WhatsApp will now let you plan your events in communities

WhatsApp is introducing some new features to Communities that will allow members to participate in new ways. Meta, the parent company of the instant messaging platform, announced on Wednesday that it is adding a new events feature and allowing replies in announcement groups to make communities more interactive. Events will allow members of a group to create any event and other participants can add whether they are going or not. Notably, WhatsApp is also reported to be working on a recent online feature that will list users who have recently logged in to the app.

Announcing features in a newsroom Post, Meta said, “To help bring communities even closer, we’re adding a new way for people to organize events on WhatsApp, and we’re introducing organized replies in announcement groups so members can connect with admins. Can respond to important updates. According to the company, events can now be created by any group member whose group is part of a community. The option to create an event can be found by tapping on the paper clip icon in the text field which also opens poll and payment options.

These events can be for anything including a virtual meet-up or a birthday party. Once an event is created, other members can respond to it. They can open the program and confirm whether they will participate in it or not. Everyone can see who will attend the event and who will not.

Events can also be found on the group’s information page. Members who attend will receive a notification as the event gets closer to remind them about it. For now, events are only for groups in communities, but WhatsApp has said that it will roll out the feature to all groups in the coming months.

Another feature that is being introduced is replies to announcement groups. Each community in WhatsApp has a separate announcement group, which is accessible to all members regardless of whether they have been added to one of the groups, but only administrators can post to it. It is typically used to post major announcements that are relevant to all members. WhatsApp is now allowing all members to reply to these messages.

This feature is designed for administrators to receive feedback from the community in one place. These answers have been grouped and shortened to avoid clutter, and opening it opens a bottom slide that shows all the answers. Reply Notifications have been muted for everyone.