Save, publish, and go live

The builders separate three things that are easy to mistake for one: saving your work, publishing a version, and pointing a channel at it. Something can be saved, published, and still not answering anybody.

Save

Save — or Save draft — writes the canvas to your workspace. Nothing about the live behaviour changes.

Save before leaving the builder. If it shows Unsaved, your latest edits are not yet saved. A leave-page warning is a reminder, not proof your changes were kept; reopen the draft to check them.

Publish

Publish makes the reviewed canvas available as a published version. A Bot still needs an eligible Inbox connection before it handles customer messages.

For a bot, this opens its own page with three parts:

• Channel target (Web Chat routing for a website bot) — the Bot's intended channel and connected number or account where applicable. This is not a workspace-wide answering rule.
• Pre-publish checks — template and sender readiness, WhatsApp-specific checks, and links to fix what's missing.
• Publish, with an optional release note. Use it to explain what changed in this version for your team.

For a journey or an operations flow, Publish saves and publishes in one action.

Either way you'll see three states:

• Draft — never published. Nothing is running.
• Published — the live version matches your canvas.
• Published + draft — you've edited since publishing. The live version keeps running unchanged until you publish again, so you can rework a live bot without anyone meeting a half-finished version.

When publish is refused

If publishing fails you'll see "Cannot publish:" followed by the reasons. These come from a check the server runs against your actual account, not against the canvas, so they're things like:

• A channel isn't included on your plan.
• A channel isn't connected yet.
• You've reached this month's cap on that channel.
• A WhatsApp step points at a template that no longer exists, or was never approved.
• A WhatsApp Flow step points at a revision that is no longer published.

For a stated setup blocker, fix the cause and publish again. If publication stops without a clear result, reopen the Bot and inspect its published version before retrying; an interrupted response alone does not tell you whether publication completed.

Publishing is not going live

A published bot runs when a channel sends it a conversation, and that connection is made outside the builder:

• Open the intended Inbox → Automation settings, choose Bot flow, and select the compatible published Bot.
• For Website chat, check that the installed widget reaches that Inbox.
• For WhatsApp, check that the selected number is active and belongs to that Inbox. Selecting the number while building or publishing does not replace attaching the Bot in Inbox settings.
• For other supported channels, check the active connected account and the Bot's channel compatibility in the same way. A Bot for another channel or number cannot take over just because it is published.

Until then nothing is routed to it. If a bot looks live and isn't replying, check this first — see Why a bot didn't reply.

The order that works

1. Build it, saving as you go.
2. Read the channel checks in the side panel and fix anything marked as a blocker.
3. Preview it — the flow simulator walks a conversation without sending anything real.
4. Publish, with a release note.
5. Attach it to the channel.
6. Send a customer message through the intended test connection. Check the reply and any saved business result, then reopen the conversation to check what was retained.

Preview checks the conversation design. The connected test checks whether this published version is actually being used. A reply alone does not prove that every branch, payment, booking or order worked; test those outcomes separately. If the Bot does not answer, continue with Why a bot didn't reply.

Related

• Build a bot on the canvas
• Build a journey
• Why a bot didn't reply
• Create a bot
• Create an automation