Send a message as a visitor through a widget. Chatway picks the contact and the conversation for you, so no conversation_id is needed.

How the contact is selected

If contact_id matches an existing contact on this widget, it takes priority and the supplied name, email and phone are ignored. If contact_id is missing or not found, Chatway looks up the contact by email, then creates a new contact if no match exists. An unknown contact_id does not itself cause an error.

In detail, Chatway checks these in order and uses the first match:

1. contact_id: the existing contact with this ID, if it belongs to the widget in widget_id. It always takes priority over email.
2. email: the most recent contact on the widget with this email. This is also used when contact_id is sent but not found on the widget.
3. New contact: if nothing matches, or neither contact_id nor email is sent, a new contact is created from name, email and phone. It gets a new ID; an unknown contact_id is never reused as the ID.

When an existing contact is matched, name, email and phone are not used to update it.

Which conversation receives the message

• Contact has a conversation: the message is added to the contact's most recent conversation. If that conversation is resolved, it is reopened automatically.
• Contact has no conversation (including every new contact): a new conversation is started with this message.

Reusing an initialized contact

If you created the contact with POST /api/v1/contacts/initialize, send the returned contact ID as contact_id with the same widget. The message then goes to that contact instead of creating another one.

Note: this endpoint uses widget_id, while the initialize endpoint uses widgetId. The message text goes in the top-level content field.

Examples

• Existing contact: send widget_id, contact_id and content.
• Find by email: send widget_id, email and content. Add name and phone so they are saved if a new contact has to be created.
• Anonymous visitor: send only widget_id and content. A new contact and conversation are created every time.

Use data.attributes.contact.id from the response as contact_id to send more messages as the same visitor.

{
  "widget_id": "eouqtiupanm6uvglwshy",
  "contact_id": "9b0c5fe6-35ad-459d-b6ba-4288191f84f1",
  "name": "Jane Doe",
  "email": "jane@example.com",
  "phone": "+15551234567",
  "content": "Hi, I need help with my order."
}