Channels

The four ways OMNI reaches people — SMS, WhatsApp, RCS and Voice — how each connects, what they all share, and what each battery adds on each one.

A channel is one way of reaching people. OMNI has four:

SMS

Text messages from your sender IDs, with approved templates and India’s DLT when you need it.

WhatsApp

Two-way conversations, approved templates, media, buttons and reactions.

RCS

Rich cards, carousels and buttons in the phone’s own messages app, sent by bots routed by country.

Voice

Numbers, IVRs, click-to-call, voice broadcasts and voice agents, with a call log and recordings.

Each channel is a separate part of the plan. A channel appears in the menu only when the plan includes it; until it is connected, its section shows Settings alone, badged Set up.

Shared connection or your own

Every channel connects one of two ways, chosen on its Settings page under Connection or How you connect:

	The shared connection	Your own connection
SMS	FireFlo’s SMS gateway. Included, nothing to set up.	Your own gateway’s address and login.
WhatsApp	A number FireFlo hosts for you — or, until yours is set up, FireFlo’s shared number. No Meta setup.	Your number, in your own WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) and Meta app.
RCS	Bots FireFlo runs and routes by country.	Your own login at your RCS provider, and your own bots.
Voice	FireFlo’s FireTone organisation, with numbers FireFlo gives you.	Your own FireTone organisation, through its integration key.

The shared connection is the quickest start. Your own connection gives you everything on your provider account — and on Voice, it is required for voice broadcasts and voice agents. Switching back to the shared connection keeps your own details saved.

When FireFlo runs a channel for your account, the Settings page says so and there is nothing to connect. If a shared connection reads “Not offered on this platform yet”, ask [e-mail].

The Channels page lists every channel with where it stands: Not in plan, Not configured, Configured · untested, Connected or Error. A channel is active when the plan includes it and a connection is configured — shared or your own.

What every channel shares

The channels differ in what they carry, but the rest of OMNI treats them alike.

The Inbox

Replies on SMS, WhatsApp and RCS land in one Inbox, in the person’s thread for that channel. You answer on whichever channel you pick under Reply via. Calls appear on the contact’s timeline instead.

Contacts and their timeline

Every message and call is filed against the contact, so their page shows one history across all four channels.

Consent

Every channel honours do-not-contact, which stops everything, one-time codes included, and quiet hours — the person’s own, or else the account’s — during which promotional messages wait. When someone sends STOP, they stop hearing from you on every channel; START brings them back. With the Customer data battery, a person can instead stop one channel, or only its marketing.

Broadcasts

A broadcast can go out on any channel in the plan. People who opted out are left out before anything is sent.

The delivery report

What happened to each message — sent, delivered, read, failed and why — is on the delivery report, whatever the channel.

The OMNI API

The OMNI API sends on every messaging channel, with failover from one to the next, and places calls on Voice.

What each battery adds

A battery is an optional boost. Every channel works without any. A battery adds the rows below only when it is in the account’s plan.

Battery	SMS	WhatsApp	RCS	Voice
AI Agents	Agents reply by filling in an approved DLT template; draft new templates; run workflows (“Reply 1 or 2”); answer questions about broadcasts.	Agents reply in free text inside the 24-hour window and by template outside it; draft and submit templates; run workflows with reply buttons; answer questions about broadcasts.	Answer questions about broadcasts. Agents don’t reply on RCS, since it carries approved templates only.	—
Calendar	Reminders, confirmations and booking codes by SMS when there’s no WhatsApp route and the text matches a DLT template.	Reminders with Confirm, Reschedule and Cancel buttons; a list of free times to book from; booking codes.	—	—
Catalogue	Products as names, prices and a link to your catalogue page.	Products pushed to your Meta catalogue; product cards and lists people can order from (on your own number); carts become orders.	Products as names, prices and a link to your catalogue page.	—
Customer data	Per-channel consent, opt-in for marketing, your own stop and start words, the preference page, audiences and traits.	The same.	The same.	Voice appears in consent and on the preference page, so someone can stop calls without stopping messages.
Pipelines	Messages on a deal’s timeline; a contact’s deals beside their thread.	The same.	The same.	—
Tickets	Raise a conversation as a ticket that stays in step with it.	The same.	The same.	—

The channel pages say more about each row.

Who may set up a channel

Connecting a channel and changing its settings needs the permission to configure channel modules. By default the Owner and Admin roles have it. Sending needs the permission to send messages (Owner, Admin and Support by default). See Team and roles to change who holds what.