Start here

Press Start free on any page of the site. Give your name, your business's name, your work email and a password of at least eight characters, and press Start free. Sema emails you a link to confirm the address; press Confirm my email in it, then sign in. Every step, with a picture of each, is in opening an account, step by step.

If a colleague has already set Sema up, do not create an account of your own: ask them to invite you. The invitation link puts you straight into their workspace (see inviting someone).

Forgotten your password? Forgotten your password? on the sign-in page sends a link that works for an hour.

You can add a code from an authenticator app to your sign-in, as well as your password. We recommend it: everyone in a workspace can read customers’ conversations, and owners can spend its credit, so a password that is guessed or reused should not be enough. Sema suggests it when you first open your workspace, and it is under Settings → You → Two-factor sign-in whenever you want it.

1. Install an authenticator on your phone if you do not have one: Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, 2FAS, Bitwarden or KeePassXC all work.
2. Scan the QR code Sema shows you, or type the secret under it into the app.
3. Type the six-digit code the app shows into Code from your authenticator and press Turn on two-factor sign-in.

From then on, after your password Sema asks for the current code, and your password alone opens nothing. You can turn it off again in the same place.

A workspace is your business in Sema: its numbers, customers, team and credit. You are asked to name it the first time you sign in.

• Workspace name is what your team sees, usually the business name.
• Workspace address is the web address your team uses: sema.datacare.co.ke/your-address. Three to fifty lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens. An owner can change it later in Settings → Workspace → Web address; the old address keeps working and forwards to the new one.
• Where do you operate? sets your currency and time zone. Opening hours, the Monday review and scheduled messages all run on that time zone.
• What kind of organisation is it? decides a few rules: a hospital's templates are checked for words that say what a visit is about, and a government body is told about Meta's own approval of government bodies. Meta does not allow political parties, politicians or campaigns, or police, military, security or intelligence agencies, to use WhatsApp for business, so Sema cannot take them on. An owner can change the answer later in Settings → Workspace.

Press Create workspace and Sema takes you to the set-up guide.

Five short steps, one at a time. You can skip any of them, or all of them with Skip for now, and come back from Getting started.

1. Your business. Give your website's address, and a price list or brochure if you have one (a PDF or a photo). Sema reads the home page and the pages it links to about prices, contact and delivery, and drafts the answers your assistant will give. No website? Answer a few questions instead: what you sell, where you are, when you are open, delivery, paying and ordering.
2. What it knows. Read each drafted answer. Change what is not quite right, and untick what you do not want said. If Sema found your opening hours, you can keep them as the workspace's too. Nothing is used until you press Keep.
3. Try it. Write as a customer would. It answers exactly as it would on WhatsApp, and says which of your answers it used; what nothing you wrote answers, it leaves for your team.
4. How it writes. Warm and friendly, short and to the point, or polite and formal.
5. Connect WhatsApp. Keep your WhatsApp Business app and add Sema beside it, or move the number to Sema. Or press Ask DataCare to help and we do it with you (see connecting it with us).

Reading your website or price list is one AI request from your plan, and each answer while you try it is another. Your assistant does not answer customers on its own until you switch that on in Settings → AI.

Getting started then stays in the corner of the menu (on a phone, at the top of the overview) with what is left: your assistant's answers, your number, your first conversation, your first approved template and your first top-up. It ticks each one itself, and goes when they are all done or an owner presses Hide.

A new workspace gets 14 days of the Growth plan, free: up to 10 team members, 3 numbers and 25,000 contacts. Messages are still paid for from your credit, at Growth prices.

Choose a plan on the Credit page any time during the trial; it starts when the trial ends. If none is chosen, templates and campaigns pause when the trial ends. Replies to customers who write to you never stop over billing. See plans.

The menu on the left, from top to bottom:

• Overview: the last 24 hours at a glance, conversations whose window is closing, and your week’s review.
• Inbox: every conversation, where your team replies.
• Contacts: your customers, who has agreed to hear from you, and spreadsheet imports.
• Campaigns: one message to many people who agreed to it.
• Analytics: what was sent, delivered and read, and how long people waited for an answer.
• Templates: the messages Meta approves for writing first.
• Automations: opening hours, away and welcome messages, keyword replies and flows.
• Numbers: your WhatsApp numbers and their health.
• Credit: your balance, plan, top-ups, invoices and statements.
• Team, Settings and Activity: who can do what, how the workspace runs, and who did what.

Not everyone sees every item: it depends on their role. See who sees what. The strip along the top shows whether your numbers are live and, for those who manage money, how much credit is left. Wherever you see a small ? beside a page’s name, it opens the part of this guide about that page.

1. Connect your WhatsApp number, and add a card to it in Meta.
2. Top up your credit by M-Pesa.
3. Invite your team, each with the role their job needs.
4. Set your opening hours and an away message, so nobody writing at night is left wondering.
5. Write your first templates. An order update and an appointment reminder are good places to start. Send them to Meta. Meta usually answers within a day.
6. If you take M-Pesa, connect your paybill or till so your team can ask for payment in the chat.

The playbooks show what that first week looks like for a shop, a clinic, a school and a SACCO.