Before you start
You need:
The Octopods Intercom Inbox App visible in the Intercom conversation sidebar.
A connected WhatsApp channel in Octopods with at least one approved template.
A contact (user or lead) to send to.
If the recipient is not already in your 24-hour WhatsApp session window, a template is the only way to message them.
Open the template flow
Open an Intercom conversation.
Find the Octopods card in the sidebar.
Click Send a message template.
Choose who to send to
The app asks whether the template should go to the current contact or someone else:
Send to this user/lead — sends to whoever is currently in the Intercom conversation.
Search for another user/lead — opens a search panel.
The search panel offers three options:
Search users/leads by ID — paste an Intercom user or lead ID.
Search users/leads by email — paste an email address.
Search users/leads by phone number — paste a phone in E.164 format.
Confirm the match when prompted. If no contact is found, enter a name to create one before continuing.
Pick the channel
The Choose channel screen lists every connected WhatsApp channel you can send from. Click the one you want.
Pick the template
The Your templates screen lists every approved, active template on the selected channel, up to 75 per page. Each row shows the template name, language, and a preview of the body.
Above the list, a reminder reads: If this is the first time you’re contacting this user, make sure you have obtained their consent.
If you have more than 75 templates, use Next to page through them. If you have just added a template in Octopods and it doesn’t appear yet, use Sync templates to pull the latest from WhatsApp.
Note: If the list is empty, the channel has no approved, active templates. Create and approve one first in the Octopods Templates tab for that channel.
Click the template you want to send.
Fill in variables and media
The next screen shows the template name at the top. What you see below depends on the template:
Template with no variables and no media header — a single message: All looking good! Please click next to proceed with sending your template. Click Next.
Template with a media header — a prompt reading Please provide a link to your {image/video/document} header and an Enter a url… input. Paste a publicly reachable URL that points to a file matching the header’s declared type.
Template with variables — a prompt reading Please enter a text value for each of your template’s variables. The template is grouped into sections — Template Header, Template Body, Template Footer, Template Button — and each placeholder like
{{1}}becomes a row labelled Enter value to replace: {{1}}.
Fill in every variable and media URL the template shows. Empty variables will render literally (as {{1}}) in the delivered message.
Click Proceed to preview, or Cancel to back out.
Preview and send
The preview screen renders the template exactly as it will appear on the recipient’s device — with your values substituted into each placeholder.
You see up to three buttons at the bottom:
Send message template — sends the template without changing the Intercom conversation.
Send message & open Intercom conversation — sends and opens (or updates) the Intercom thread so replies route back. This appears for WhatsApp channels that support routing replies back to Intercom.
Cancel — abandons the send.
Tip: The preview is your last chance to catch typos in variable values. Read it end-to-end before clicking send.
After sending, the app confirms success and the message appears in the channel’s proactive message history.
What’s next