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Facebook Messenger and Instagram direct messages arrive in the same inbox as your other channels. You connect each with a Meta login, and Sela handles replies from your team and from the AI assistant. This page covers setup, the rules Meta applies, and the current limits.

Before you start#

• You must be a workspace admin with permission to manage settings, and the workspace must not be read-only. See Team, roles and permissions.
• Messenger needs a Facebook Page that you administer.
• Instagram needs an Instagram Business or Creator account. No Facebook Page is required.
• For AI answers you also need the AI add-on, credits and an assistant profile with a brand name. See Plans and billing.

Connect Messenger#

1. Open Settings, Workspace setup, Integrations, then choose Add channel.
2. Choose Facebook Messenger and Connect. The dialog is titled "Configure Messenger".
3. Select Connect Messenger. You are sent to Facebook to log in and approve access.
4. Sela stores the Page connection, subscribes the Page to messages, native reply echoes, customer reads, deliveries, standby events, postbacks, referrals and reactions, and returns you to the Integrations page. The card shows Connected.

To remove an account, open that account in Your connected channels and choose Disconnect. Other accounts keep working.

Choose Connect another account to add another Page. During Facebook authorization, grant access to the Page you want to add. If Facebook returns several Pages, Sela connects the first authorized Page that is not already active in this workspace. Reconnecting from an existing account's settings targets that Page. Check the Page ID shown after connection; Sela does not provide a Page picker.

If your Facebook account has no Page, the connection stops with "No Facebook Pages found for this user. You must create a Page first."

Facebook asks for permission to list your Pages, send and receive messages, and manage Page metadata. Sela asks for the permission to read Page engagement (used to enrich ad conversations) only once Meta has approved it for the app, so you may not see that prompt.

Connect Instagram#

1. Open Integrations, Add channel, Instagram, Connect. The dialog is titled "Configure Instagram".
2. Select Connect Instagram. You are sent to Instagram to log in and allow access to basic profile and messages.
3. Sela exchanges the login for a long-lived token, reads the profile and subscribes to messaging events.
4. Sela refreshes the Instagram token automatically once a day.

Choose Connect another account and sign in to the additional Instagram account to add it. Open an account's settings and choose Disconnect to remove just that account.

Multiple accounts and plan limits#

The Integrations page lists every connected account and shows usage against your plan's per-channel allowance. Messenger and Instagram have separate allowances. New accounts and reactivation are refused when their allowance is full; refreshing an active account is allowed.

Messages and replies stay with the Page or Instagram account that received them. A customer messaging two of your accounts has a separate conversation for each account. When you add a second account, Sela preserves the original account for older conversations. Historical conversations whose receiving account cannot be determined stay read-only until their account is identified; disconnecting the original account never redirects them to another account.

What customers and operators see#

Operators also see read state, reactions and, on conversations that came from an ad, the ad (see Ads and offers). Instagram accepts PDF documents on both Instagram Login and Page-linked connections. Other document types are refused before upload. Instagram has no message buttons in Sela.

Larger Messenger and Page-linked Instagram files upload directly to Meta. Instagram Login uses the documented signed download link with more transfer time for larger files. Incoming and native-app originals can be retained up to Sela's 100 MB capture ceiling when Meta supplies an accessible download. That receiving ceiling does not increase the Send API limits above. A file larger than the outgoing allowance remains available to your team to download.

Original audio and video are not limited to 60 seconds. AI analysis has a separate, smaller allowance; saving or delivering a file does not mean the assistant can interpret it. Upload progress reaches completion only after storage and message persistence succeed. Interrupted inbox uploads can resume their saved parts.

Replies sent from native apps#

When Meta supplies a native reply echo, Sela places the reply in the matching conversation as an outgoing message. Replies sent through Instagram, Messenger or the Facebook Page inbox show their native app as the sender; Sela does not guess which workspace teammate used that app. Provider message IDs keep repeated echoes and replies already sent from Sela from creating duplicate messages.

