Connecting Your Clinic's LINE OA to a Chat System: A Checklist

Connecting a LINE OA (LINE Official Account, the business side of LINE) to a chat system takes under an hour. Most clinics lose their time on what should have been prepared beforehand, and on two or three switches that, set wrong, make the bot and admins reply over each other. This article covers everything from before you start to checking that it really works.

If you're not yet sure whether LINE OA's free tools are enough, read How far can a clinic's LINE OA auto-reply go on its own first. This article starts from the point where you've decided to connect an outside system and want setup day done in one go.

Before you start: three things that must belong to the clinic

• The LINE OA is in the clinic's name, not the agency that runs your page, or a staff member who set it up three years ago. If you ever change provider, the account and its friend list must stay with the clinic.
• The OA admin must be there on setup day: the switches you need are in the account management screen, which only admins can open. The provider can ask for temporary admin rights, but those should be removed once the job is done.
• Your existing channel doesn't change: patients message the same OA and keep the same friend connection. No account move, no announcing a new LINE. What's added is that the outside system also receives the incoming messages.

What the provider needs from you

A chat system talks to LINE through the Messaging API, which is tied to the clinic's OA. The provider needs two things: the Channel secret and the Channel access token. Both are on the LINE Developers page of the account that owns the OA.

What the clinic should understand is that these two are effectively the keys to the OA. Whoever holds them can send messages in the clinic's name. Keep a record of who they were issued to and when. If you stop using a provider, issue new keys (LINE lets you reissue them, and the old set stops working immediately) rather than just asking the provider to delete them.

OA Manager switches to set correctly

This is where most mistakes happen. Most older guides and articles still talk about a “response mode” where you choose between Bot and Chat, and the current screen no longer has it. There are now several separate switches in the response settings, and each does something different.

One change from how things used to work: with Chat left on, the webhook still runs. So everything looks connected on setup day, then breaks the following week when an admin replies from their phone without thinking. If the bot and a person are replying over each other, check this switch before anything else.

How to check it really works

Don't trust “connected” on either side's screen. Test by messaging for real from the phone of someone at the clinic who isn't an admin, and check these four things:

1. Just say hello: you should get a reply from the bot within a few seconds, and only one message, not two.
2. Ask the price of a service you offer: you should get the current price. An old price means the information in the system hasn't been updated. It isn't a connection problem.
3. Ask about a service you don't offer: the right answer is to say it doesn't have that information and hand off to your team, not to guess.
4. Describe a symptom or send a photo: for a symptom, the bot must stop and hand off to your team. For a photo, your team must get a notification. In both cases the unified inbox must show the sender's name and profile picture.

Tests three and four are the same set as how to test the lines the bot should never cross. You can run them together on the same day, no separate round needed.

Does LINE's message quota matter?

LINE OA counts its quota on messages the OA sends out on its own, such as broadcasts, or messages the system sends to a patient who hasn't written in first. Replies to messages patients send in don't count toward that quota. Having the bot answer questions therefore has almost no effect on your current LINE plan.

What you do need to think about: if you want the system to follow up with people who went quiet, or message patients first, that uses the quota in full. LINE's quota per plan can change, so check the current LINE for Business plans page in the references at the end of this article.

Common mistakes after setup day

• An admin turns Chat back on because they're used to replying from the LINE app. What works is giving your team a unified inbox they can open on their phones too, not just banning it.
• After-hours messages still go out: the main auto-response was turned off, but the separate after-hours set was forgotten.
• The system goes silent all day: usually because someone reissued the key (access token) on the LINE Developers page, so the old one the system holds stopped working. Know who has the rights to do that.
• The OA is tied to another company's developer account: it works, but it's very hard to move on the day you part ways. Check from day one that the account holding the Messaging API belongs to the clinic.

Summary checklist before setup day

1. The OA is in the clinic's name, and you know who the admins are
2. Current prices and conditions are gathered, along with the ten most repeated questions from your real inbox
3. It's agreed who on your team picks up cases the system hands off
4. The provider has the Channel secret and access token, with a record of when they were issued
5. Switches: Webhooks on · Chat off · Auto-response off, both in and outside business hours
6. Run the four tests from a non-admin's phone, and check handed-off cases appear in the unified inbox

If you use AIB Clinic, our team handles items 4 to 6 on setup day, and LINE messages join Facebook, Instagram and website chat in one unified inbox. To see what it looks like before you decide, book a demo and bring your clinic's OA to try connecting it.

Sources and further reading

1. Messaging API overview — LINE DevelopersHow the webhook, reply and push work, which chat systems use to talk to LINE
2. Receiving messages (webhook) — LINE DevelopersWhat LINE sends to the system, and what it doesn't
3. LINE for Business Thailand — LINE CorporationCurrent LINE OA plans and message quotas (in Thai)