For many teams, the real project channel is a WhatsApp group. The client is in it, the site supervisor is in it, the freelancer is in it, and the decisions happen there: "ok go ahead", a thumbs-up on a photo, "Thursday works". It is fast, everyone already has it, and nobody needs an account for anything.
It is also where decisions go to disappear. A group with a few hundred messages a week buries last month's approval under photos, voice notes and "good morning". When someone asks "who said we could move the shoot?", the answer is somewhere in the scroll, and searching for "ok" does not help.
This guide shows how to get a group's decisions into one place, step by step: what to agree with the group first, how to export the chat, and what happens once it is in a Velkri project.
Before you export: agree it with the group
An exported chat holds everyone's messages, not only yours. Before you move it anywhere, tell the group what you are doing and why: "I'm saving this chat into our project workspace so the decisions are on record." Clients usually welcome it, because the record protects them as much as you.
Two more things to settle first:
- Pick the groups that carry decisions. The client group and the site group, yes. The team's lunch group, no.
- Decide who owns the import. One person exports and imports each group, so the project does not end up with three copies of the same chat.
Step 1: export the chat from WhatsApp
WhatsApp can export any chat as a file. On an Android phone, open the group, tap the three-dot menu, then More and Export chat. On an iPhone, open the group, tap its name at the top, then Export chat. WhatsApp's own help page explains how to export your chat history on each kind of phone.
You will be asked whether to include media:
| Choice | What you get | When to choose it |
|---|---|---|
| Without media | A .txt file of the messages, with names and times | When the decisions are in the text, and the file needs to be small |
| Include media | A .zip with the text, photos, voice notes and documents | When the photos and documents are part of the record, as on a site |
For a construction site or a design project, include the media. A photo of the slab with "approved" under it is the decision.
Step 2: bring it into the project
There are two ways in, and both end in the same place.
From your phone. Share the export to Velkri straight from WhatsApp's export screen, then choose the project to save it to. This uses the Velkri phone app, which is in beta.
On the web. In the project, open Files and choose Import WhatsApp chat. Drop the .txt or .zip into the window, or choose it from your computer.
The dialog says what happens before you commit: the messages come in with names and times as WhatsApp wrote them, along with any photos, voice notes and files in the zip. Everyone in the project can see the chat and ask about it, and nobody outside the project can.
A chat can hold up to 64 MB of text, and each media file can be up to 100 MB. That is a lot of chat: years of a busy group is usually far less.
Step 3: confirm what was agreed
Once the import finishes, the group shows up in the project as an imported chat, its messages in the order and the script they were written in. Photos and files from the export land in the project's Files.
Velkri then reads the chat for decisions and action items and shows each one as a proposal, linked to the message it came from. A person on the team confirms it, edits it first, or dismisses it. Only what is confirmed goes on the project's record.
This is the step that turns a scroll into a record. "ok go ahead" on its own means nothing six weeks later. "The shoot moves to Thursday, agreed by Dana in the Kestrel launch group on Tuesday at 18:06, confirmed by Ana" means a great deal, and the link takes anyone back to the message itself.
A long-running group may produce a lot of proposals the first time. Work through them in one sitting, dismiss the noise freely, and edit the titles so someone who was not in the group understands them.
Step 4: ask the chat questions
Once the chat is a source in the project, you can ask about it the way you ask about the rest of the project. "When did the client approve the tiles?" gets an answer with footnotes that open the messages it came from. That works across sources, so one answer can draw on the WhatsApp group, a call and a task together.
Step 5: keep it up to date
The import is a one-time copy of the export, not a live link. Velkri never connects to your WhatsApp account. To bring in newer messages, export the group again and import it the same way. Velkri adds only the messages it has not seen, so you will not end up with duplicates.
How often depends on the group. For a client group that carries approvals, once a week is a good rhythm, timed with your weekly review. For a site group, after each milestone works well.
If you ever need to remove it, delete the chat in Files, and its media goes with it.
What not to expect
To be clear about the limits:
- It is not a WhatsApp replacement. The group keeps working as it does today. Velkri gives its decisions a home; it does not ask anyone to leave WhatsApp.
- It is not live. Messages arrive when you import, not as they are sent.
- It is not automatic approval. Velkri proposes; your team confirms. A "👍" does not become a decision until a person says it was one.
A routine that works
- Tell the group the chat is being saved to the project.
- Export with media, and import it into the project on the web or from your phone.
- Work through the proposals once, confirming the real decisions.
- Re-import weekly; it adds only the new messages.
- When a question comes up, ask the project before you scroll.
WhatsApp is where a lot of real agreement happens, and there is nothing wrong with that. The goal is not to move the conversation; it is to make sure what was agreed there sits next to everything else that was agreed. See the details on the WhatsApp import page, or try the free action item tracker if you would rather start in a spreadsheet.