The Handover Protocol is a feature on Facebook and Instagram Professional designed to manage conversations with users and transfer control between messaging apps, such as Manychat. In essence, the handover protocol ensures that users get the right help at the right time by letting different apps take turns managing the conversation.
This feature is only necessary when using multiple messaging apps, as it prevents contacts from receiving redundant messages from different sources. If you only use Manychat, the handover is not required.
If the handover protocol is configured incorrectly, your contacts may encounter issues with opt-ins and automatic responses, keywords and other triggers, User Input, Buttons, Quick Replies, and similar features.
Handover Protocol status
You can quickly check the handover status in your Manychat account under Settings > Messenger > Current Manychat Role. If the handover protocol is set up properly, the current Manychat role will be set to Primary.
If you see the None or Unknown status, the handover protocol is disabled. However, automations will still work without it.
If you see the Secondary status, the handover protocol is set up incorrectly. To resolve this, you must update your Facebook settings and set Manychat as the primary receiver for the handover protocol.
How to set Manychat as the primary receiver for Handover Protocol
On Facebook, go to Settings & privacy → Page setup → Advanced messaging → Handover protocol, and assign the primary receiver role to Manychat for either Messenger or Instagram, depending on which channel you are experiencing issues with:
To disable the handover protocol, go to the same section and deselect Manychat by clicking the button again so that Select is displayed.
⚠️ Please note that enabling the handover will automatically move all conversations to the Done folder in the Page Inbox in the Meta Business Suite. However, the inbox still saves the history of these conversations. Disabling the handover protocol moves all conversations back to the Main folder.
After making any changes, make sure to refresh permissions via the Help button in your Manychat account:
How to transfer control over Live Chat conversations
You can also set another application as the LiveChat App, if you wish to manually transfer conversations between different apps. When configured, marking a conversation as Open will transfer it to the selected app, while marking it as Closed will return control to Manychat.
If you encounter issues with messaging a particular user (e.g., duplicate messages) you might need to change the conversation status to manually trigger the handover. To do this, go to your Manychat account, open the Live Chat conversation with the affected contact, and mark the conversation as closed or reopen it, as shown in the screenshots below. Any of these actions will pass control over this conversation to Manychat:
If you've followed all the steps in this tutorial and are still encountering issues with the handover protocol, please contact our Support Team.