How to build a WhatsApp Flow booking form: a step-by-step setup

Why a Flow instead of chatbot questions

A chatbot can already collect information one question at a time with Ask Question steps, and that is often the right tool for one or two fields. WhatsApp Flows earn their place once a booking needs several pieces of information at once: a measurement-visit appointment needs a date, a time window and an address; a loan enquiry needs an amount, a purpose and a city. Asking five questions one at a time means five separate messages and five chances for the customer to drop out partway. A Flow puts the same fields on one or two screens, the customer fills them in at their own pace, and one submission arrives with everything attached.

The trade-off is setup time: a chatbot question needs no design beyond the question text, while a Flow needs screens laid out in advance. For a booking form used by many customers, that upfront design pays for itself quickly in fewer half-finished conversations.

Step 1: list the fields you actually need

Before opening the builder, write down the booking on paper. A property site-visit form for a real estate broker might need: visitor name, preferred date, preferred time window and number of visitors. Resist adding "nice to have" fields such as a long comments box; every extra field is a reason someone closes the form without finishing. If a field can be inferred from the contact record instead (their name, if they already messaged you from a saved contact), leave it out of the form.

Step 2 and 3: build the screens

In your Broadchat panel, open WhatsApp Mini-Apps → Mini Apps to build the Flow; this is Broadchat's name for the feature Meta calls WhatsApp Flows, so the two terms describe the same thing. Start from a ready template close to your use case where one exists, or start blank. Add fields such as short text, a dropdown for a fixed set of choices (for example a department or service type), a date picker for the appointment date, and a button that either moves to a second screen or submits the form. Keep a booking form to one or two screens; a long multi-screen form works against the same goal that made you choose a Flow over a chat question in the first place.

Step 4: decide if you need live data

Most booking forms only need to collect answers and hand them back to you, which needs no developer work beyond building the screens. A form that must show something that changes, such as which appointment slots are open today, needs the Flow to call an endpoint your server exposes, with the traffic encrypted using a key your channel registers. If your booking slots change often enough that a hard-coded dropdown would quickly go stale, plan for the endpoint from the start rather than retrofitting it after the simple version ships.

Step 5 and 6: send the Flow

How you send a Flow depends on whether the customer has already messaged you. Inside the 24-hour customer service window, for example after someone taps a keyword like "book" or presses a button, send the Flow as an interactive message from a chatbot step in Chatbots → Chatbots. To start a brand-new conversation, for example from a Click-to-WhatsApp ad or a QR code someone has not messaged you from yet, the Flow must be attached to an approved message template that carries a Flow button; this is the only way to open a conversation with a Flow, and the person must still have opted in to hear from you.

Step 7: handle the submission

A completed Flow returns to you as a submission event. Add a mini-app (Flow) submission trigger in Chatbots → Chatbots and, in the steps that follow, save each answer to a Super Field on the contact, tag the contact with something you can filter on later (for example site-visit-requested), and send back a confirmation message that repeats the key details, such as the date and time, so the customer can flag a mistake immediately rather than discovering it on the day. If the booking also needs to reach a calendar or a spreadsheet, add the relevant Automations step, such as the Google Sheet or Google Meet app, after the submission trigger.

Step 8: test before a wide send

Open the Flow yourself from a real phone on both Android and iPhone before sending it to a real audience. Field rendering and keyboard behaviour can differ slightly between platforms, and catching that on a test device costs a few minutes; catching it after a campaign has gone out to hundreds of contacts costs reputation and support time.

Where this fits

A Flow is one part of a booking flow, not the whole thing. The webinar registration playbook shows a full example of a Flow feeding into reminders and automation (take webinar registrations on WhatsApp), and the appointment confirmation templates give you the message to send once the Flow submission confirms a slot. For the chatbot side of things more generally, see the chatbot builder without code guide. Agencies that build booking Flows for several clients can offer the finished setup under their own brand through the partner program.