How to Connect Instagram Direct as Data Destination

Integration will allow you to get data from Instagram Direct on new messages and automate sending a message to Instagram based on the received data, as well as transfer data to other systems. For example, when you receive a new message in Instagram Direct, you can set up automation to send a response to messages, and also transfer data on new messages to CRM or Google Sheets, or send them as notifications to a Discord channel. This way you can ensure the automatic process of Instagram Direct interaction with clients in conjunction with the services you use and save a lot of time.

Let's go through the entire Instagram Direct setup steps together!

Navigation:

Connecting Instagram as a Data Source:
1. What data can you get from Instagram?
2. How to connect your Instagram account to ApiX-Drive to get messages?
3. How to set up get data from Instagram in the selected action?
4. Example of data from one of the messages on your Instagram.

Connecting Instagram as a Data Destination:
1. What will the integration with Instagram do?
2. How to connect your Instagram account to ApiX-Drive?
3. How to set up sending messages to Instagram in the selected action?
4. An example of a message that will be sent to your Instagram.

Connecting Google Sheets as a Data Destination:
1. What will the Google Sheets integration do?
2. How to connect your Google Sheets account to ApiX-Drive?
3. How set up to transfer data to Google Sheets in the selected action?
4. Example of data that will be sent to your Google Sheets.
5. Auto-update and update interval.

Answers to frequently asked questions:
1. The required Instagram Direct page or account is not in the list for get or sending messages.

Setting up Data SOURCE: Instagram

To start setup a new connection, click "Create connection"

Select the system as the Data Source. In this case, you must specify Instagram.

Next, you need to specify the action "Get MESSAGES (new)":

- Get MESSAGES (new) - Apix-Drive will get from your Instagram account all new messages that appear after setting up the connection and running auto-update.

The next step is to select the Instagram account from which will get the messages.

If there are no connected accounts to the system, click “Connect account”.

Enter your Facebook login information and give your permission to ApiX-Drive to work with this account.

Check the boxes for access to the required pages and accounts.

We recommend that you grant access to all existing pages and accounts at once, so that in the future you will be able to work with them and download messages.

Select the business accounts you need on which you have connected Instagram accounts.

Select the pages you need.

Select the Instagram accounts you need.

In the next step you see what accesses have been granted, click Save to save.

Click Got it to complete the connection

When the connected account appears in the "active accounts" list, select it.

Now you need to select the Instagram page and account from which messages will be get. Next, click "Edit and Continue".

If necessary, you can set up a Data Filter, or click "Continue" to skip this step.

To find out how to setup the Data Filter, follow the link: https://apix-drive.com/en/help/data-filter

Now you can see test data for one of the messages.
If the test data does not appear automatically, click “Load test data from Instagram.”

If you want to change the settings, click "Edit" and you will go back a step.

If you are satisfied with everything, click “Continue”.

Note!
If the required page is not in the drop-down list for receiving comments, or after connecting your account you have access to new pages, you will need to connect your Instagram account again.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Check the availability of admin access to the required advertising pages.
2. Go to your Facebook account under Settings and Privacy - Settings, then go to Business Integrations.

3. Remove the ApiX-Drive application.

4. Switch to Incognito mode in your browser.
5. In your connection with Instagram, go to the Access stage in the Data Source and click “Connect account”.
6. Enter your authorization information and select the business accounts you need. Now you can select the necessary pages that you have access to, in the next step select the Instagram accounts you need.
7. Click Save and Got it to complete the connection.  

This completes the Data Source setup!

Now we connect the Data Destination section. To do this, click on “+” and select “DATA DESTINATION” from the list.

Setting up DATA DESTINATION: Instagram

Select the system as Data Destination. In this case, you must specify Instagram.

Next, you need to specify the action "Send MESSAGE".

- Send MESSAGE - the ApiX-Drive system based on data from the Data Source section will send a message to the specified recipient in your Instagram account.

The next step is to select the Instagram account to which messages will be sent.

Select from the list of "active accounts" the same Instagram account that was connected in the Data Source.
The authorization process for an Instagram account in Data Destination is the same as in Data Source.

Now you need to select the Instagram page and account where the reply to the message will be sent, and you also need to select the Message Type.

Next, you need to specify the field where the “ Recipient ID ” (Page Scoped User ID) will come from.
Recipient ID is the unique ID of each message sent to your Instagram account. In order to send messages via ApiX-Drive, you must first obtain the recipient's ID.
It can be obtained from the Instagram Data Source and transferred, for example, to Google Sheets, and from Google Sheets you can get new rows and use the recipient ID to send replies to messages.

In the "Message" field, you can use both system variables such as time, date, year, month, day, and variables from the data source system. In this case, the Data Source is Instagram. When you select variables, you will be able to see what data is in the Instagram fields.

You can combine these variables in any way you like. For example, manually write a template response text and add variables from the Instagram Data Source fields.

Note! If the required page is not in the drop-down list or after connecting your account you have access to new pages, you will need to connect your Instagram account again.

To do this, follow the steps described in this part of the help.

Now you see what the future response to the message will look like, according to the selected data.

Click “Send test data to Instagram” and a message will be sent to the recipient ID specified in the test data.

If you are not satisfied with something, click “Edit” and go back a step.

If you are satisfied with everything, click “Continue” for further settings.

This completes the Instagram account Data Destination setup!

Now we connect the additional Data Destination section. To do this, click on “+” and select “DATA DESTINATION” from the list.

Setting up Data DESTINATION: Google Sheets

Select the system as Data Destination. In this case, you must specify Google Sheets.

Next, you need to specify an action, for example, “Add ROW”.

The next step is to select the Google Sheets account to which the data will be sent.
If there are no connected accounts to the ApiX-Drive system, click "Connect account".

Select the required account and give your permission to ApiX-Drive to work with this account.

Click Select table and select the table you want to transfer data to, click Select after selecting.

When the connected account appears in the "active accounts" list, select it.

Next, specify the Google Sheets sheet into which the data in the selected table will be transferred. If necessary, you can change the Table(File).

Now you need to assign variables from the Data Source block to the table columns you need.
To add a variable, click on the column field and select the desired variable from the drop-down list. Please note that you can use not only Data Source variables, but also manually entered data.

Click "Continue" when you are finished assigning fields.

Now you see the test data to be sent to Google Sheets.

Click "Submit test data to Google Sheets" and test the table and sheet in Google Sheets.

If you are not satisfied with something, click “Edit” and go back a step.

If you are satisfied with everything, click “Continue” for further settings.

This completes the Data Destination setup!

Now you can start choosing the update interval and enabling auto-update.

To do this, click "Enable update".

On the main screen, click on the gear icon to select the required update interval or setup scheduled launch. To start the connection by time, select scheduled start and specify the desired time for the connection update will be started, or add several options at once when you need the connection will be started.

Attention! In order for the scheduled launch to work at the specified time, the interval between the current time and the specified time must be more than 5 minutes. For example, you select the time 12:10 and the current time is 12:08 - in this case, the automatic update of the connection will occur at 12:10 the next day. If you select the time 12:20 and the current time is 12:13 - the auto-update of the connection will work today and then every day at 12:20.

To make the current connection transmit data only after another connection, check the box "Update connection only after start other connection" and specify the connection after which the current connection will be started.    

To enable auto-update, switch the slider to the position as shown in the picture.

To force a connection, click on the arrow icon.

This completes setting up Instagram as a Data Destination! See how simple it is!?

Now you don’t have to worry, ApiX-Drive will do everything on its own!