WhatsApp in Bitrix24 Open Channels

Most of what matters in a CRM integration is invisible from a feature list, so here are the parts that take the support calls.

• The conversation keeps one Bitrix24 chat for life. WhatsApp is moving one-to-one chats onto opaque identifiers, and a naive integration opens a second Bitrix24 chat the day it learns a contact’s phone number. The chat key is pinned at the first delivery and never rewritten, so a customer’s history does not fork in the middle of a conversation.
• A group chat never creates a CRM record. On the QR transport a group is one Open Channels chat per group, with no phone attached, and participants are not minted as contacts. A 200-member group would otherwise become 200 lead candidates. Somebody becomes a contact by messaging the business directly.
• The automation step reports back, every time. A Bitrix24 robot that is not answered leaves the record stuck on that step for ever, because Bitrix24 registers no timeout for it. Every outcome — sent, failed, or refused with a reason — releases the step and writes a timeline entry on the record.
• A refusal is on the record, not in a log. If a rule could not send — no mobile number on the responsible person’s profile, a template value left blank, the 24-hour window closed — the reason appears in the CRM timeline where the person who can fix it will see it.
• Nothing is queued into the void. Inbound messages that cannot yet be delivered — because no Open Channel is bound, or a Bitrix24 authorisation has expired — wait rather than failing, and flow the moment the condition clears. They are never silently discarded.
• Where an ad click came from reaches the CRM. If a customer tapped a Click-to-WhatsApp advert, the advert’s identifier, headline and link can be written into fields you choose on the record — so attribution survives the hop from Meta to your pipeline.
• Read state goes both ways. Blue ticks reach the customer when your operator reads the chat, and an operator reading on their own handset clears the unread count in Bitrix24.

An administrator’s first visit registers everything the integration needs. All of it is re-asserted automatically afterwards, because Bitrix24 removes a registered automation step whenever an application is updated:

• an Open Lines connector, which appears as a channel in Contact Center;
• four CRM tab placements — Lead, Deal, Contact and Company — plus Smart Process items;
• two automation steps: send a message, and send an approved template;
• event handlers, so a reply typed in Bitrix24 reaches WhatsApp and a read receipt comes back.

Uninstalling removes them. Messages already delivered stay in your Bitrix24, because they are Bitrix24 records; what we hold is deleted on the schedule in the privacy policy.

On the official platform, from $50 per connected number per month, with your whole team included and no seat charge. Meta’s per-message charges are billed to you by Meta at its own rates, and we add nothing to them. The full price list.

The QR option is priced per number as well and we quote it case by case, because it is not the official transport and the right answer depends on what you intend to send. Ask us.