A live native human reply updates the conversation's latest agent response, so an answered conversation no longer matches Unanswered only. It clears preceding questions from the shared unread count while keeping newer questions unread. Sela pauses the AI and records the native takeover in Activity. Use Hand back to assistant when you want the AI to continue. A delayed reply does not reopen a closed conversation or undo a newer handling decision.

If an earlier customer message reaches Sela after the native reply, it stays read and does not trigger another notification or automatic reply. Customer messages sent after the native reply still appear as unread.

Native replies use the channel's icon as their avatar. The takeover notice appears once per reply session, rather than above every message. A new notice appears after a gap of at least 15 minutes between native replies, or when a native reply takes control again after an AI handback. The thread also groups repeated notices from older history; the original audit records remain available in Activity.

Text, quoted replies and supplied customer pins are retained. Sela saves the supplied photos, videos, audio, files and stickers as attachments, including shared posts, Reels and stories when Meta provides downloadable media. Incoming and native-app albums keep up to 30 attachments on the same message. Ordinary shared links remain readable links.

When an echo contains no content or only an attachment stub, Sela requests the original message through the connected account. Temporary download failures retry with refreshed media links. A recovered attachment replaces the unavailable notice. Persistent failures appear in Delivery log, where an administrator can retry recovery. An album stays failed while one of its attachments is still missing. Recovery does not send another message to the customer.

Meta may withhold a deleted, private or unsupported attachment. Sela cannot recover a file the connected account cannot access. Open the native app to check the original, reconnect a connection that needs attention, or ask the sender to send the file again.

Customer read receipts update outgoing sent/delivered/read indicators. Messenger supplies a read-through time; Instagram supplies the ID of the message the customer saw. Sela does not mark a newer reply read just because an older reply was seen. A failed or unsent reply stays failed or unsent.

Native human messages are available in conversation history and the existing reviewed conversation-learning process, subject to workspace settings. Receiving an echo does not publish knowledge or train a model automatically.

If native replies are missing, reconnect the channel and have your Meta app administrator check both app-level and account/Page-level subscriptions. Messenger needs message_echoes, message_reads and message_deliveries alongside messages; standby events depend on Meta conversation routing. Instagram uses messages and messaging_seen; eligible Instagram Login grants also subscribe to message_echoes. Sela falls back to the working message subscription if that additional field is rejected. App Review and Advanced Access can limit events from real customers even when test accounts work. Events missed before subscriptions were enabled are not recovered automatically.

Native replies on Instagram#

When an operator quotes a specific message, Instagram sometimes cannot accept the quoted reply. The inbox then shows that a native reply is unavailable. Send the reply without quoting.

The 24-hour rule#

Meta lets you send a free-form message only within 24 hours of the customer's last message. Each new customer message restarts the 24 hours.

• The conversation details panel shows a Service window countdown.
• After the window closes, a reply is refused with "The 24-hour Meta reply window has ended." The same applies to scheduled messages.
• Closed conversations and channels that are disconnected or inactive are read-only for sending.
• Sela has no template messages for Messenger or Instagram. If the window closes, wait for the customer to write again.

Ads and offers#

When someone messages you from a Click-to-Messenger or Click-to-Instagram ad, Meta tells Sela which ad they came from. Sela keeps one record per ad, marks the conversation with that ad and counts each conversation once. The conversation shows the ad, and the Ads page lists the ads that brought chats or orders in the chosen period, busiest first, with those chats and orders.

