Setting Up Forms

Introduction:

Introducing Forms, a powerful tool designed to enhance how businesses interact with their customers on WhatsApp. This document provides a comprehensive guide on setting up, creating, and utilising Forms to improve customer interactions and streamline various processes directly within WhatsApp.

What is Forms? 

Forms provide a structured framework for businesses to gather information, manage conversations, and enhance user experience. 

It is a comprehensive form builder for Whatsapp that helps businesses build interactive communication to gather information and enhance user experience.

Benefits of using Forms:

Unlike traditional question-answer bot flows, Forms streamline interactions, making data collection more organised and efficient. Businesses can utilise these forms for various tasks such as payment collection, signup processes, booking appointments, and more, all within the WhatsApp environment.

This seamless integration reduces user drop-off rates and increases task completion rates, ensuring a more satisfying user experience.

Creating Forms with JSON on Facebook Business Manager

Flow Builder helps developers manage their Forms. Inside the code editor, developers can edit the JSON of existing Forms.

Here’s how you can access the Flow Builder : 

1. Accessing the Flows Section:
   
   Navigate to the “Flows” section in the WhatsApp Business Account tab.
   Click on “New Flow” in your Verloop.io’s Dashboard and you will be redirected to your Facebook Business Manager.
2. Create New Flow:
   
   Under Account Tools, click on “Flows”.
   Upon clicking, you will find a list of all your forms in the Whatsapp Business Account. 
   
   
3. The “Create Flow” button on the top right corner will help you create new flow. 
   
   
4. Editing Flow:
   
   To edit a flow, you can use the code panel to configure the JSON. Click ‘Run’ to update the preview panel on the right-side with the code in the editor. 
   
   

Syncing the Forms on Verloop.io’s Dashboard

To sync Forms from Facebook Business Manager to Verloop.io’s dashboard, follow these steps:

1. Access the Forms Section:

Navigate to the “Forms” section in the Whatsapp Business Account tab.

2. Synchronise Forms:

Click on the “Synchronise Forms” button to initiate syncing.

If no forms are available, you will be prompted to create a new flow on Facebook Business Manager.

If no forms are available, you will be prompted to create a new form on Facebook Business Manager.

3. View Synced forms:

Once synced, you will see a list of all your forms with basic details such as flow name, status (drafted, published, deprecated, etc.), expires in (when the form expires) and actions.

Note: 

Actions:
Under actions, there are two options available:

1. Edit – This option enables you to edit the form. Clicking on this option will redirect you to Facebook Business Manager.

2. Form Setup –  Clicking on ‘Form Setup’ will open out a Form Settings screen, where you can set up a message to be sent if this form has been accessed from a pre-closed conversation and the form expiry duration. 

Form expiry lets you add an expiry time (in hours) for when you want the form to expire. This enables you to manage forms effectively as they are time-bound. Along with form expiry duration, you can also set up a message that needs to be sent if the form has been accessed post-expiry.

Default Settings –

Please note that the default form expiry is set as 0 hrs. (This means the form never expires.)
The default message is set as – “Thank you for your submission, but the form has expired. Please reply or send us a message to continue.”

You can change these according to your requirements.

4. Utilise Forms in Outreach: 

Create templates with form CTAs to send interactive messages to your customers. You can send these templates via API or by uploading an Excel file with the required details.

1. Marketing – Form Templates
   
   • Create a new template. 

• Fill in the template name and select your desired language. The guidelines for the template name are that the name can only contain lowercase alphanumeric characters, underscores and should not start with ‘sample’.
  
• Select “Marketing” as the category. 

• Select “Form” as the sub-category. 

• You can now fill in the necessary details you desire. The header and footer are optional. Click the toggle on if you wish to add them. You can then enter the Button Label under ‘Buttons’.  And also select the form you want to add.
  
  
  
• Depending on the form selected, you can choose the Flow Action, between ‘Navigate’ and ‘data exchange’. 

Data Exchange : You can only use this action if your Flow is connected to a Data Endpoint. Use it when you need to send data to your server before moving to the next screen or ending the flow. The server will then decide the next step and provide the needed information.

Navigate : This option triggers the next screen in the flow using the provided payload from the chosen first screen. The CTA button is disabled until the required data is supplied.

• Finally, synchronise forms to enable forms as your CTA.
  
  

2. Marketing – Custom Templates 

• Create a new template.
  
  
  
• Select “Marketing” as the category and “Custom” as the sub-category.
  
  
  
  
• Upon filling in all other details, now you can click the Button toggle on. 

• You can now select the type of button you require and fill the necessary details for the same and add button to the form. Click on “Create Template”.

3. Utility – Custom Templates 

• Create a new template.
  
  
  
  
• Select “Utility” as the category. Select “Custom” as the sub-category. 

• Upon filling in all other details, now you can click the Button toggle on. 

• You can now select the type of button you require and fill in the necessary details for the same and add the button to the form. Click on “Create Template”.

5. Forms block in Bot builder: 

While creating a bot recipe, add a new block called “Forms”.

Here you can upload any desired media file, enter the question and the CTA button text. Next, configure the subsequent recipe steps for when the form is submitted and also a fallback flow for when any failure/error occurs while submitting the form.  

Note: 

Under form settings:

You can select the form which you’d like to trigger. Upon selecting the desired form, the form status will be visible. Also select the form action.

You can also select the first screen to be shown from the drop down. 

By following these steps, you can effectively create, manage, and utilise Forms to enhance customer interactions and streamline various processes directly within WhatsApp.