Quote / confirm order

Getting here

Automate → Workflows, open a workflow, click + on the canvas, then pick Quote / confirm order under Add Steps.

Before you start

• An owner, admin or agent can add this step and save the workflow. Publishing that workflow — the thing that makes it run on live conversations — is an owner or admin action.
• Building and running workflows depends on your plan; see pricing.
• A set of earlier Ask a Question steps that collect the product, an optional complement, a quantity and a shipping destination into order.productId, order.complementId, order.qty and order.destination — this step reads those fields, it does not ask for them itself.

Set up

1. Build the ordering questions first: Ask a Question steps that save into order.productId, order.complementId (if the product needs one), order.qty and order.destination.
2. Add Quote / confirm order after them with Confirm the quoted order left off, to compute the total for a confirmation message — the totals are then available as {{quote.grandTotal}} and similar fields.
3. Send a message that shows the computed quote and asks the customer to confirm, then add a second Quote / confirm order step, this time with Confirm the quoted order turned on, on the path where they agreed.
4. Save the step, then publish the workflow.

Fields

Confirm the quoted order

Off: only compute the quote and make its numbers available to later steps (the Quote entries in the Variable menu). On: also record the order and send the customer a receipt.

Default: off

How it works

• The step reads order.productId, order.complementId, order.qty and order.destination from the run's fields — whatever earlier steps (typically a run of Ask a Question steps) saved there — and prices them against a fixed, built-in catalog of products, complements and shipping zones. This catalog is not something a workspace configures; it is the same one for every workspace running this step.
• With Confirm the quoted order off, a successful quote is written to the run's fields as quote.productName, quote.qty, quote.destination, quote.shipping, quote.grandTotal and quote.text, all readable by later steps and conditions, and NOTHING is sent to the customer — but only when the quote actually computes. An answer combination the catalog cannot price sends the customer a message regardless of this toggle (see the next point) — the toggle only silences the SUCCESS path.
• With it on, the same computation runs, and the order is additionally recorded as a line-item intent, then a receipt confirming the recorded order is sent to the customer through the ordinary send path.
• Recording the order always saves it inside Inchat first. Forwarding it onward to a connected order-management system happens only for a workspace that has that connection enabled; a workspace without it still has the order saved here, just not pushed anywhere else.
• Any answer combination the catalog cannot price — required fields still missing, an unrecognised product or destination, a quantity too small or oddly shaped, a product and complement that cannot be paired — does not fail the step: the customer instead receives a message naming the problem and pointing at Need a person, sent to the customer REGARDLESS of the Confirm the quoted order toggle, even with it off. Need a person is a menu option this text assumes exists — it is the label the prebuilt "Factory WhatsApp order" template's own Ask a Question steps use, not something this step adds on its own; a hand-built flow whose questions have no option by that name points the customer at a button that is not there.
• Recording the order can itself fail (a write error) even when the quote computed cleanly; that failure also reaches the customer as an apology naming that a teammate will follow up, rather than silence.

When it fails

• The required answers are missing (no product, quantity or destination on the run yet — including a preview run placed right after only the first question or two): the step still reports success internally, but sends the customer the catalog's own "required" message together with the Need a person hint — with Confirm the quoted order on OR off, and with nothing recorded.
• The product, complement or destination named does not exist in the catalog, or the product and complement cannot be paired, or the quantity has no matching price break: the same pattern — a specific message naming the problem, plus Need a person, nothing recorded.
• Recording a confirmed order fails (a write problem after the quote already computed successfully): the customer is sent an apology saying a teammate will follow up, and the step reports failure.
• This step has no failure branch of its own; whatever happens, the run continues to the next step in the flow — the customer-facing message above is this step's way of surfacing a problem, not a branch an author configures.
• The reason (when one is logged beyond what the customer saw) is in the workflow's Activity tab, under Execution log, on this step's line.

Limits

• The catalog is fixed and built into the product — a small, specific set of products, complements and shipping destinations. It is not a per-workspace product catalog like the one Send Products (WhatsApp catalog) reads from Commerce Manager, and a workspace cannot add its own products to it.
• It only ever prices the four fields it reads (product, complement, quantity, destination) — it has no concept of multiple line items in one order.
• With Confirm the quoted order off, a CLEANLY COMPUTED quote sends nothing to the customer — pair it with a Send a Message step that reads the quote.* fields if the point is to show them a confirmation prompt. A quote the catalog cannot price sends a message regardless of this toggle, so a preview run placed after only some of the ordering questions are answered can speak to the customer before you meant it to.
• An unrecognised answer combination is never a silent failure to the customer — they always get a specific message and the Need a person hint — but it is also never a branch a workflow author can react to differently; the same message shape covers every kind of mismatch.
• The Need a person hint in that message names a menu option, not a feature of this step — it only exists where the ordering flow's own Ask a Question steps define an option with that exact label, which is true of the prebuilt "Factory WhatsApp order" template and not guaranteed anywhere else.

Best practices

• Add a Need a person option, with that exact label, to every question in the ordering sequence — this step's own error text assumes it exists, but nothing creates it for you outside the prebuilt template. Without it, a mismatched answer points the customer at a button they cannot find.
• Only place a preview (commit off) step after ALL of the ordering questions have been answered — placed earlier, it still speaks to the customer with the catalog's "required" message and the Need a person hint, not silence.
• Read quote.text for a ready-made summary line rather than rebuilding the same numbers by hand in your own message text.

Use cases

• A pre-built ordering flow: ask product, complement, quantity and destination, quote the total, confirm, and record the order once the customer agrees.

FAQ and troubleshooting

Does this step work with our own product catalog?

No — it prices against a fixed, built-in catalog, not one your workspace configures. Send Products (WhatsApp catalog) is the step that reads your own Commerce Manager catalog.

What happens if the customer's answers don't match anything in the catalog?

They receive a message naming the problem and a Need a person option — nothing is recorded, and the step does not fail the run.

Does turning off Confirm the quoted order still tell the customer the price?

Only for a quote the catalog can actually price — then it computes into fields for later steps to use and says nothing itself, and you need a Send a Message step after it to show the customer anything. A quote the catalog CANNOT price (missing answers, an unrecognised product, a bad pairing) sends the customer a message either way — this toggle only silences the success path.

If the order is recorded here, does it show up in our other order-management system?

Only if this workspace has that connection enabled. The order is always saved inside Inchat regardless; forwarding it onward depends on that separate setup.

Related

• Ask a Question — Ask, then pause the whole run until the customer answers or a deadline passes — with typed answers matched deterministically against a fixed set of choices, never guessed by a model.
• Send Products (WhatsApp catalog) — Send WhatsApp product cards from the number's own Commerce Manager catalog — one product, a list of up to 30, swipeable cards, or the whole catalog — so the customer can add to cart from inside the chat.
• Send a Message — Send free-form text — with several attachments if you need them, on the customer's own channel or a named one — inside the messaging window that channel currently has open.
• Escalate — Pause the AI on this thread and page a human right now — the safety net at the end of a path the AI could not, or should not, finish alone.
• Workflows: how a flow runs — A workflow is one trigger, optional conditions and an ordered list of steps; only a published workflow runs, and this article explains how a run starts, forks, pauses, fails and stops.