Connecting Orion

This chapter also covers the channels where Orion serves your public, which are different ones: the WhatsApp service number and Instagram direct messages. There, the person writing is not you — it is whoever reached out to your business.

To give it access to your calendar and your inbox — Google, Microsoft 365 and forwarded email —, link third-party tools or connect the assistant you already use (Claude, ChatGPT or Grok), see the chapter Connecting your accounts.

The channels: WhatsApp, Telegram and voice

The channel is where you talk to Orion. There are three ways in, and you can use more than one at the same time:

WhatsApp: the main channel. That is where it sends you the morning brief, tells you what is stuck, and takes your requests through the day. You can start on it without connecting anything — see Starting without connecting anything, just below.
Telegram: an alternative to WhatsApp, with a bot that is yours (more on this below).
Voice in the mobile app: a spoken conversation in real time, no typing. It is part of the plans that include voice — see which ones at orionworkers.com/pricing/en. On an account created in the mobile app that has no plan yet, voice only works after the first messaging channel, WhatsApp or Telegram, and if the plan you are trying includes voice (see the free trial, just below). It answers in the language you speak and does by voice what it does in the chat, including the send confirmation, read aloud. Say bye to end it; if the app leaves the screen the call ends, and two minutes without anyone speaking also end it. Each call lasts at most 15 minutes — and if you had just asked for something, it finishes answering before the call ends.

Besides those three, the "Ask Orion" chat follows you on every page of the web dashboard — same conversation, same agent. ★ The Conversation page is home: it is where you land after signing in (since November 2026, for every organization). It sits in the left menu and shows the conversation full screen: same thread and same agent, with more room to read long answers. To its right, a column says what is happening — what is waiting on you, how many meetings you have today, the opportunities in your email, your own relationships that need a touch, your list, the organization's CRM actions and the deliverables in progress —, plus the two doors, Orion and Y Managers. A number still being read shows as —, never as zero. The today's-meetings tile opens no page: tapping it writes the question into the conversation and Orion reads your calendar live, right then — we do not store your meetings. Without Google connected, the tile invites you to connect it. On the phone the column becomes a drawer at the bottom of the screen, opened with a tap; the menu and the two doors stay in sight there. Once the conversation starts, the drawer retracts to the bar to give the answers room — the menu stays, and pulling the handle brings everything back. The floating button does not appear there, because the conversation already is the page. It does not count as a channel for the free trial: the trial clock starts with the first of the three above. On an account created in the mobile app, it starts with the first messaging channel, WhatsApp or Telegram (see below). On a new account, the chat itself works from sign-up, because the Y Managers free period starts there and counts as a subscription; without a subscription, it gets a 🔒 (see No subscription).

The 14-day free trial starts with your first channel

The 14 days, no card needed (7 on Orion Light), start counting from the first channel you connect: WhatsApp authorized, Telegram linked, the first voice session, or the code you send to the Orion contact (below) — whichever happens first. It does not have to be WhatsApp. On an account created in the mobile app, voice does not open the trial: it starts on the first messaging channel — WhatsApp, Telegram, or the code you send to the Orion contact. Before that, tapping the microphone makes the app tell you what is missing and offer the "Connect WhatsApp" shortcut. After that, voice works if the plan you are trying includes it. Through the Orion contact, the trial plan follows who you are. From a number outside Brazil, say you work on your own — or send the sentence "I want Orion Light", on its own in a message — and you try Orion Light (7 days); you can switch later too: send the sentence "I want Orion Light", on its own in a message, and the Orion WhatsApp trial moves to Orion Light with the end date you already had. For customers in Brazil, say you are a MEI, from any number, and you try Orion MEI (7 days); you can say it later, and the trial moves to Orion MEI with the end date you already had. In every other case you try Orion WhatsApp (14 days). Need more time? Ask Orion: it extends the trial by 7 more days, once.

Until August 14, 2026 there was a second path: a courtesy channel that unlocked on its own once the organization showed it was using the method. It has been withdrawn. Today the Orion channel is a subscription, with the free trial as the way in; the Y Managers free period covers the panel seats, not the channel.

Starting without connecting anything

There is a shorter way in: talking to Orion without connecting anything. You have a conversation with a contact called Orion, saved in your address book like any other. It does not enter your WhatsApp and does not see any of your conversations.

There are two ways, and the easiest one never leaves the conversation:

Through the conversation itself (recommended). Send the Orion contact the e-mail of your account — just the e-mail, nothing else. A 6-digit code arrives in that inbox; type the 6 digits in the conversation and you're connected. The code lasts 10 minutes; if it doesn't arrive, check spam or send the e-mail again. The e-mail arrives in the language you wrote in (Portuguese, English or Spanish), shows the last digits of the number that asked to connect, and carries the code only in the body — never in the subject, which shows on a locked phone screen.

No account yet? You can start there too. Send your e-mail to the Orion contact even without an account — just the e-mail, nothing else. A 6-digit code arrives in that inbox; type the 6 digits in the conversation, from the same phone, and Orion creates your account, connects this phone and e-mails you a link to sign in to the panel later, without a password. Without the code nothing is created: nobody opens an account with your e-mail just by typing it. The code lasts 10 minutes; if it doesn't arrive, check spam or send the e-mail again. For safety, each number, each e-mail and each company e-mail domain (what comes after the @, like yourcompany.com) has a daily limit of sign-up codes; past the limit, Orion tells you the code can't go out right now — try again the next day, or create the account on the website. You never have to go through the website to get started.

Were you a customer and your subscription ended? Send your e-mail the same way. The 6-digit code will not go out while the plan is stopped — but Orion answers right there, in the language you wrote in, with one month's price and a payment link: for customers in Brazil, a Pix payment link (plus the copy-and-paste code); outside Brazil, on Orion Light, a card payment link. With Pix (customers in Brazil), it tells you in the conversation as soon as the payment clears. With the card there is no notice in the conversation: the plan is back as soon as the payment is confirmed, and the payment page returns you to a page of the site that says it was received. Either way, once it is paid, just send your e-mail again and the number connects on the spot — you do not need to go to the website to come back. If the account holds more than your own seat (another person, an AI worker or a number of its own), Orion sends you to the Billing page instead of a link, so you see the full amount. And the Orion Light link in the conversation is only for numbers outside Brazil: from a Brazilian number, on Orion Light, the way back is the Billing page, by card — once it is paid, send your e-mail again and the number connects.

