Skip to main content

Google’s Business Messages

Start receiving and sending messages from Google Maps & Google Search.

Google's Business Messages source provides a channel of communication between your Google Business Location and your running instance of Airy Core.

What you will learn
  • The required steps to configure Google's Business Messages source
  • How to connect a Google Business Location to Airy Core
note

The Google's Business Messages source is not enabled by default.

You need to add configuration in your airy.yaml file and apply it to activate it.

Configuration​

Google's Business Messages requires the following configuration:

Let's proceed step by step.

Step 1: Registration​

You first need to be registered with Google's Business Messages before configuring this source. Refer to Google's Business Messages guides to find more information about this source and the registration process.

Step 2: Editing of the yaml file in Airy Core​

Once you are registered, head over to your Google Service Account and create a key in json format.

Facebook token page

Copy the Google Service Account key file provided by Google to your airy.yaml file as a one line string next to saFile: (below components/sources/google).

Step 3: Verification by Google​

As a security measure, every request sent by Google is signed and verified against your partner key. You must also set the value for partnerKey: to your partner key, in your airy.yaml file, below components/sources/google.

note

Refer to the Configuration Docs on how to input these values.

note

Your Google Webhook URL should have the following format:

https://your-public-fqdn/google

or if you are using Ngrok:

https://RANDOM_STRING.tunnel.airy.co/google

Once the verification process has been completed, Google's Business Messages will immediately start sending events to your Airy Core instance 🎉

Step 4: Connect Google's Business Messages to your Airy Core instance​

There are 2 options to connect this connector's channel to your instance:

  • you can send an API request (using curl or an API platform such as Postman)
  • you can use the Control Center UI to connect and manage the channel in just a few clicks

We cover both options in this section.

Connect Google's Business Messages via API request​

After the configuration, you can connect a Google's Business Messages channel to your instance by sending a request to the Channels endpoint.

Channels endpoint

Connect Google's Business Messages source to your Airy Core instance through the Channels endpoint


Connects a Google Business Account to Airy Core.

POST /channels.google.connect
  • gbm_id is the ID of your Google Business Message agent
  • name is the custom name for the connected business
  • image_url is the custom image URL
{
  "gbm_id": "gbm-id",
  "name": "My custom name for this location",
  "image_url": "https://example.com/custom-image.jpg" // optional
}

Sample response

{
  "id": "channel-uuid-1",
  "metadata": {"name": "My custom name for this location", "image_url": "https://example.com/custom-image.jpg"},
  "source": "google",
  "source_channel_id": "gbm-id"
}

Connect Google's Business Messages via the UI​

You can also connect a Google's Business Messages channel via your Airy Core instance Control Center UI.

On your instance's Control Center, click on 'Catalog' on the left sidebar menu and select 'Google Business Messages'.

This will open a page with a form.

Google Business Messages connect form

Add your Agent ID and Name. You can optionally add an image URL, which will be used as the conversation's icon in the Inbox UI's messenger. A fallback image will be used if you do not enter a valid image URL.

Upon successful connection, Google's Business Messages will appear as connected in the Connectors page in your app's Control Center.

You can edit its configuration at any time by selecting 'Google Business Messages' in the list.

Control Center connectors with Instagram

Step 5: Send messages from a Google's Business Messages channel​

After connecting the source to your instance, you will be able to send messages through the Messages endpoint.

Note that when you send a message from this source, you must specify a representative, the individual or automation that composed the message. Google's Business Messages supports "BOT" and "HUMAN" as the representativeType. Find more information on Google's Business Messages guide.

Whatever is put on the message field will be forwarded "as-is" to the source's message endpoint.

Sending a text message

{
  conversation_id: "a688d36c-a85e-44af-bc02-4248c2c97622",
  message: {
    text: "Hello!",
    representative: {
      representativeType: "HUMAN"
    }
  }
}

Sample response

{
  "id": "{UUID}",
  "content": {
    "text": "Hello!",
    "representative": {
      "representativeType": "HUMAN"
    }
  },
  "delivery_state": "pending|failed|delivered",
  // See glossary
  "from_contact": "true|false",
  //'yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ' date in UTC form, to be localized by clients
  "sent_at": "{string}",
  "source": "google",
  // metadata object of the message
  "metadata": {
    "sentFrom": "iPhone"
  },
  // details about the sender
  "sender": {
    "id": "github:12345", // For unauthenticated instances this defaults to "airy-core-anonymous"
    "name": "John Doe", // optional
    "avatar_url": "http://example.org/avatar.png" // optional
  }
}
Last updated on