# Channels and integrations

Connecting the other places customers message you, and the tools you already run.

Source: https://docs.omazy.ai/connect/channels/

The widget covers your website. Channels cover everywhere else your customers
already are, which is usually where they were going to message you anyway.

## Before you connect a second channel

Get one right first. A single channel with a good agent beats four channels with
a mediocre one, and every channel you add multiplies the surface where a bad
answer can appear.

The exception is when your customers are demonstrably somewhere else. If nobody
uses your website contact form and everyone messages you on WhatsApp, the
website is not the place to perfect anything.

## One agent, many doors

The same agent answers across channels. That is the point: your opening hours
should not depend on which app someone opened.

What does vary is what each channel can display. Rich blocks like carousels and
forms render fully in the widget and degrade elsewhere. Write answers that read
correctly as plain text, and treat rich rendering as a bonus rather than a
requirement.

## Integrations

Integrations connect the tools you already run. Two rules keep this boring, and
boring is what you want here:

**Scope narrowly.** Grant the least access that makes the integration work. A
read-only connection cannot cause an incident.

**Uninstall means revoke.** Credentials belong to the install, so removing an
integration actually removes access rather than hiding the button. If you find
yourself pasting a long-lived key into a config box somewhere, stop and check
whether there is a proper connection for it.

## When a channel goes quiet

Channels fail silently more often than loudly. The usual causes, in order:

1. The upstream credential expired or was revoked by the other side.
2. The other platform changed a permission and the connection needs re-approval.
3. The channel is connected but the agent is not published to it.

Check the channel's status in the console before assuming the agent broke. The
agent is usually fine and simply has nobody to talk to.