Meta for Whatsapp Connector

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Last updated: Nov 11, 2024
6 min read

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 What’s about

You can use WhatsApp Channel to manage inbound and outbound interactions, by configuring Meta Connector as provider.

Requirements

  • The Motion instance must have a public address accessible via HTTPS. For security reasons, we strongly recommend using a Reverse Proxy → find out more

  • You have to register an app as Meta Developers → find more details in next paragraph

  • You need a Meta Business Suite account

  • Consider that to use WhatsApp, on XCALLY side you need to enable the connector, while for interactions management you need to consult the official documentation of the selected provider to check prices: find out Meta's documentation here

How to Create an App for WhatsApp

Video Tutorial

https://app.guidde.com/share/playbooks/aTiMf4uRyrqfxVVqm5zDUr?origin=3wPlti10dEfOGQjG7BKQvB2q4IC3

 

To set up Meta Connector, you need to be registered as Meta Developers on http://developers.facebook.com and create an App for WhatsApp
By entering in your Meta account as Meta for Developers, you need to create an app.

Firstly, you can click on My App → Create an app

  • Choose Other option

  • Select Business

  • Choose display name for your app and app contact email

  • Connect the app with your Account Business Manager

  • Create the app

  • You will see the created app on the relative section

  • Then, on the App Dashboard you have to choose WhatsApp to configure integration and click on Set up
    (Find our Meta documentation here)

  • Create or select your Meta Business Account and click on Continue to accept terms and conditions. You will receive a WhatsApp test phone number to send test messages

  • And click on “Start using the API” to proceed with API Configuration

  • Send a test message to your phone number to verify if the integration works correctly (maximum of 5 recipients numbers)

 

  • Then on step 5 you will be able to click on section Add a phone number

 

 

 

You can insert:

  • Profile Name of WhatsApp Business

  • Choose a time zone

  • Business category

 

  • You add WhatsApp phone number, by choosing prefix and, according to the selected option, you will receive a text message with a pin code or a phone call to verify your number
    You can explore Meta documentation about how to register business phone numbers

  • Moreover, it is mandatory to configure a payment method

After creating the number and associating a payment method, Meta console will display a message like this:
Congratulations! Your display name XcallyTest was approved. Download and connect your phone number certificate to send messages to your customers.

For certificate management of WhatsApp Cloud API solution (which does not require an on-premise installation), it is NOT necessary to upload a certificate manually. In fact, Meta takes care of authentication and security management directly in the cloud platform.
So to link the phone number, just send a test message (using the default generated “hello_world” template).

Follow this procedure:

  • Generate an Access Token:

    • Go on WhatsApp → Quickstart

    • Select the created phone number

    • Generate token in section Access Token (you will use this token in your API requests to authenticate yourself)

  • Run a Test API Request, by using WhatsApp console to send the test message:

  1. Select in From the created WhatsApp Business number

  2. Fill in the field To with recipient number to which to send the template “hello_world”

  3. Click the button Send message

  4. Verify that the recipient has received it correctly

  • Otherwise you can make a request curl with WhatsApp API

 

  1. Use the token generated in an API call to verify that the setup is complete

Once you send the first test message, you will receive an email like this:

Creation of WhatsApp Account on XCALLY

By entering in your XCALLY environment, you can go on WhatsApp Connector → WhatsApp Accounts to create a new account for outbound campaign

 

Click on button and enter:

  • Account Name

  • Key: identification code of maximum 5 characters

  • List: Contact Manager list used to associate contacts. When you run campaigns, contacts are added to this Master List, so it’s possible to have a unique customer journey with all customer touchpoints with outbound campaigns.

For all contacts in the Master List to be usable, it is necessary that they contain in the Phone Field the WhatsApp number

  • Proxy or Motion Domain: server address

  • Type Meta

     

 

You can copy these data from your Business Meta account

  • Account SID = ID Account WhatsApp Business

  • Auth Token = Access Token ( you need to create a Permanent Access Token to use WhatsApp correctly because access token expires after 24 hours. Follow these guidelines)

  • AppId = ID app

  • Phone number Id = ID phone number

  • Phone number with prefix (with +)

  • Click on Add

 

How to create a permanent token

With your Developer Account, to create a Permanent Access Token, you can follow Meta guidelines at this link to create a System User with specific permissions.

 

Go to your Apps list page on your Meta for Developers account you can open Business settings and go to Users → System users to create a new one, clicking on Add.

Then you give a System Username and you choose “Admin” as User Role

  • You can click on Add Assets and on Select asset type you choose Apps

  • You select WhatsApp created app, by enabling full control

Remember that you can create only 1 system user for Business account. However, if you generate more WhatsApp apps, and you click on Generate new token, the system allows you to select the app for which you want to create a permanent token

  • So you can click on Generate new Token, by selecting your App

 

  • Set “Never” as token expiration

  • In addition to the WhatsApp_business_messaging permission indicated in the guide, you need to add also these permits:

    • pages_show_list

    • pages_messaging

    • WhatsApp_business_management

    • pages_manage_metadata

And click on "Generate Token" to obtain a permanent token to paste on auth token section

Configuration of created account

After account creation, you can edit it:

  • on Settings tab you will see all information inserted before

Moreover, you will view Receive URL, an auto-generated API string you need to use to receive the messages inside your account from your WhatsApp Connector provider: click the clipboard button to copy it and then on your Meta Account you need to Configure webhook

By clicking on Configure webhook, you need to insert callback URL (paste here code copied before) + verify token that you can copy from advanced tab of your XCALLY account

In addition to Callback URL, it is necessary to subscribe these webhook fields:

  • account_alerts

  • account_update

  • message_template_status_update

  • messages

  • template_category_update

  • on Advanced tab

You can see info about proxy and token number

You can enable mandatory disposition and you can select Recontact Template

  • on Dispositions and Canned Answers you can create specific dispositions/canned answers for this account

 

  • on Actions you have to create dialplan to pass interactions to relative queue

Obviously, you have to associate agents to queue and WhatsApp account that you want, otherwise they can’t manage interactions

  • on Interactions tab, you can see campaign interactions and relative status (explore more here)

 

Use WhatsApp Connector with Meta for Agents

For Agents, the feature is available on WhatsApp Connector section, from which they have to select accounts.
In fact, agents need to be associated to the created Meta account to receive new interactions

When a new inbound interaction arrives, the agent will see a popup with information about the account, queue and sender phone number.

Agent can manage the conversation directly on Omnidesktop interface

For outbound campaigns, explore the relative section, at this link

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