Created your account on the website, you are outside Brazil and you want Orion Light? There are two paths. The shortest is the Billing page: with the organization's country outside Brazil, Orion Light is there like any other plan — choose it and tap Pay by card; you do not need to talk to Orion on WhatsApp first. Once it is paid, connect your WhatsApp as this chapter explains, from any number. The other path is this conversation, and it is the one that brings the free trial: on the Billing page of a one-person organization, right below the plans, the Try it free for 7 days on WhatsApp link opens the conversation with the sentence of someone who already has an account already typed, and Orion shows the same link when it explains Orion Light to you in the Ask Orion chat, in the dashboard — send the sentence as it comes, from your WhatsApp number, and then the e-mail you use to sign in to Orion — your account's, not another one (after that sentence, an e-mail that has no account does not create another account: Orion asks for the right one). On this path, your number is what shows that you are outside Brazil: from a Brazilian number (55), the conversation brings neither the Orion Light trial nor its payment link. If you have not used the trial yet, the 6-digit code arrives in your inbox and the Orion Light trial starts when the number connects; if you were added to a team and have not signed in to Orion yet, sign in once at orionworkers.com first, as the conversation asks. If you already used it and the account is yours alone (no other person, AI worker, number of its own or active subscription), Orion sends you the card payment link, in US dollars; once it is paid, send the e-mail again and the number connects. If the account has no country yet, Orion first asks you to choose it on the Billing page. In an account with more people, an active subscription, an AI worker or a number of its own, someone who already used the trial does not get the link through the conversation: whoever manages the subscription chooses Orion Light for that person on the Billing page, and once the plan is paid, their number connects.

Through the dashboard. Open Orion → WhatsApp and click "Start now". The screen shows an eight-character code, valid for 10 minutes; tap "Open WhatsApp with the code" — the conversation opens with the code already typed, just send it.

⚠️ Never send codes generated by WhatsApp itself. WhatsApp's own "Linked devices" screen also produces an 8-character code — that code grants access to your WhatsApp and must never be sent to anyone, not even Orion. Orion codes come either from the dashboard (8 letters) or from your e-mail (6 digits).

The phone that completes either path becomes recognized as yours, and from there it is a normal conversation. That counts as your first channel: it is what starts the trial.

What this path does not do. It is deliberately smaller, and worth knowing before you judge the product by it:

The morning brief and the alerts do arrive — but if you have not written for more than a day, the message comes in short form, and the full text arrives once you reply. That is a WhatsApp rule about who speaks first, not a limitation of Orion.
Scheduled reminders ("remind me every Monday") are not part of this path. For the same reason as above, a reminder at a set time could not arrive in full — so Orion tells you right away instead of creating a reminder that would fail. Plans from Telegram up include free-form reminders at any time.
You can send audio, photos and files. Audio is understood (transcribed on the spot); photos and files are stored and read. Replies always come as text — Orion does not send audio or images back yet.
Groups do not work. It talks to you, one to one.
It talks only to you. This path does not serve your customers — that is what the service number, described further below, is for.

This is the fastest way to find out whether Orion helps you; connecting a number shows the whole product. You can start with one and switch to the other — Orion stays the same, with everything you have already talked about.

One phone, one Orion. The same handset is never linked to two accounts at once. Changed phones? Ask for a new code in the dashboard and send it from the new one: the previous one stops answering immediately, and everything moves across.

If you already have a number connected, I ask before switching. Connecting a new handset doesn't only change where you talk to me — it changes where I send: summaries, reminders and alerts start arriving on the new phone. So anyone who already has their own number connected gets a warning naming the number that would be replaced, and the switch only happens if you reply SWITCH. Tested from another phone without meaning to change anything? Just ignore the message. Anyone without a connected number skips this step — they connect straight away.

Which number to use (read this before you scan)

The QR connects your own number. That is the default: Orion moves into your WhatsApp, in the chat with yourself ("Message yourself"), and the setup starts right there, as soon as you scan. Its replies come with the prefix *✨ Orion:* — that is how you tell what is it from what is you. The number is yours: Orion does not reply to your contacts, and the public role is locked off** (the page says so).

The other paths are explicit choices and do not go through this QR

A number just for the business, serving your customers: the official WhatsApp number (Meta), in the "WhatsApp service numbers" block further down this page — see Additional service numbers. It only talks to your customers: what Orion sends to you on its own initiative — the daily summary, notices — never goes out through it; it goes through the WhatsApp you connected to Orion, through Telegram or through the Orion contact, with your phone linked to it (see Starting without connecting anything, above). A reminder at a set time ("remind me every Monday") needs the WhatsApp connected to Orion or Telegram: with only the service number, Orion tells you it can't create the reminder, instead of creating one that would never arrive.
On Orion MEI (for clients in Brazil) and on Orion Light: the shared line, the Orion contact — see Starting without connecting anything, above.

If you already had a phone number saved and connected a different number, just for Orion, through the QR, it stays as it was.

What your own number switches on is the automatic relationship radar. It is worth knowing exactly what that means:

It records who you talked to and when, and uses that to tell you who is going cold and to create contacts in the CRM on its own.
From the messages you send in 1:1 conversations, it extracts the text; for the contacts you chose to track closely, it keeps a short summary (up to 280 characters) of what you sent, building the history of the relationship.
It does not reply to your friends, family or customers, and does not mark your messages as read — this is enforced in code, it is not just a promise.
What other people send you, it does not reply to — and what gets recorded changed on August 12, 2026. A message that arrives from a third party on your number still goes unanswered: it does not become a turn of the artificial intelligence, and it decides nothing on top of it. What gets kept depends on who the contact is: for the people you marked to track closely, it keeps a short summary of what they wrote to you as well (before, only what you wrote went into the history); for the other contacts already in your CRM, only the record that there was contact that day, with nothing of the content; and from someone who is not in your CRM, nothing is kept — a message from a stranger neither creates a contact nor leaves a trace.
If you ask, it reads any conversation of yours. "Summarize my conversation with Ricardo" pulls up to 30 messages from that chat — the most recent ones, and it says how many it read, without presenting that stretch as the whole conversation; an export by date range can pull up to 1000. "What came in on my WhatsApp?", on the other hand, looks only at the last 24 hours and, for each conversation, at how many messages arrived and only the last one of them, up to 15 conversations — for the rest of a conversation, ask it to open that one. You are the one who orders the reading, and what it reads goes into the context of that conversation with it.

