything else​

  • Voice notes are understood. Many tenants (and building watchmen) speak instead of typing. PMFriend transcribes the voice note — in Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Tagalog and more — and treats the words exactly like a typed message: AI-classified, confirmed back to the tenant in their language. The original audio stays attached so you can listen and verify.
  • A burst of messages is one report. Three photos sent seconds apart, or a quick "also the bathroom" follow-up, land as ONE inbox item — not three.
  • Location pins work. A shared pin becomes a Google-Maps link on the message.
  • More than one number. An account can have several WhatsApp numbers — for example a pilot building's own number next to your main support number. One is the primary number: job updates to tenants and messages to contractors go from it; a reply always goes from the number the tenant wrote to.
  • You choose what happens to numbers nobody knows, per WhatsApp number: ask (the default, below), keep quietly (the message is stored for your team, nothing is sent back), or ignore (nothing is stored or sent — for a shared number whose other buildings are not in PMFriend yet and are still answered elsewhere). We set this with you during onboarding.
  • Unknown numbers are asked for their address. When a message comes from a number not on your books (a spouse's phone, a driver), PMFriend automatically asks — in their language — for the building and apartment, so you can match them in one step.
  • Second numbers and watchmen are remembered. When you match an unknown sender once — to a tenant (a spouse's or driver's phone) or to a whole building (the compound watchman who reports for twenty villas) — PMFriend remembers, and every future message from that number resolves automatically. A watchman's report lands already linked to the right property, ready to become a work order. How: open the message under Unresolved, choose A tenant or A building (watchman), pick the record, and leave “remember this sender” on. That's the whole setup — once per number.
  • Nothing is lost silently. Message types PMFriend can't process yet (video, documents) get a polite reply asking for text, a photo, or a voice note.

If messages stop arriving​

Silence is the one failure that looks like good news. If your WhatsApp number (or email intake) has received nothing for seven days after it was working, PMFriend assumes something broke — a disconnected number, a lapsed Meta connection, a changed forward — and tells you: a line at the top of the Attention Inbox, a notification, and an email to every agency admin, once a week until messages flow again. A brand-new intake that hasn't received anything yet is not flagged — the first message proves the pipe.

Current limitations​

Video and document messages are not processed yet (the sender is told).

See also​

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