Skip to main content

Hi everyone!

For my Messenger automation, I wanted to completely disable the user’s ability to type messages and force interactions only through Quick Replies. Thanks to the Keyboard Input setting in ManyChat, I was able to hide the keyboard entirely — which is great!

However, I still need the user to enter their name at the beginning of the flow. So ideally, I'd like to reactivate the keyboard just for that specific step, and keep it disabled the rest of the time.

What I’m doing currently:

  • I disabled Keyboard Input globally (Messenger settings)

  • I use Quick Replies for most of the conversation

  • For name input, I created a User Input block with Text type and left the “Only allow quick replies” option unchecked

My question:
Is there a cleaner or more flexible way to allow text input only at certain steps while keeping the keyboard hidden elsewhere?

Any tips or best practices to improve this flow?

Thanks in advance! 😊

Hi, ​@Vincent LEBEL!

 

The “Keyboard Input” setting will apply for your whole account. This means that not a single automation will be able to collect any kind of data given via free text. 

 

Maybe the best alternative could be using Data Collection in this way:​​​​​​

  • Enable Keyboard Input in the settings.​
  1. Set Data Collection as Multiple Choice
    • Create a Custom User Text Field to save the selected option
  2. Set your options
  3. Disable text input
  4. Set a custom message to send if the user sends some free text message
  5. Create a Condition checking if your custom field is one of the options

And continue your flow normally...

 

This will force the user to select a given option, and you can even create an alternative way if the user insists to send something differente a lot of times. 😉

 

Hope this helps!

Reply


Community Terms & ConditionsCookie settings