On the first connection in your-own-number mode, it sends a privacy notice in the chat. The Connection page also has the link "How Orion handles your WhatsApp privacy", available at any time.

Connecting WhatsApp

In the dashboard, open Orion → WhatsApp (the page is called Connection).
Click "Connect & start 14-day free trial" — or "Connect WhatsApp", if you already have a plan.
The QR code appears in seconds. On your phone: WhatsApp → Linked devices → Link a device, then scan. The screen updates on its own once you scan.
Prefer it without a QR? Click "Link with a code instead", give the number, and type the displayed code into WhatsApp → Linked devices → Link a device → "Link with phone number instead". You can type the number with just the area code: Orion fills in the country (the same as in the Orion → Boss box) and shows how it read the number — We'll write to you at +1 (416) 555-0123 · Canada — before you ask for the code. If the number doesn't add up, it isn't saved and the screen shows a suggestion to accept with one click. If the number on file is an old one, saved without a country code, the card asks you to fix it first — one click on Use +1 (416) 555-0123 · Canada — and only then offers the code.

One real limit on the code: WhatsApp restricts how often codes can be issued, and that restriction applies to the whole account, not just to you. That is why the dashboard issues one code on demand and offers no "try again" button — if it does not come, use the QR, or reload the page later.

When connecting by QR is not available. Connecting WhatsApp by QR code can be unavailable for a while — for example, when the service that prepares new connections is down, or when the limit on new connections in 24 hours, which applies to all accounts together, has been reached. In that case, when you click "Connect WhatsApp" (or "Connect & start 14-day free trial"), neither the QR code nor the option to link with a code appears. In their place, right below the button, you see the notice "Connecting WhatsApp by QR code is temporarily unavailable. Nothing was lost: your account and your conversations are just as they were. Please try again later." And the screen itself points to the path that works right away: the "Start now" option, just below, to talk to Orion without connecting anything (see Starting without connecting anything, above).

At most 5 new QR connections in 24 hours. Each account can receive up to 5 new WhatsApp connections by QR code in any 24-hour period. Opening the QR code and giving up without scanning it does not count toward the limit. Once the limit is reached, clicking to connect brings up the same notice that the connection is unavailable, with the same way to start without connecting anything. The account can connect again as soon as the oldest of those connections is 24 hours old.

As soon as the connection closes, Orion sends the first message and introduces itself. That is where the setup Orion runs itself picks up.

Reconnecting doesn't touch your timezone or your name. If you disconnect and connect again, the timezone and the name saved under Orion → Boss stay as they were. Before the fix of October 8, 2026, the connect button erased both — and, without a timezone, routines started running off the time you asked for. If you reconnected WhatsApp before that, it is worth opening Orion → Boss and checking the timezone and the name.

Telegram: the bot is yours

Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram works with a bot that you create and own. On the Orion → Telegram page, the path has three steps:

In Telegram, talk to @BotFather and create a bot. It gives you back a token (something like 123456:ABC…).
Paste the token into the dashboard and tap Connect. The PIN is optional (see below).
On the Telegram card, tap Create pairing link and open the link on the device where you use Telegram (Open in Telegram, or Copy link). In Telegram, tap Start: Orion confirms it's you.

The link is valid for 30 minutes and works only once. It can't be guessed and doesn't depend on attempts: even if someone writes to your bot first, the link still works. Creating another one invalidates the previous one, and connecting or disconnecting the bot deletes the link. Don't send the link to anyone: whoever opens it first gets your Orion on Telegram.

The PIN is the backup. If you prefer, set a PIN — in the PIN (optional) field when connecting, or later in the card's New PIN field — and send it to your bot, inside Telegram. The PIN is valid for 30 minutes and allows 5 wrong attempts. The time counts from when you set the PIN in the dashboard, and the attempts belong to your Orion, not to whoever is writing: switching Telegram accounts does not restart the count. On the 5th wrong attempt, the PIN locks. Once expired or locked, it no longer works, even typed correctly — Orion says so in Telegram, and the Orion → Telegram page shows the PIN's status (until what time it is valid and how many attempts are left). To continue, use the pairing link or set a new PIN right there, in the New PIN field (without pasting the token again), and send it to the bot: the time and the attempts start over. Connecting the bot again also starts over. Opening the bot in Telegram (the Start button) does not use an attempt.

Before pairing, Orion only does the pairing. Voice notes, photos and documents sent to the bot are not heard, opened, stored or answered — pairing is only through the link or the typed PIN —, and what someone writes before pairing is not recorded. Pairing doesn't use your plan's AI capacity: you can pair even with the month's limit used up, and whoever writes before you learns nothing about your plan.

You get an e-mail. When pairing happens, through the link or the PIN, an e-mail arrives at the address you use to sign in to the dashboard, saying when, how and the last digits of the Telegram account that paired. If it wasn't you, disconnect Telegram under Orion → Telegram: whoever paired loses access right away.

Once that is done, the dashboard shows the bot's name and the status "connected". The Telegram channel is part of the paid plans and also of Orion BYOK, which is free and runs on your own organization's AI key — see them all at orionworkers.com/pricing/en.

Additional service numbers

If you want a separate number to serve the public — reception, support — today it comes in through one path only: the official WhatsApp API (Meta), in the "WhatsApp service numbers" block on the same Connection page (the block was called "Additional WhatsApp numbers" until August 11, 2026). The old QR path was withdrawn on August 5, 2026, and with it went the sales prospecting number option: additional numbers exist today only in the customer service role.

Each service number is a separate subscription: it costs the same as the WhatsApp plan and comes into the organization's billing as one more line on the Billing page. That is why the dashboard refuses the connection before the pop-up even opens if the organization has no active subscription — or if its payment is past due —, saying why, with a button to subscribe or settle the payment. And the number belongs to the Orion of whoever connects it: anyone without a subscription — no plan and no seat — is also refused before the pop-up; an Admin chooses a plan for themselves on the Billing page, and everyone else asks an Admin.

