What a customer sends
Photos and documents are saved onto the job as attachments as soon as the conversation is on one. If the conversation is still a new enquiry, they are kept with it and go onto the job the next time it is opened after you convert.
If the download fails the first time, which happens when WhatsApp is slow, we keep trying for about a month. WhatsApp keeps the file that long, so a temporary failure recovers on its own.
Once ServiceM8 confirms it holds a file, we let our own copy go. ServiceM8 is the record. Your data.
“WhatsApp withheld this message”
A grey notice where a photo should be means WhatsApp did not pass it to us, and there was nothing to download. On the “keep my app” route this is almost always a linked device, usually WhatsApp Web on a laptop, that has signed itself out. The fix is in troubleshooting. Several in a row are counted into one notice rather than repeated.
Some message types never come through to any business system: polls, live locations, view-once photos and a few others. The conversation says which it was, so you know something was sent. On the “keep my app” route the message itself is on your phone.
What you send
Attach, under the message box, sends a photo, PDF or other file with an optional caption. Job files sends a quote, invoice or anything else already on the job in ServiceM8, without downloading it first. Both only work inside the 24-hour window; once it closes the buttons say so. Replying has the rest of the buttons.