WhatsApp Settings, the Chat Assistant tab, then Settings. This page follows the screen from the top. Ten minutes to set up for a typical business, and the first few bookings will tell you what to adjust.
The switch
Switch the assistant on, at the top. On means it answers every new enquiry that is not on a job. Off here is off everywhere. You can also stop it on one conversation at a time without touching this. Taking over.
Leave it off until the services list below is filled in. Switched on with an empty list, it hands every enquiry to a person, which is safe but pointless.
What it reads from ServiceM8
Under the switch, a line such as “Using your ServiceM8 opening hours: Mon to Fri 8am to 5pm, Sat 8am to 12pm”. Those hours, your timezone, your staff, and everything already on your dispatch board come from ServiceM8 every time, along with any time blocked out in ServiceM8, including events from a calendar linked on a staff profile. A block on one engineer’s calendar stops only that engineer.
If the hours are wrong, fix them in ServiceM8 and reload. If it says “ServiceM8 has no opening hours set for this account”, set them in ServiceM8 under Settings; the assistant cannot offer any times until you do.
You do not maintain a second copy of anything ServiceM8 already knows.
What it can book, and how long each takes
The services list. The assistant matches what a customer asks for to this list, and anything not on it goes to a person. Each service has a name, how long it takes, and one of three ways it is handled.
- Book it. Goes straight on the board for a job that long. “Boiler service, 1 hour”.
- Get details, then quote. For jobs you cannot size without knowing more. The assistant asks two or three sizing questions written for your trade, asks for photos, takes name and address, and hands everything to you to price from the chat. No visit is booked. “Power flush”: nobody can say how long that takes without counting radiators.
- We call back. Takes one question and their details, and hands off. “New bathroom”.
The length is the field that has to be honest. The assistant only offers a window if an engineer has that much clear time inside it, plus 30 minutes of travel either side. Too short and jobs overrun; too long and mornings look full when they are not.
Price is optional. If you type one, the assistant says it: “That’s £85. Which day suits?” If you leave it blank, it does not talk about money.
Adding a service
Add a service gives two choices.
From a job template. Pick one of your ServiceM8 job templates. The job the assistant books is made through that template, so it arrives with whatever the template holds: badges, checklist, line items and their prices. The add-on cannot read a price off a template, so if you want the assistant to quote one, type it in the price box. That box only affects what the chat says; the template prices the job.
Start from scratch. Give it a name, choose a job category to file it under, and search your materials list for the line items it should carry, with quantities. The job is made with those items on it at list price.
For quote jobs
Open the service and you will see the questions it will ask, drafted for that service and your trade. Edit them, add or remove, and once you have typed your own they are asked as written. “Photo of…” says what you want a picture of: “the boiler and its display”.
Who can do it
Open the service and tick the engineers who can do this one. Leave them all unticked and anyone the assistant may book onto can. Useful when only one person is Gas Safe registered.
Rules it always follows
Days a service can or cannot be booked, and a time of day if it has one. A rule with times replaces your opening hours for that service, which is how “quotes on Tuesday evenings” works even though you close at five.
Each rule: which service (or any job), only on or never on, the days, and optionally a from and to time. Three examples, all real:
- Boiler service, only on Monday.
- Any job, never on Friday.
- Quote visits, only Tuesday and Thursday, 5pm to 7pm.
A rule the code applies is a rule you can rely on. The preview at the bottom lets you check that “boiler service, Mondays only” really does produce Mondays before a customer is offered one.
Times to offer
How a customer chooses when.
- Morning or afternoon. Before and after midday, inside your hours. The default, and right for most businesses. A job longer than either half is offered as a whole day.
- Your ServiceM8 booking windows. If you have set up allocation windows in ServiceM8 (Settings, then Allocation Windows), the assistant offers those instead, and the screen shows the exact labels a customer would see. This is an opt-in, not automatic, because ServiceM8 seeds default windows in some accounts and their existence is not consent.
- Exact times. Customers pick a start time, 9am or 10:30am, from the times you have clear for a job that long. Offer times every 30 minutes, an hour, an hour and a half, or two hours. More than three options, so these go out as a list rather than buttons.
How soon someone can book
At least an hour, two hours (the default), or four hours ahead; the next working day at the earliest; or two days ahead. Same-day bookings only happen if you allow them here. Emergencies never book anyway; they get a callback.
No jobs start after
Optional. Leave blank and your opening hours decide. Set 16:00 and nothing is booked to start later than that, even if you are open until five.
Who the assistant can book onto
Anyone active in ServiceM8, with new staff included automatically, or untick to choose. Availability is worked out per engineer: a one-person business gets one engineer’s clear time, a three-van firm gets three. The job goes to whoever has the most room in the chosen window.
What it says to an emergency
Two sentences, yours to edit. In hours: “That’s been passed straight on. Someone will call you back shortly.” Out of hours: “No one may be able to get back to you until tomorrow. I can take your details now and you’ll get a call back in the morning.” Keep the second one honest about when a person will actually see it. It still takes their details so the morning callback has everything in front of them.
What’s free right now, from your board
The preview at the bottom. Pick a service, or “any job, the board as it stands”, and it shows the next two weeks as a customer asking today would be offered them, worked out from your real board. If a service shows nothing, check its rules, its length, and what is already booked.
Save
The button at the bottom. Unsaved changes show as a dot on the tab.
If it says booking is off
“Booking is off until you reconnect ServiceM8” means the add-on needs permission to create jobs and write to the board, and this connection was made before it asked. Setup tab, Reconnect ServiceM8, approve, and come back. Until then a “Book it” service takes the customer’s details and hands over instead. One reconnect needed.