Before you start
You need:
The Octopods Intercom Inbox App visible in the Intercom conversation sidebar.
A connected VBM channel in Octopods with at least one approved, active template.
A contact (user or lead) to send to.
VBM messages must use an approved template — you cannot send free-text VBM from the Inbox App.
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 the 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 VBM channel you can send from. Click the one you want.
Pick the template
The Your templates screen lists every approved, active template on the channel. 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.
Note: If the list is empty, the channel has no approved, active VBM templates. Submit and approve one in the Octopods Templates tab for that channel first.
Click the template you want to send.
Fill in variables and the header image
The next screen shows the template name at the top. What you see below depends on the template:
No variables and no image header — a single message: All looking good! Please click next to proceed with sending your template. Click Next.
Image header — a prompt reading Please provide a link to your image header and an Enter a url… input. Paste a publicly reachable URL that points to an image file.
Template with variables — a prompt reading Please enter a text value for each of your template’s variables. A Template Body section shows the template text, and each placeholder like
{{1}}becomes a row labelled Enter value to replace: {{1}}.
Fill every variable and image URL the template shows. Empty variables render literally (as {{1}}) in the delivered message.
Click Proceed to preview, or Cancel to back out.
Preview and send
The preview renders the template with your values substituted into each placeholder. You see two or 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) an Intercom thread so replies route back into Intercom.
Cancel — abandons the send.
Tip: If the template has buttons, they appear in the preview as disabled buttons — this is just for preview. The buttons render correctly on the recipient’s device.
After sending, the message appears in the channel’s proactive message history.
What’s next