Message someone new from the API and get a real contact

If your integration messaged a number for the first time, the chat that appeared had no contact behind it. That's fixed — and you can now name the person in the same call.

What's new

• A first message creates the contact — message someone your workspace has never spoken to and their contact is created automatically, so the conversation opens as a normal chat: the contact panel, tags, notes and assignment all work. Previously it appeared as a bare phone number you couldn't do anything with.
• Name them while you message them — pass firstName, lastName, displayName or email alongside a send and they land on the contact. One call instead of two, so a number turns into a named person the moment you first reach them.
• You decide what may be replaced — the new override setting says whether details the contact already has can be overwritten. Left off, anything missing is still filled in and what's already on record is kept. On a brand-new contact everything is empty, so it makes no difference either way.
• A name you typed yourself stays put — if someone on your team has given a contact their own label in the chat list, an integration never writes over it.
• First and last name on the contacts API — creating, updating and reading a contact now handles the name as separate first and last fields, not only one combined label.
• Nothing to change — contacts and integrations you already have keep working exactly as they are. Chats that were left without a contact before this are unaffected; get in touch and we'll reconnect them.