When you pay by Pix Automático (customers in Brazil), the number has to be part of the amount before it is connected, because an authorization's amount cannot change once created: in the same block, the Request the number (adds to the amount) button adds the number to the total on the Billing page, where whoever manages billing authorizes the new amount; once the first payment of that authorization goes through, the connect button is unlocked — until then the block shows the expected date of that payment, and the request can be cancelled. When someone requests it, whoever manages the organization's billing gets a notice, in the dashboard and in the Y Managers email summary, with the requester's name; someone who doesn't manage billing can request it too, and the block says who authorizes. Requests join the amount in the order they were made: when two people request a number and the authorization includes only one, the one requested first is unlocked — only that block shows the date; the other waits for the next authorization. If the person who requested it is left without a subscription (the seat removed, the person deactivated, the end of the free period or of the Pix), the request leaves the total; once they have one again, they request it again. With a card, the number connects right away and the billing adjusts itself.

Before you start, get this ready:

Your business's Facebook. You sign in with it, and the WhatsApp account created stays in your name. The number and the conversations are yours; the platform only receives permission to use them.
A free number. It must not already be in use on WhatsApp. If it is, delete its WhatsApp account first — otherwise the connection fails.
How to receive the code. You will receive a code to prove the number is yours. On a landline or a virtual number, ask for it by phone call: SMS never arrives on that kind of line.
A payment method on the WhatsApp account. Without it, WhatsApp blocks sending even with everything else in place.
Business verification (optional at first). It unlocks higher limits and requires company documents. You can start without it, on lower limits.

The popup comes pre-filled. Meta's popup opens with your organization's name as the display name and, if your organization has an email and website registered here, with the business portfolio details too. Check them before moving on — you can fix them right there.

If the signup stops halfway. The panel tells you which Meta screen it stopped on (business portfolio, WhatsApp account, profile, number, code or permissions) or which error Meta returned, and what to do in each case. You can try again whenever you like.

And the limits that are WhatsApp's, not ours — worth reading before you click:

Connecting does not switch the number on right away. WhatsApp reviews the account first. It usually takes a few hours and can take up to 24. During that time the number shows as Under review and cannot send or receive yet.
The display name is reviewed too. Even after the number is switched on, Meta reviews the name your customers see. Meanwhile the number shows as Under review — waiting for Meta to approve the name, and WhatsApp may limit sending or refuse replies. Follow it in WhatsApp Manager.
24-hour window. Free-form replies are allowed for up to 24h after the customer's last message. Outside that window, only pre-approved message templates go out.
The number becomes a business line. It stops working in the regular WhatsApp app on a phone.
A daily limit that scales. Business-initiated conversations start with a low cap that rises automatically as the number delivers with quality.

The number's status in Connection. Each official number shows a label and, below it, what is happening with sends:

Connected · Delivering normally: WhatsApp is accepting sends.
Under review: Meta has not switched the number on yet, or is still reviewing the display name.
Name declined: Meta declined the number's display name. Adjust the name in WhatsApp Manager.
Sends refused: WhatsApp refused the send on the spot and nothing went out. The alert shows the reason, what to do, since when, how many refusals and the last accepted send. The most common reasons and what to do:
display name under review: wait for Meta to approve the name and follow it in WhatsApp Manager;
access authorization expired or removed, or the number is no longer registered or was deleted from the WhatsApp account: reconnect the number in Connection (if it was deleted, connect the number that replaced it);
a problem with the payment method: add or fix the WhatsApp account's payment method on Meta's payments page — the alert has the link;
account blocked: check Meta's notice in WhatsApp Manager;
sending limit reached: sending resumes on its own when the limit resets; if it keeps happening, check the number's quality and limit in WhatsApp Manager;
message template refused: check the templates in WhatsApp Manager.
Sending blocked: Meta blocked sending for the number. The dashboard shows Meta's sentence and where to fix it.
Payment method missing: the number's WhatsApp account has no valid payment method. Replies to people who wrote in the last 24 hours keep going out; what doesn't go out is what the business starts — reminders, notices and templates. The alert has the link to Meta's payments page, where the payment method is added, and Orion tells you once, through your channel with it (or by email), when it starts. If the display name is still under review, nothing goes out until it is approved — and the payment can be sorted out in the meantime.

When the refusal only hits template sends, the alert says so: only the reminders and notices sent by template stop going out, and replies in conversations keep going out. If Meta only limits sending, a note appears and the label stays Connected. When the limit comes from business verification, which the business hasn't completed with Meta yet, the note says so: only how many conversations the business can start is limited, and replies are not affected.

Your customers' messages keep arriving the whole time; it is the sends that don't go out. When a single reply fails — to someone who hasn't written in over 24 hours, to a contact without WhatsApp, or in a format WhatsApp doesn't accept — the label stays Connected with just a note: there is nothing to do on the number. The alert clears on its own when the problem ends: the name approved, the number reconnected, the next send of the same kind accepted or, for a block or a missing payment method, the next check, which runs every hour.

You get notified. On the first refusal for each reason you get a notice — at most one per reason, per number, per day — on the WhatsApp you connected to Orion (in Connect WhatsApp) or on Telegram. Without those (for example, if you talk to Orion without having connected anything), or if they fail, the notice goes by e-mail. The notice never goes out through the number that has the problem, and it is not sent if the problem is already over. The same alert shows in Public role (the number's label changes from Answering to Sends refused or Sending blocked) and in the Shared Agenda summary, when that number is the one handling bookings.

Writing fast does not lose a message. Within each conversation, Orion answers one message at a time; conversations with different people run in parallel. If the person sends several messages while it is still replying, they wait and go together into the next reply — none is lost and none is half-answered (up to thirty messages can wait per conversation; beyond that, the most recent ones stay). If they repeat the same message while waiting, the repeat counts only once — even if they sent a ? or another message in between — and a ? on its own, sent while the reply has not arrived, does not make Orion answer again: it was only asking about the reply that was already on its way. The same goes for a repeat or a ? that crosses with the reply: sent before the person could see it, and arriving just after it goes out. Orion cannot know when the person read the reply — only when each message arrived — so it only treats as a repeat the same message that arrives right after the reply, within a short margin: someone who read the next question and answered it with the same score, or another yes, gets a normal reply. The rule does not catch everything — someone who sends the same answer again while waiting may end up with an answer in the wrong place: a repeat that arrives a little later, before the person has seen the reply, counts as a new message — in a survey, it goes in as the answer to the next question — and a ? that arrives later is read as a request for clarification. To avoid it, ask in your invitation that people wait for the next question before writing again. In a survey set up in the Run a survey block this does not happen: a message written before the next question appears stays with the previous answer. Each person gets up to ten replies a minute. Someone who writes faster than that is not cut off: the message beyond the ten waits until the minute is up — less than a minute — and is then answered, together with any that arrive in the meantime.

