Overview

This article describes how to prepare for an integration between XCALLY and one Instagram account using Openchannel technology.  The preparation of the integration allows for Direct Messages (DM) to a particular Instagram account to be handled by an Openchannel account in XCALLY.

Note: This integration will consume API web services through Gupshupp, a Facebook certified partner and LinkedIP partner to act as a bridge between XCALLY and your Instagram account.  In order to make the integration to work several activities will need to be done in your XCALLY solution, in your Facebook account and in your Instagram account.

Requirements

Please consider these elements when preparing an Instagram DM integration with XCALLY:

• An Instagram Business type account; provided by you.
• An XCALLY Openchannel; provided by you.
• An Instagram-Gupshup gateway handler, provided by LinkedIP.
• A mobile device with access to your Instagram account

Before starting the integration

The following requisites are important for a successful integration:

• Ensure that you have a verified Facebook Business account
• Ensure that you have setup a business type Instagram account
• Ensure that your business Instagram account is connected to your Facebook page
• Ensure that you have allowed LinkedIP's Facebook account as a Partner to manage your linked Facebook page.  You know you have appointed LinkedIP as a Partner when you go to https://facebook.com/Pages and then to Settings > New Pages Experience > Page Access and you see this:

You may need LinkedIP Facebook Business ID 2161533390786404 to grant us authorization.  Should you need to know how to add a Partner to your Facebook Business Account please click here.

Step by Step procedure

1. Create an Openchannel account

The first step is to create an Openchannel account in your XCALLY instance.

When creating the Openchannel account please consider

• A key to identify this account
• A list that will be used to match your contacts
• A description
• Note: for the moment it is ok to leave the Reply URL field empty

Now Edit your Openchannel account and set the Map Key field to instagram_data:

Now, please copy the value for your Receive URL.  This should be something like:

https://my.xcallyserver.com/api/openchannel/accounts/1/notify

Please contact our support team by opening a ticket and request the creation of a handler for Instagram using that URL.  We will create the required handler.  It's important that before going to next step LinkedIP's Facebook account has been authorized as a Partner so we can manage the integration.

2. Setup your Facebook account

• Now go to https://www.facebook.com/pages and if you are not logged please log into your Facebook account. Click on the Page that is linked to your Instagram account:

• Once you are in the Settings menu please click on New Pages Experience link:

• Now go to Advanced Messaging:

• As you have previously authorized LinkedIP to manage your Facebook integration you should see the Gupshop Bot as a Connected App listed in the window:

• Locate the App setting section and click on Configure button for Instagram receiver:

• Ensure the primary receiver for your handover protocol is assigned to Gupshup Bot

3. Setup your Instagram account

The following steps should be conducted using a mobile phone.  The objective of these steps are to enable Allow Access To Message feature. By the time of this writing (December of 2022) this option was only accessible through the Instagram mobile app.

• Open your Instagram account in your mobile app
• Tap on the 3 lines icon at the top right of the screen
• Go to Settings > Privacy > Messages
• Under Connected Tools please toggle and enable Allow Access To Message:

4.  Set Reply URL in your Openchannel account

Please edit the associated Openchannel account for this integration and edit Reply URL field.  A valid value is something like http://my.xcallyserver.com:90/mycompany/instagram/send.php. Please insert there the value provided by our support team: