Affiliate WhatsApp Inbox
A shared web inbox that brings six affiliate team WhatsApp numbers into one screen, so unanswered chats never slip through.
01Problem
The affiliate team handled hundreds of conversations on six phones. Nobody could see which chats were still waiting, how long replies took, or what had been said on another number.
The goal: one screen for all six numbers while the team keeps using WhatsApp on their phones as usual.
02Architecture
Each number is linked like WhatsApp Web, so no phone or number has to be migrated to a business API.
03My contribution
- Built the multi-account service: one session per number, reconnect handling, and clear "disconnected / scan again" states.
- Stores full chat history with edit and delete history, and an audit log of everything sent from the web.
- Unanswered-chat counters per account, a "not replied" filter and reply-time per chat.
- Resolves contact names and profile photos like WhatsApp does, with manually set labels for each team number.
- Anti-ban safeguards: no broadcast, rate-limited sending, and no automatic read receipts.
04Technical challenges
Contacts showing as long hidden IDs
Many chats appeared as anonymous IDs instead of names or phone numbers.
Mapped hidden IDs to phone numbers from WhatsApp’s own sync data, then fell back to profile names; applied to all existing chats.
Labels flickering while typing
The page auto-refreshes status every few seconds and kept resetting the label being edited.
Refresh skips fields that are focused, saves on Enter or blur with a debounce, and uses stable keys so cards do not re-mount.
Sessions logged out from the phone
When a phone removed the linked device, the slot looked connected but was not.
Detect logout, show a disconnected state, keep history readable and offer a one-click re-scan.
05Results
- All six numbers in one inbox with live updates.
- Unanswered chats visible per account and in total.
- History, edits and deletions preserved for review.
06Evidence
- Blurred inbox screenshot (above).
- Architecture described on this page.
- Demo with dummy contacts available on request.
Internal company system. Source code is private; screenshots are blurred to hide business figures and personal data. Happy to walk through the code and architecture in an interview.