If a flood of messages arrives. What the number counts is who is arriving, not who is already talking. Each service number starts up to ten new conversations a minute. Whoever is already in a conversation — was served in the last fifteen minutes — is not part of that count and is not held up by the people arriving: several people answering the same survey at the same time all keep going. Whoever arrives beyond the minute's ten waits their turn, in order of arrival, without losing their message: the number holds places for twenty more conversations — the next minute's ten and the ten after that — and whoever waits starts being served within about two minutes at most. Beyond that, whoever arrives is not served: their message is not kept, and they have to write again. They get a single sentence, in the language they wrote in — "We're receiving a lot of messages right now. Please write again in a few minutes." — one per person every fifteen minutes and at most twenty per line each hour; within those fifteen minutes, or after the line has already sent its twenty for the hour, whoever arrives or keeps writing gets nothing back — that is the price of not turning the reply into one more flood. This happens in a mass send, an attack, a loop between two systems — and also when you invite a lot of people at once: if more than ten new people arrive per minute for a few minutes in a row, the twenty waiting places fill up and whoever arrives after that is left out. Inviting a lot of people? Invite them in batches of up to ten people a minute. Once the burst passes, service returns to normal on its own, with nothing for you to do. This has nothing to do with the six-hour pause for when someone on your team takes over a conversation: there a person stepped in, here it is only volume.

If the same message arrives three times in a row, the person gets, once, "I got your message — no need to resend it. If something is missing, tell me what changed and I'll pick it up from there." — and Orion only answers again when they write something else (if they keep sending the same message, the sentence comes back every ten repeats). Survey answers do not count as repetition, because each one answers a question: repeated scores, option letters and "yes" or "no" (8, 8, 8); a score said in words (I'd say 8, 8 for me, 8 out of 10, eight); and an option written out in words (sometimes, agree), when it is one of the options written in the document the script cites. A repeated word or phrase that is not among the document's options still counts as repetition. In a survey set up in the Run a survey block, an answer that fits a closed question, the 1 or 2 of the confirmation and words like PAUSE and SKIP do not count as repetition; an answer that does not fit, and free text, do. See Run a survey on your service number.

If the other side is an automated responder. Sometimes whoever writes to your WhatsApp number is another system — a company's automated service, with a menu, a request for your e-mail, a satisfaction survey or an away message — and every reply from Orion makes it answer again. Orion notices this in two ways: when the long messages from the other side arrive less than 3 seconds after each of its replies, three times within ten minutes (nobody reads and writes two lines that fast), or when two different messages from the other side come back unchanged, each arriving up to 8 seconds after one of its replies — the script repeating itself. The first time, the other side gets, once, "I got your message — no need to resend it. If something is missing, tell me what changed and I'll pick it up from there."; if it goes on within half an hour, Orion pauses that conversation for 15 minutes (then 1 hour and 6 hours, if it happens again within 24 hours) and you get notified once, with the contact's name and phone number, on the WhatsApp you connected to Orion or on Telegram (this notice does not have the e-mail fallback yet). To release it earlier, send Orion /unmute with the contact's phone number — or take over the conversation yourself. Short messages (scores, yes, no, button options) never count, and someone writing at a person's pace is not affected. In a survey run through the script, repeating the same options does not count: there, only an answer in under 3 seconds does.

Each person has a daily limit of replies. The same phone number gets up to 120 replies from Orion a day. That is far more than a conversation needs — a survey through the script uses about one reply per question, and in one set up in the Run a survey block the questions, the hint and the confirmation do not count at all: what counts is each question the person asks along the way and each written answer Orion checks — and it is what stops an automated system from using up your plan's AI capacity on its own. Whoever goes past it stops being answered until the next day (the day turns over at midnight, Brasília time): they get only a neutral sentence — "We can't reply here at the moment. Please write again later." — in your account's language, at most one every fifteen minutes, and their latest messages are kept in the conversation (the twenty most recent), so that Orion picks up knowing what went unanswered. You get notified once a day for each contact that reaches the limit, with their name and phone number and the time Orion will reply to them again, given in your account's time zone, on the WhatsApp you connected to Orion or on Telegram (this notice does not have the e-mail fallback yet): if it is a real customer, reply to them yourself. The fixed sentences — the repeated-message one and the flood one — do not count toward the limit; a reply attempt that fails, when the person is asked to say it again, does count. The rules for people who write fast and the daily limit also apply on the main number, when it is dedicated to Orion and serves the public; the count of new conversations per minute applies to service numbers only. The same number applies on Instagram: the same contact gets up to 120 replies from Orion a day. Whoever goes past it gets no reply until the next day — there is no sentence on Instagram, and the messages stay in the Instagram inbox — and you get notified once a day for each contact that reaches the limit, with their name and the time Orion will reply to them again, on the WhatsApp you connected to Orion or on Telegram (this notice does not have the e-mail fallback yet either).

