If the brand that an agent represents has physical locations, you can associate the locations with the agent so that users can message specific locations with Business Messages. Business Messages identifies locations by Place ID.
With Place IDs, you can identify which physical location a user messages and determine the best course of action for responding to the user.
You must claim ownership of physical locations through Business Profile before you can associate locations with a Business Messages agent.
Managing multiple locations
If the brand is part of a chain, you must add all locations for that chain where you have permission to enable messaging. To verify all locations in the chain, you will make a single verify request for one location. Once we verify that location, we will automatically verify the other associated locations that you have added.
After verification, if you add additional locations, you will need to request location verification again.
To view locations associated with your agent,
- Open the Business Communications Developer Console and sign in with your Business Messages Google account.
- Choose your agent.
- Click Locations in the left navigation.
Create a location
To add a location to an agent,
- Open the Business Communications Developer Console and sign in with your Business Messages Google account.
- Choose your agent.
- Click Locations in the left navigation.
- Click Add.
- Search for a location or enter a Place ID, then click Add.
Test a location
Each agent has test URLs that let you see how a conversation with that agent appears to users and gives you the opportunity to verify your messaging infrastructure.
To test an agent,
- Open the Business Communications Developer Console and sign in with your Business Messages Google account.
- Choose your agent.
- Click Locations in the left navigation.
- Find the location in the list.
- Under Test URLs, click the Android button or iOS button to copy the test URL to your device's clipboard.
- To open the agent's test URL, use the Business Messages Agent Launcher on a mobile device. Copying and pasting or otherwise manually navigating to a test URL doesn't work because of browser security measures.
Update a location
You can add and delete locations for an agent with the Business Communications Developer Console.
To change a location's messaging availability, conversational settings, ro localization settings, use the Business Communications API to update the location.
Delete a location
When you delete an agent, Business Messages deletes all location data. Business Messages doesn't delete messages sent by your agent related to the location that are in transit to or stored on a user's device. Messages to users aren't location data.
Delete requests fail if you've attempted to verify the location one or more times. To delete a location that you've verified or attempted to verify, contact us. (You must first sign in with a Business Messages Google account. To register for an account, see Register with Business Messages.)
To delete a location,
- Open the Business Communications Developer Console and sign in with your Business Messages Google account.
- Choose your agent.
- Click Locations in the left navigation.
- Find the location in the list.
- Click the location's checkbox, the click Delete.
- Click Delete.
Next steps
Now that you have an agent with locations, you can design your messaging flows.