WA.cr

Build a call menu

Draw a call menu on the Auto Flow canvas — a greeting, keypad options and ring groups — publish it, then point your number at it.

A call menu answers your number for you — it greets the caller, offers keypad choices and rings the right phones. You build it once, on the same Auto Flow canvas as the rest of your automations, and as many of your numbers as you like can answer with it.

Steps

  1. Open Auto Flows and choose New call flow, then pick a shape to start from — Front desk menu, Ring the team, Sort the caller, Announcement only, or start from scratch. Each one opens already wired, and you can change every step afterwards. The recipes below match those shapes.
  2. Every call flow starts from Incoming call. Add or change steps after it: Say something, Offer a menu, Ring a phone, End the call. A shape that rings needs your team's numbers filled in before it can be published — that is deliberate, so a menu never goes live ringing someone else.
  3. Each menu key becomes an outlet on the card — drag from it to what should happen. A key you leave unconnected is simply not offered.
  4. Publish. This saves the menu among your workspace's shared menus — it doesn't put it on a number yet.
  5. Open Channels, pick the line, and under Call menu, set This number answers with to your new menu.
  6. If the number was answering another way, switch How this line answers to Call menu.
  7. Ring your own number and listen, then check the call appeared under Voice → Call logs.

Publishing and attaching are two separate steps. A menu you've only published answers nobody — the number keeps answering the way it did until you point it at the menu, so there's never a gap.

Recipe: a front-desk menu

The classic shape — a greeting, two choices, and the right phones ringing:

  1. Say something: "Hello ${contact_name}, thanks for calling Ananya Textiles." Write ${contact_name} and callers already in your contacts hear their own name; everyone else just hears the sentence without it.
  2. Offer a menu: "Press 1 for sales, or 2 for support." Wire key 1 and key 2 to their own Ring a phone steps.
  3. Ring a phone: add up to ten numbers, and choose all at once (first to pick up wins) or one after another. Add a "tell whoever answers" line — heard only by your teammate before the two are joined: "Store call — answer as the business."

Leaving No key pressed and Nobody answered unconnected is completely normal: the menu replays and the call ends, or the call just ends. Wire them up only when you have something kinder to say.

Recipe: sort callers before anything is said

Sort the caller branches on what the call already knows, before a word is spoken:

  • The caller's name is known — a saved contact — so ring the account team directly.
  • The number they rang is your Mumbai line, so play the Mumbai branch's menu.
  • Everyone else takes the main menu.

Rules check top to bottom and the first match wins; Everyone else must always lead somewhere. It sorts on who is calling and which of your numbers they rang — it can't sort by time of day.

Recipe: after hours, let WhatsApp pick it up

A number answers the same way around the clock — there's no time-of-day switch yet. What works today:

  1. Say your hours in the greeting: "We're open ten to seven."
  2. Let the ring step ring out; the call ends.
  3. Follow up off the phone: a separate Auto Flow that starts from Missed call and sends a WhatsApp message — "Sorry we missed you — reply here and we'll sort it out." That follow-up is an ordinary message flow on the same canvas.

One menu, many numbers

Point several numbers at the same menu, and edit it in one place — every number changes at the same moment, nothing needs re-pointing. Which is also the caution: check which numbers answer with a menu before you edit it.

A number can instead keep Its own saved menu. Switching it to a shared menu keeps its own menu saved, and switching back restores it exactly.

Not every number can run every step

Your numbers aren't all equally capable. A step some of your numbers can't run says so on its card — "Skipped on 2 numbers" — and every spoken message, menu and ring step has an "If a number can't do this" choice. If a menu can't run on a number at all, you're told which number before anything is saved.

On many rented numbers a menu is one level deep — a menu can't open another menu — and an option can't end in a spoken goodbye. Steps like taking a message or handing the call to another system aren't available on every number either; the builder marks them skipped where they can't run.

If it doesn't work

  • Callers hear a short apology — the menu isn't attached, or the number isn't on Call menu. Check both on the line's screen.
  • Publish refuses — an outlet that must lead somewhere doesn't; the builder names the step.
  • Your edits didn't reach callers — re-publish. Once published, the same menu updates every number using it.