If your account's AI capacity runs out. Serving your public uses your plan's AI capacity — the same as your own conversation with Orion — but only part of it: the conversations other people open with Orion (your public on your numbers and on Instagram, and the members of your groups when they call Orion) use at most 75% of the day's capacity and 75% of the month's, and the other 25% is always kept for you and your routines and automations. When that 75% runs out — or when the whole day's or month's capacity runs out, or the account has no active plan — Orion stops answering whoever writes to your numbers, and that person does not find out about your plan or your limit. They get only a neutral sentence — "We can't reply here at the moment. Please write again later." — in your account's language, whatever language they wrote in. That is one sentence per person every fifteen minutes; within that interval, whoever keeps writing gets nothing back. What the person wrote is kept in the conversation (each person's twenty most recent messages): Orion does not answer the messages left behind on its own, but when service resumes and they write again, it picks up knowing what had gone unanswered. Each message is kept up to 500 characters: from a longer one, the end is left out. You get notified, at most once a day per reason, on the WhatsApp you connected to Orion (in Connect WhatsApp) or on Telegram; without those, the notice reaches your WhatsApp through the Orion contact, if your phone is linked to it — never through your service number, which only talks to your customers — and, if none of those paths delivers, by e-mail. The notice says the reason and what to do: the day's capacity comes back on its own when the day turns over — at midnight Brasília time, and the notice gives that time in your account's time zone — and the month's when the month turns over; to resume sooner, change plans on the Billing page; with no active plan, it resumes when the subscription is reactivated. When what ran out was the 75% for people from outside, the notice goes out right away, as soon as the first person from outside stops being answered, and says why — they used the 75% set aside for them, and the remaining 25% is kept for you —, what they get (on WhatsApp, the neutral sentence; on Instagram and in groups, silence), that you and your routines carry on as usual, what to do (if they are real customers, change plans on the Billing page, and reply yourself to whoever matters), when service resumes and what happens to the messages left unanswered. With the Public role off, Orion stays silent until the capacity is back — not even the automatic reply goes out — and this notice is not sent. On Instagram, whoever writes gets no reply until the capacity is back: there is no sentence there, and nothing is kept for later. A message that arrives through Instagram triggers the notice only when what ran out was the 75% for people from outside; when the whole capacity runs out, it does not. In groups, Orion stays silent in both cases, nothing is kept for later, and you get notified — see WhatsApp and Telegram groups.

Once active, the number does not answer yet: connecting does not turn answering on. On the number's line, the label says Not answering, and the Turn on Public role button takes you to the screen where you turn answering on (the switch takes effect right away, no need to Save) and set the role, the tone, the conversation flow, and what it must never do. While the Public role is off, whoever writes gets only an automatic reply saying Orion doesn't answer there. Once it is on, the label becomes Answering and the button goes back to Public role, for adjustments. The fullest use of a service number is booking for your clients — see Your clients.

Using the number you already have on WhatsApp Business

If your business already serves customers through the WhatsApp Business app (the one with the "B"), you can connect that same number to Orion without deleting the account and without changing numbers. In the "WhatsApp service numbers" block, use the "Use the number I already have on WhatsApp Business" button: Meta's popup asks you to sign in with the business's Facebook, and the confirmation code arrives in the app itself, not by SMS.

Once connected, the number works on both sides: you keep replying from the app on your phone, and Orion answers through the official API. How it works:

You reply, Orion stops. When you reply to a customer from the app, Orion stops in that conversation for 6 hours. If the customer writes again and nobody answers, Orion looks at what is pending and replies — or stays quiet, if your answer already solved it. It is the same rule as on Instagram. The app's own automatic greeting message does not count as your reply: Orion keeps answering.
With the Public role off, Orion stays quiet. If this number's Public role is off, Orion doesn't answer anyone through it — not even the automatic reply other numbers send when the Public role is off — because you are the one answering, in the app. For Orion to answer, use the line's “Turn on Public role” button, in Connection.
What changes in the app. Disappearing messages, view once and live location are turned off; broadcast lists stop working; groups do not go through Orion.
Old chats and the app's contacts do not come to Orion. Orion starts from the moment you connect.
Cost. What you send from the app stays free; what Orion sends through the official API is charged by Meta.
To turn it off, use the app itself: Settings → Account → Business Platform. Orion stops answering on that number and lets you know.

Requirement: an up-to-date WhatsApp Business app. Regular WhatsApp does not work for this.

Instagram service

Instagram is the second channel where Orion serves your public — the first is the WhatsApp service number, just above. The idea is the same: the person writing there is not you, it is whoever reached out to your business.

It lives at Orion → Instagram in the dashboard, and it is included in every plan at no extra cost. The one exception is the Y Managers seat. The tokens the service uses come out of that account's own allowance, within the 75% set aside for people from outside (see If your account's AI capacity runs out, above).

The connection starts at the Connect Instagram button, signed in to the dashboard, and finishes in the same browser, within 15 minutes.

The account must be professional — business or creator. A personal account does not receive messages through this path, and the dashboard refuses the connection saying so, instead of letting you find out through silence. You switch it in the Instagram app, under Settings → Account type.

These are two decisions, not one. Connecting gives Orion the right to receive the account's messages. Answering is the second switch, and it starts off. While it is off, messages arrive and are recorded, but nobody is answered — the Direct messages switch, in the Orion's replies box, is what starts the service. This is deliberate: a freshly connected account should not start talking to real customers without someone saying yes.

One Instagram account per company. The channel is a company service line, and what arrives through it is accessible to the other members of the organization — as with a service number. To change accounts, disconnect the current one and connect the new one.

The public role is per account. Under Public role you set role, tone, script and limits for Instagram alone — they can differ from what applies on WhatsApp. Until you set anything, the account answers with the main number's role, and the screen says so and shows which one. Clearing the fields and saving returns the account to that inheritance.

When you answer from the app, Orion goes quiet. It notices that a person took over that conversation and steps aside for six hours, so the two of you don't answer the same customer twice. After those six hours, if the last word is still the customer's, Orion reads the conversation and decides whether to reply — and deciding not to reply is a legitimate outcome, when your answer already settled it.

The 24-hour window is Instagram's rule, not ours. After 24 hours without a new message from the person, Instagram no longer allows writing to them. Orion does not try and does not pretend it replied: the conversation stays on record, and the notice is there for whoever looks.

The flood protection applies here too, with one difference: on Instagram the count is of messages, not of new conversations — above ten messages a minute on the account, whoever writes gets that single sentence — one per person every fifteen minutes — instead of a reply to every message. The waiting-your-turn for people who write fast and the rule for repeated survey answers, described under the service number, do not apply on Instagram yet (the daily limit of replies does, with the same number): there the third identical message in a row within ten minutes — even a survey score — gets no reply, and a survey of very similar questions can be interrupted as if it were a loop. For surveys, use the WhatsApp service number.

Disconnecting stops the service immediately and erases the account's credential. The conversation history stays — it is yours.

