Sending journal updates via WhatsApp

Zipwire has a WhatsApp bot that can accept plain English descriptions of what you've been working on.

Enabling WhatsApp

Before we can accept journal update messages, Zipwire needs to be sure of the mobile phone number you use for WhatsApp.

There are two ways to prove your phone number is really you.

1. You tell us your number, we send a short code via WhatsApp, and you confirm the code on our website.

2. You send a special Connect message with a longer code to the Zipwire bot via WhatsApp and if we recognise the code, we hook you up.

To try either of these, head to My account and the Devices tab.

Sending a journal update

The Zipwire bot needs to be able to tell the difference between messages and figure out how to treat them; whether they journal updates or something else.

To send a journal update, start the message with any of the following, then continue to describe what you did.

• "This week"

• "Last week"

• "Week 1" where 1 can be any week number in the recent past

• "Today"

• "Yesterday"

• "Tomorrow" yes, you can tell us what'll you're planning to do

The bot will use all your current activities when understanding your message, so use the same wording and acronyms.

If the bot thinks you're talking about an entirely new activity, it will go ahead and create it, then log time against it. This activity will not be linked to a workflow so you'll be asked to link it when you later come to create your timesheets.

Some examples might be:

"This week I worked full time on ABC"

"Today I worked on Project Alpha half the day and the rest on Research"

"Yesterday I did 2 hours for Mike and 4 hours at the Kumars"

Other ways to update your journal

You can also update your journal from the web interface or from the terminal using the Zipwire CLI (zw).