WhatsApp in SLAtech Vantage: import from a file, not a live connection

SLAtech Vantage has no live connection to WhatsApp, and no phone is linked to it. A chat comes in only when you export it from the phone to a text file and upload that file by hand. The import identifies the chat, matches each sender to a contact and skips messages already stored, so you can upload the same chat again a week later and get only what was added.

Why a file and not a connection

A new WhatsApp message does not reach SLAtech Vantage on its own. There is no account connection, no code to scan and no phone linked to the server. What comes in is what was uploaded, up to the moment of export.

The consequence is simple: the chat in the system is current as of the latest file. To add messages, export again and upload again. A message deleted on the phone after the export stays in the system.

A WhatsApp message does not open a task on its own either. A task whose request came in on WhatsApp is opened by hand, with that source selected.

What you upload, and what is read from it

You upload the text file (.txt) that WhatsApp produces when you export a chat. The file is read in both formats, Android and iPhone, with a 12 or 24 hour clock.

• For each message the sender, time and text are stored. A message spanning several lines is stored as one message.
• System messages, such as the encryption notice or "group created", are not stored.
• Images, files and voice notes do not come in: the text file only holds a marker that they were there.
• The import tells apart a file whose format was not understood from a file with no messages, and says which of the two happened.

Matching senders to contacts

Before anything is written, a preview is shown: the chat name, whether it is new or an additional upload, how many messages it has, and who the senders are.

• A sender whose name is known from the project's contacts is matched automatically.
• A sender who was not recognized is matched by hand, by picking from the contacts.
• You can also write without matching. The messages are stored, and at the end you see how many have no contact.

The chat name can be corrected. An iPhone export always has the same file name, so the name is built from the list of participants, to keep chats with different people from mixing.

Re-uploads without duplicates

A chat is identified by its name within the project. Another upload of the same chat adds only messages not yet stored. Each message gets a fingerprint from the chat, sender, time and text, plus a repeat number, so two identical messages from the same person in the same minute are stored as two and not swallowed.

If the new file is shifted by some hours against what is already stored, for example because of a different time zone on the phone, the import detects the offset from shared long messages and aligns the file before writing. At the end it shows how many messages were added, how many were skipped as duplicates, and whether an alignment took place.

Who sees the chat, and who uploads it

An uploaded chat counts as visible to the customer, because it is correspondence with them. In practice the customer does not see a WhatsApp screen: the chat is available to the portal chat, which can answer from what was written in it. Each chat has a "customer can see" switch, and it applies also to what is already in search.

• The upload screen is open today to the system operator only, so uploading is done through us.
• On the internal screen each chat appears in a list with its number of messages, number of participants and the period it covers.
• A chat summary is created only on request, and text sent to the language model has personal identifiers masked first.

Frequently asked questions