Whoever connects it is who serves it. The Instagram account is served through the Orion of the person who connected it. If that person is deactivated or removed from the organization (in Users), or if the organization is suspended, Orion stops serving the account right away: messages keep arriving on Instagram, but nobody gets a reply, no stalled conversation is resumed and no new-contact notice is sent. Reactivating or restoring the person — or reactivating the organization — brings the service back as it was, with no need to reconnect. If the person is deleted for good, the account is disconnected just as Disconnecting does; to serve it again, someone in the organization connects the account through their own Orion.

What Orion is doing on Instagram. Below the account, in Orion → Instagram, the panel shows the last seven days of service. At the top, Needs you gathers what is waiting for someone: shortcuts to the conversations with no reply and to the comments that need action, plus a problem with the account, when there is one (the permission about to expire, or something stopping messages from arriving). Right below are the tiles, side by side: the direct messages ones (conversations, no reply, by Orion and by your team) and, on an account that has comments, the comments on posts ones (comments, need action, complaints and praise). Each tile is clickable, and the list of the chosen tile appears below — a single list, so messages never push comments to the bottom of the page. Each conversation shows who spoke last, a snippet of what the customer wrote and, when they are waiting, the reason: your team took over the conversation in the app and Orion stays quiet until the time shown; the account's replies are paused; or there is no reply yet, with the time until which Orion can still reply (after that, only in the app). Once it has been answered, Orion's or your team's reply appears; Open the conversation on Instagram opens it on Instagram, in whichever account is logged in to Instagram on that device. Comments on posts are not yet available for every account. Orion gives each comment a class (question, complaint, praise, tagging friends, spam or other); need action are the comments Orion passed to you and the questions, complaints and still-unclassified comments the account has not answered; an answered comment shows the reply. Each comment has a link that opens it on Instagram — liking a compliment can only be done there. At the end comes the account's health. Orion keeps comments for 90 days. This panel is visible to whoever connected the account and to the organization's Admins.

Orion's replies. The Orion's replies box gathers Orion's two switches for this account, each on a row that turns light green when on and peach when off: Direct messages and, on an account that has comments, Comments on posts. Only the person who connected the account turns them on and off; the organization's Admins see the state. Replies to comments start off. When on, Orion replies on its own, in public and with the account's public role: the question that knowledge marked 🌐 Public answers (or the post's caption) and, with a short thank-you, praise. Complaints, prices, orders, personal data and what it doesn't know, Orion does not answer: the comment goes to Needs you, with the reason, and whoever connected the account gets a notice from Orion — at most one every half hour, without the name or the text of the person who commented. When the reason is that the public knowledge doesn't answer the question, the panel says what to do: add the answer in Knowledge as 🌐 Public. If Instagram refuses a reply, the comment also goes to Needs you. Orion also stays out of a conversation where someone on your team already replied in the app, replies at most twice to the same person on the same post and to at most 30 comments an hour, and only replies to comments that arrived after replies were turned on and were made at most seven days ago. The reply usually goes out within seconds (if something delays it, within a few minutes) and shows in the panel as a reply from Orion. Try a comment shows what Orion would do with a sample comment — and, if you like, with the post's caption — without posting anything; it can be used before turning replies on. On each comment you can Reply from here, Hide and Unhide it, Delete it (on Instagram, for good) and Mark as resolved; on a reply from Orion or from the dashboard, Delete the reply deletes the reply on Instagram and sends the comment back to Needs you. Whoever connected the account and the organization's Admins can do all of this.

Publishing on Instagram. On an account that has publishing, the Posts box, in Orion → Instagram, publishes a photo post to the feed — whoever connected the account and the organization's Admins can publish. Create a post opens three steps, one at a time: Image, Caption and Review. Continue moves to the next one, and Back — or Edit the image — goes back without losing what was done. The photo can be JPG, PNG or WebP: in the Posts card, Orion converts it to JPEG (JPG) on your device, before sending it — that is why it goes out without the photo's metadata (such as the location) — and keeps it up to 8 MB; the aspect ratio goes from 4:5 portrait to 1.91:1 landscape, square included. In the Image step, an image that fits goes out as it is (Original) and can also become Square, Portrait or Landscape; one that falls outside shows the three formats side by side, with Square suggested, each with the result and how much it removes from the photo. How to adjust comes already chosen — Crop the center when the crop removes up to a third of the image, Fit with a white background when it removes more — and can be changed. The result shows before going on; GIF isn't accepted, because Instagram doesn't publish animated images to the feed. The caption takes up to 2,200 characters, with up to 30 hashtags and 20 mentions (@), and the form counts the characters and the hashtags; the alt text, up to 1,000 characters, describes the image for people who use a screen reader. Review the post opens the Review step, with the preview: the image, the account, the caption as it will appear, the alt text and how many posts the account has published in the last 24 hours — Instagram limits that number, and Orion checks it again before publishing. Nothing goes out without your yes — Yes, post to Instagram, or Yes, schedule for the chosen day and time —, and the post goes out exactly as previewed; Cancel discards the draft and goes back to the caption, and a preview nobody confirms expires after one hour. To publish later, the Review step has, next to Yes, post to Instagram, the Schedule… button, which opens Schedule the post in place of the buttons, with the Day and the Time in your device's time zone, from 10 minutes to 60 days from now — outside that, the button doesn't schedule, and the screen says the first or the last time that works —, and Don't schedule, which goes back to the buttons without scheduling. The yes of a scheduled post holds for the scheduled time: at that time, before publishing, Orion checks again the account, whether whoever approved it can still publish for it, and the limit of posts in the last 24 hours — and the post doesn't go out if any of that fails. Until the scheduled time, the scheduled post shows in the list as Scheduled and can be cancelled with Cancel the schedule, which deletes the stored image, or changed with Edit, next to it. Edit opens the same three steps in the Posts box, titled Edit the scheduled post and with everything filled in — the stored image, the caption, the alt text, the day and the time —, and everything can change, even just the time; only a scheduled post can be edited, and a post already published is changed or deleted in the Instagram app. The stored image goes as it went out, with the previous crop; for a different crop of the original photo, Change the image. Meanwhile, the post's row in the list is marked Being edited, above, and until the new yes the previous schedule stands: Leave without saving, in any step of the edit, closes the edit without changing anything. In the edit's Review step, Schedule the post comes already open with the previous day and time (the new time also goes from 10 minutes to 60 days from now), and Yes, save and schedule for the day and time replaces the previous schedule with this one at the same instant — the two never both go out; Don't schedule shows Yes, save and post now, which takes the post off the schedule and publishes it right away. If the scheduled time comes before the new yes, the post goes out as it was, with the previous image, caption and text, and the screen says The edit was lost — the changes no longer count, and Orion doesn't reuse them in a new post; the same happens if the post is cancelled or edited in another tab before the new yes. With less than an hour to the scheduled time, the warning that the post may go out as it is comes right at the start of the edit. After saving, the list shows a single row for the post, with Edited by whoever gave the new yes and the previous schedule. A scheduled post that doesn't go out within 2 hours after the scheduled time is no longer published and shows as Didn't go out, with the reason. After the yes, the box shows Posting… until Instagram finishes, then Posted, with See on Instagram; if Instagram refuses the post, or does not finish within 30 minutes, it shows Didn't go out, with the reason. When scheduling, what shows after the yes is Scheduled for the day and time. The list below shows recent posts, each in its own field, with the image thumbnail, their status, who approved them and when, the scheduled time of scheduled posts, and the link. The thumbnail of a post that hasn't gone out yet is the stored image; that of a published post is the image Instagram itself shows, read on the spot, with nothing stored by Orion; for a post that didn't go out, a cancelled one and an expired one, the image was already deleted, and no image shows in its place. The image is kept only until the post is done (for a scheduled post, until the scheduled time, at most 60 days): once it is published, cancelled, expired, failed or replaced by an edit, the image is deleted. For Instagram to fetch the image, Orion creates a temporary link that is valid for one hour and stops working once the post is published. Deleting a published post is done in the Instagram app. For now, publishing and scheduling are only from the dashboard — Orion does not publish or schedule through the conversation —, and it is not yet available for every account.

