Connect your first channel

In short: A channel is the route by which customer messages reach aishaa. Email works from day one via your organisation’s aishaa Mail address; in addition, you can connect your own mailbox, a WhatsApp number or (if the feature has been activated) telephony. This article helps you choose; the steps for each choice are in the chapters on email, WhatsApp and telephony.

Where to find this

You set up channels via Organisation > Channels. There you find Email, WhatsApp > Settings and, if the Telephony feature has been activated for your account, Telephony > Settings.

Who: from the Organisation admin role upwards. Channels belong to an organisation. If your account has several organisations, first choose the right organisation with the organisation switcher at the top of the screen.

Connecting during the onboarding

If you have just created the workspace, aishaa helps you with this step on the Get started screen (step Customers can reach you). aishaa asks where your customers currently send their questions (To our e-mail address, Via WhatsApp, They call us or We do not have anything yet), for email which mailbox you use, and then prepares a button to the right connection page. After you connect, aishaa checks by itself whether it worked. A test email to your aishaa Mail address also turns that step green. See Setting up aishaa with the onboarding.

Step 1: email already works via your aishaa Mail address

Every organisation gets its own aishaa Mail address when it is created. You find it under Organisation > General as Ticketing email, and on the Organisation > Channels > Email screen as Your aishaa Mail address, with a button to copy it.

Everything sent or forwarded to this address becomes a ticket. So you can test it straight away: send an email from a private address to the aishaa Mail address and check under Tickets whether the ticket appears. The address always keeps working as a safety net, even after you have connected your own mailbox.

More about this: Your aishaa Mail address and forwarding.

Step 2: choose how to connect your own email

Open Organisation > Channels > Email. If nothing has been set up yet, you see the question Which email system do you use? with four cards. If email has already been set up, you first see the Current setup and click Change setup to see the cards.

The Setup Email screen under Organisation > Channels > Email with the question Which email system do you use? and the four cards Outlook / Microsoft 365, Gmail / Google Workspace, Own domain or mail server and No own email (yet).

Which option suits you?

• Do you use Microsoft 365 or Gmail for the customer service mailbox? Choose the matching card. This is the quickest route and requires no forwarding.
• Do you use a different mail provider (for example Zoho or your own mail server)? Choose Own domain or mail server. Sending via aishaa is recommended: you then do not need to set up a mail server, you only add two DNS records.
• Do you not have a customer service email address yet? Choose No own email (yet).

You can always change your choice later. Your current mail keeps working until you activate a new route yourself.

Step 3: optionally import recent emails

After connecting Outlook or Gmail, you can import recent emails. This helps aishaa recognise existing conversations when customers email you again. More about this: Import email history.

Connecting WhatsApp

Go to Organisation > Channels > WhatsApp > Settings. You connect an existing WhatsApp Business number via Meta. Before you connect, you choose one of two ways:

Then click Connect WhatsApp and go through Meta’s window. More about this: Connect WhatsApp and Coexistence: the WhatsApp Business app and aishaa together.

Telephony

Telephony is available if the Telephony feature has been activated for your account. Organisation > Channels > Telephony > Settings then appears. You do not connect the phone number yourself. Contact the aishaa team via the aishaa support chat in aishaa (menu Chat, conversation aishaa support) or via support@aishaa.nl.

Once a number has been connected, you set up the greeting, recording, transcription and voicemail per number and choose which colleagues ring on an incoming call. More about this: Activate telephony.

Good to know

• Channels other than email, WhatsApp and telephony do not exist in aishaa. There is no live chat widget and no connection with Instagram, X or SMS. Contact forms on your website come in via email; see Contact form senders.
• Signing in to Google or Microsoft on these screens connects a mailbox. It is not a way to sign in to aishaa.
• With Own domain or mail server and with No own email (yet), you must set up forwarding in your own mailbox to the aishaa Mail address, otherwise incoming emails do not reach aishaa. The screen shows a short hint for each mail provider.
• Each organisation has its own channels. In an account with several organisations, you repeat the connection for each organisation.
• After connecting, always test with an email or WhatsApp message from a different address or number, and check whether the ticket appears under Tickets.

Related

• Setting up aishaa with the onboarding
• Email setup: the options at a glance
• Your aishaa Mail address and forwarding
• Connect Gmail or Google Workspace
• Connect Outlook or Microsoft 365
• Send from your own domain via aishaa
• Send via your own SMTP server
• Import email history
• Connect WhatsApp
• Activate telephony