WhatsApp Business Template Messages

Integrating Whatsapp business in your Rocket.Chat workspace offers valuable enhancements to simplify your business communication workflows. The Whatsapp business integration allows you to send template messages to targeted contacts from your workspace.

Template messages on WhatsApp serve as a proactive means for organizations to engage with their WhatsApp contacts. These messages can be related to appointment reminders, delivery updates, issue resolution, or payment updates. They also act as notifications, encouraging users to respond and kickstart conversations to foster interaction between organizations and their audiences. Kindly refer the official guide for more details on Whatsapp Template Messages.

Creating Template Messages on Your Whatsapp Business Account

You need to have template messages on your WhatsApp business account before you can send them to contacts from your Rocket.Chat workspace.

Before you proceed, refer to the Meta Template Guide for a comprehensive understanding of template messages.

In this guide, we'll be creating a simple shipping reminder template message. To create the template message,

• Go to your Business Account and navigate to WhatsApp Manager.

• Navigate to Account tools > Message templates and click Create template.

• Add the category, name, and language of the template message.

  • Category: Select Utility for this example guide.

  • Name: Add a name for the template message.

  • Language: Select English for this example guide.

• Click Continue.

• For this example guide, add this simple text in the Body : "Your package has been shipped. It will be delivered in {{1}} business days."

• Put a random integer in the Samples for body content.

• Click Submit.

The template message is now sent for review. Once it has been approved, you can now start sending template messages to contacts from your workspace.

Visit this quick guide to learn more about creating WhatsApp template messages.

Sending WhatsApp template messages from your workspace

You need to have template messages on your WhatsApp business account before you can send them to contacts from your Rocket.Chat workspace.

To send a WhatsApp template message from your workspace, you can use any of the following methods:

1. Sending template messages via endpoint: Refer to the Send a Template WhatsApp Message API endpoint. Below is a sample JSON body parameter for using the example template we created earlier to send a template message via API:

   {
       "phoneNumbers": [
           "2228105035435"
       ],
       "connectedWhatsAppNo": "104979685899299",
       "template": {
           "name": "ship",
           "language": {
               "code": "en",
               "policy": "deterministic"
           },
           "components": [
               {
                   "type": "body",
                   "parameters": [
                       {
                           "type": "text",
                           "text": "20"
                       }
                   ]
               }
           ]
       }
   }

2. Slash commands and UI: Send the template message in a more user-friendly way using the GUI form. To trigger the GUI, open a WhatsApp contact room and run the /whatsapp send-templatecommand. This command opens up a modal where you can select the following:

• The Template you wish to send,

• The Language you wish to send the template in,

• And also substitute parameters within the message, if present

If parameters are present within the template message, kindly ensure you substitute all of them before sending the message. Failure to do so will result in an error.

Sending template messages on the Whatsapp Cloud App is exclusively available via the API endpoint.

Getting the status of messages sent

To receive real-time status updates for outbound messages, navigate to the Settings tab of the Whatsapp App and set the Message Status Endpoint URL. The app sends a request to this URL each time your message status changes to one of the following: queued, failed, sent, delivered, read, or if some error occurs.

The table below highlights the payload format you will receive on the endpoint.

Field Name	Type	Description
msId	String or undefined	Message Id.
message	String	Text message
mobileNo	String	Phone number of WhatsApp user to which you had sent the message
connectedWhatsAppNo	String	Your connected WhatsApp Number from which you had sent the message to user
MessageStatus	String	Status of message - sent, delivered, read, failed, deleted
ErrorDetails	Optional Type: String or WhatsApp error format	Errors from template messages will be shown here
type	String	Template-Message or Regular-Message
timestamp	String	Timestamp of request

In conclusion, the ability to send template messages through WhatsApp Business Integration enables businesses to maintain a consistent and professional communication approach with their audience.