Groups

The list of groups Orion appears in is on the Connection page (WhatsApp) and in Orion → Telegram (Telegram). How to authorize a group, the categories, how Orion is called and what is kept are in the WhatsApp and Telegram groups chapter.

The setup Orion runs itself

You do not need to configure anything in the dashboard. Right after you connect, Orion itself runs a four-step setup conversation, straight in the channel you just switched on.

1/4 · Personality 🧠 — first, it asks only what you want to be called. The name you reply with becomes your account name (the Name in the Boss tile of the Orion dashboard), and it confirms: "I'll call you Paul — right?" — if not, just send the right name. If your account already has a name, it doesn't ask: it says what it will call you, and you can correct it. Then, in a single message, it asks what your company does, how it should talk to you (formal or casual), and whether there is anything it must never do. An example it gives itself: "I run a dental clinic. Talk to me in a direct way. Never book anything on my calendar without asking me." The personality is how Orion works for you and talks with you — it is not customer service (serving the public, on a dedicated number, is the Public role, set up separately), and it never tells Orion to make up information: when it doesn't know, it says so. It gives back a summary and asks for your OK before saving. If along the way you say "my name is…", it changes the account name and leaves the summary as it was. If you already have a personality set, it shows the current one and asks whether you want to keep it or adjust it.

2/4 · Contact 📇 — your mobile number and your best email. It uses the email to send you reports and to include you on calendar invitations. Send the number with the country code in front (for example +1 416 555 0123): it is saved in international format and Orion shows you how it turned out (📱 Your number: +1 (416) 555-0123 · Canada). If you leave the country code out and Orion can't be sure of the country, it does not guess: it tells you how it read the number and asks you to send it again with the code — nothing is saved until then.

3/4 · Google 🔗 — it sends a link that goes straight to Google (it works for 15 minutes, only once). Once you authorize, it asks in the chat whether the account is yours: reply YES for it to start using it, or NO to undo. The details are in Google and Microsoft 365, in the chapter Connecting your accounts.

4/4 · Automatic routines ⏰ — it proposes three daily routines already adapted to what you told it about your business (for example, a summary of the calendar at 8am and an end-of-day review at 6pm). You answer "1 and 3", describe them your own way, or answer skip. Without a subscription, it proposes two fixed routines — a morning summary at 8am and an end-of-day review at 6pm — instead of the three adapted ones.

At the end, if Orion is on a dedicated number, it may ask whether you want it to serve your customers too — that is optional, and answering no leaves everything as it is.

The setup commands

skip: skips the current step. You can pick it up later.
later: pauses everything for 3 days. It also works with "not now", "pause", "stop".

setup or continue: picks up where you left off, at any time.

talk to me in English (or in Portuguese, or in Spanish): changes the account language right away, at any step, and it repeats the step's question in the new language.

my name is… (or call me…): changes the account name — the Name in the Boss tile — at any step, and also after the setup, in a normal conversation.

If you stop halfway, it gives you a gentle nudge now and then — never between 9pm and 8am in your local time, and at most three times; after that it stops and waits for you to call. It does not press.

Language

Orion speaks Portuguese, English and Spanish. The starting language comes from your time zone: time zones in Portuguese-speaking countries (and an unknown time zone) start in Portuguese; the rest start in English. When the account is created in the WhatsApp conversation, from a number outside Brazil, the starting language is the one you wrote in; if that cannot be told, it is the language of the number's country. When the account is created on the website by someone outside Brazil, the starting language is the one you use in the dashboard: the one you picked in the dashboard's language selector, after signing in, or, if you never picked one, your browser's language at sign-up (when it is Portuguese, English or Spanish). When the account is created in the mobile app, the starting language is the phone's, when it is Portuguese, English or Spanish. After that it mirrors the language you write in — if you write in Spanish, it answers in Spanish.

If you write several messages in a row in a language different from the saved one, it asks once whether you also want to change the language of the messages it sends on its own (reminders, briefs). And you can pin it whenever you want: "talk to me in Portuguese" — even in the middle of the setup.

Fixed phrases follow the conversation. In the panel and in the app, the confirmation of a send (✔ Email sent to…), the line saying something was not sent and the notice when a reply is interrupted come out in the language you are writing in. In a message too short to show a language (yes, sure), the language of your previous messages in the conversation applies; with none, or when they cannot be read, the account language. The messages Orion sends on its own stay in the account language. And the account language is the one you choose in the dashboard: in the language buttons on the sidebar, or in the Language field of your profile. The choice applies to the screen and also to what Orion sends on its own.