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Introduction

Your guide to what Relay is, who uses it, and how the pieces fit together.

Overview

Relay is a self-hosted WhatsApp team inbox. When customers message your WhatsApp number, their messages arrive in a shared Queue; your agents pick them up and reply, all from one screen — without ever seeing the customer's phone number. It's built for support and sales teams that handle WhatsApp conversations together instead of passing a single phone around.

One installation can run several workspaces, each an independent team with its own numbers, agents, customers, and inbox. Nothing crosses between workspaces.

The three account types

Relay has three kinds of login. Knowing which is which makes the rest of the docs clear.

  • Super-admin — the person who installs and maintains Relay on the server. They sign in to the Admin panel (/admin), where they create workspaces and each workspace's Admin account. This role mostly matters during setup.
  • Admin — the account that runs a single workspace. After signing in, their role shows as Admin. They connect WhatsApp numbers, add agents and set each agent's permissions, and change workspace settings — and they can do everything an agent can.
  • Agent — a team member who works the inbox: accepting chats from the Queue, replying, and resolving them. Agents only get the extra abilities their Admin grants them.

Note: "Admin" here means the person who runs a workspace — not the server. The server-level role is the Super-admin. In the Admin panel the Super-admin sets up each workspace's Admin as its Manager; once that person signs in to their workspace, their role is shown as Admin.

How a conversation flows

  1. A customer sends a WhatsApp message to one of your connected numbers.
  2. It appears in the workspace's Queue as a new, unassigned conversation.
  3. An agent clicks Accept to take it, then replies.
  4. When the matter is handled, the agent clicks Resolve. If the customer writes again, the conversation re-opens and returns to the Queue.

Throughout, the agent sees only a masked alias like Customer 0007 — never the phone number. See Masking & privacy.

Next steps