What Meta sends:

• Pictures are kept. Meta's picture links expire, so Sela downloads the ad picture once from Meta's servers and keeps its own copy. Videos are not downloaded. When Media Understanding (images & voice notes) is on and the workspace has AI, the picture is described once, and the assistant reads that description. Describing it uses AI credits like a customer photo.
• Shared posts become pictures. When a customer shares an Instagram post, Sela saves it as an image in that conversation instead of a link, adds its caption when Meta sends one (or when the post belongs to your own Instagram account), and describes the picture when Media Understanding is on. The picture and description stay in that conversation: the assistant uses them only there, and they never become an ad's picture or reach other customers. The one exception is a share of the ad's own post, recognized by its Instagram post ID, which can give a video ad without a picture its picture. Ad pictures are not listed in the conversation's files.
• Link the ad once to one or more offers. On the ad in the conversation, or on the Ads page, choose Link to an offer and pick one or more of your offers or combos, up to 10. Linking needs the manage settings permission; everyone who can read the inbox sees the ad and its offers. When the ad's picture, text or name mentions one of your live offers or shows its price, Sela shows it as Suggested. A suggestion does nothing until someone links it.
• What the assistant does. For 72 hours after the customer arrives, the assistant knows they came from your ad and presents the linked offers that are running, with their saved prices. See Ads and offers for the exact behavior.
• Orders. An order placed from that chat within 7 days of the arrival records the ad, and order exports include it. See Export orders.

If an ad's text never appears for Messenger, the Page engagement permission has not been granted yet. Instagram never sends ad text.

Social Follow-Up rules#

Social Follow-Up manages what happens when a customer goes quiet. It applies to WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram DMs (and Telegram). Open it from the sidebar under Social follow-up. It requires a plan with automation access (Operations or Scale).

A rule has these settings:

Rules and limits:

• Delays must be greater than zero.
• The post-close message must be scheduled for under 24 hours, because of the Meta window.
• Only one enabled rule per channel is allowed.
• Sela waits for a 5-minute quiet period before arming a rule.
• A job is skipped when the Meta window is already closed.

What is not supported#

• Comments. Comments on posts, Reels and ads, and mentions, are not handled on Instagram or Facebook. Social Follow-Up concerns DMs only.
• Several Pages. Only the first Page is connected for Messenger.
• Templates and marketing broadcasts on Messenger or Instagram.
• Non-PDF documents on Instagram, and link buttons on Messenger and Instagram.
• Editing or deleting a sent message.

Troubleshooting#

For failed sends with a reference number see Delivery troubleshooting. For the WhatsApp equivalent, see WhatsApp.

Customer-shared locations#

Messenger location attachments retain the pin when coordinates are supplied by the channel. Instagram pinned-location and current/live-location cards are supported when Meta supplies a recognizable English or Arabic location template with an unambiguous destination marker. A current/live-location card is saved as a snapshot, not continuous tracking. Instagram and Messenger Maps links received in text or shared-link attachments are also available.

If an Instagram webhook contains only an attachment stub, Sela looks up that message through the connected account. If Meta does not provide usable location data, the conversation shows an Instagram attachment unavailable notice. Open Instagram to view the original and ask the customer to paste a Maps link. An ordinary image, map center, or ambiguous map with multiple destination markers cannot become a delivery pin automatically.

If Messenger delivers an unavailable location attachment, the conversation shows an attachment unavailable notice. Open Messenger to check it and ask for a Maps link. The assistant does not answer an attachment it cannot read.

Enable Location / address in invoice extraction settings. Extraction can fill a separate Customer Maps link for review. The invoice and linked Store order keep this link, driver assignment fills it automatically, and the assigned driver can open it with Maps. It is separate from the business's static invoice QR link.

Extra features#

Active Instagram and Messenger connections offer Learn reply style under Extra features, both on the connected account card and when managing it. The shortcut opens AI assistant, then Reply style, with that channel selected. You can combine it with the other reply sources. Learning uses saved, verified employee replies and requires AI Assist and permission to manage settings. Review the suggestion before applying it. See Learning employee reply style.

In a Store workspace, Instagram also offers Extract products from posts. It opens Catalog learning, where Import from Instagram lets you choose posts and review product drafts before publishing them to Inventory. Connect Instagram before importing. See Catalog and products.