Skip to main content

Connecting With Coexistence

Connecting your number used to mean choosing between a bot and your team. Coexistence removes the choice: the number stays signed in on the phone, your staff keep answering from the WhatsApp Business app, and the bot answers on the same number alongside them. This page is the walkthrough — roughly ten minutes from the first click to a working connection.

What Coexistence Means​

Coexistence is Meta's term for one number being used two ways at once.

  • Your number stays live on the phone — it remains signed in to the WhatsApp Business app, and nobody has to hand the phone over or stop using it
  • Your team keeps working the way they already do — they open the app, read a chat, and reply by hand whenever they want to
  • The bot answers on the same number — clients see one conversation, not two, and never learn which replies came from a person
  • What your staff type on the phone shows up in Remo — those messages appear in the conversation in the dashboard, so the bot and your reporting both stay aware of them

This is the default and it is not something you switch on. Choosing Meta Cloud API and completing the connection gives you Coexistence.

Where to Start​

In your project, go to Configuration → Advanced → WhatsApp provider. That card is where a project's connection method lives.

Step 1 — Choose Meta Cloud API​

Pick Meta Cloud API on the WhatsApp provider card. WAHA is not on the tile for new projects, so on a fresh project this is the only option you'll see.

Step 2 — Press Connect WhatsApp​

Choosing Meta reveals a Connect WhatsApp button. Pressing it opens a popup that belongs to Meta, not to Remo — the whole signup happens inside Meta's own window, and Remo waits for the result.

The Connect button is in English

The Connect WhatsApp button and its surrounding labels are shown in English even when your dashboard is set to Spanish. Meta's popup follows your Meta account's own language settings, which are separate from Remo's. Nothing is broken — it just isn't translated yet.

What You Do in Meta's Popup​

Meta runs the signup, so the exact wording on each screen is theirs and can change. The sequence is consistent:

  1. Sign in with your Meta account — the account behind your business's Facebook or Instagram presence
  2. Accept the terms — Meta's terms for the WhatsApp Business Platform
  3. Pick or create your business portfolio — Meta's container for everything your business owns on its platform
  4. Pick or create your WhatsApp Business Account — the account your number will belong to
  5. Add and verify your number — Meta confirms you control it, so keep the phone within reach
  6. Grant Remo access — the final screen, where you authorize Remo to send and receive on that number

When the last screen closes, you're connected.

Have the phone with you before you begin

The verification step happens in the middle of the popup, not at the end. If you start without the phone in reach, you'll be stuck holding an open Meta window waiting for a code.

What Happens Automatically Right After​

This is the part worth sitting still for. As soon as the connection is granted, Remo pulls in your history — you don't press anything, and it happens once.

  • Up to 180 days of past conversations are imported — with their original timestamps, so a chat from two months ago sits where it belongs in the timeline instead of pretending to be new
  • Imported history does not trigger the bot — nobody receives a surprise reply to a message they sent in March. The history is loaded for context and for your team to read, nothing more.
  • Your phone's contacts are imported — the address book on the connected phone becomes contacts in Remo
  • Messages your staff type on the phone start appearing in Remo — from this point on, a reply someone sends from the WhatsApp Business app shows up in the conversation in the dashboard

The practical effect is that your dashboard doesn't start empty. You open Chats on day one and find the relationships you already have, in order, ready to continue.

What the import does not do
  • Photos, audio and files inside imported history are not downloaded — you'll see that a message existed, but not the attachment itself. Those stay on the phone.
  • The sync runs once and there's no retry button — it's best-effort. If it comes up short, there is currently no way to ask for it again from the dashboard.
  • It has to finish within 24 hours of connecting — Meta only makes the history available for a limited period after you grant access, so don't connect on a Friday evening and check back next week.

Who Owns What​

Coexistence does not hand your WhatsApp presence to Remo. The split is worth being clear about before you sign anything.

  • Your business owns its WhatsApp Business Account — it lives in your Meta business portfolio, under your Meta account
  • Your business owns the phone number — it's yours before, during, and after
  • Your business owns its ads and its Meta assets — Remo does not take ownership of anything you already run on Meta
  • Remo is granted access, not ownership — what you approve on the last popup screen is permission to send and receive on your behalf
  • You can remove that access at any time — from your own Meta business settings, without asking Remo. The bot stops; your number, history, and account stay with you.
  • Meta bills you directly for messaging — the conversation fees are between your business and Meta, and never pass through Remo

After You Connect​

The connection confirms itself with a brief on-screen message and then the popup is gone.

There is currently no persistent "connected as…" indicator on the provider card — nothing that stays on screen afterwards telling you which number is live. That's a genuine gap today, not something you're failing to find. Until it exists, the reliable way to confirm a working connection is to watch a real message arrive in Chats, or to send yourself one from another phone.

A sensible order for the rest of the first day:

  1. Check that history landed — open Chats and look for conversations you recognize
  2. Write the bot's prompts before it meets anyone — Configuration → Advanced is what actually shapes its answers
  3. Rehearse in private — Internal Chat runs the real bot without messaging a real person
  4. Turn on the alerts that matter — High-Priority Alerts will tell you if inbound messages stop arriving

Tips​

Tell your team before you connect, not after

Nothing about their day changes — same phone, same app, same chats. But the first time a client gets an instant, well-written answer that nobody on the team wrote, somebody will assume the account was compromised. One message in the group chat beforehand saves that whole conversation.