In order to send WhatsApp messages using the Conversation API, you must onboard to Sinch's WhatsApp service and create a corresponding Conversation API app. You can do so using the Sinch Customer Dashboard. This process involves the provision of business details, number verification, and app creation. The corresponding procedures are detailed below.
Prerequisites
Prior to completing the onboarding process, review the following prerequisites.
Information and Materials
In order to complete the procedures described below, you will need the pieces of information and materials described in the list below.
- Your organization's legal business name
- Your organization's Facebook Business Manager ID
- Your organization's official primary address, including the country
- The time zone corresponding to the location above
- Your organization's primary contact information, including:
- Phone number
- Website
- Email address
- WhatsApp Sender number (including country code), which is the number that will be used to send messages on WhatsApp using the Conversation API
- Phone number
- A brief description of your organization and the services/goods/etc. it offers
- The industry your organization belongs to (note that you will have to select the business category/industry from a pre-defined list, so a best guess at this stage is fine)
- A description of your organization
Verifying your business
Ensure that you have verified your business in Meta's system.
Preparing your Sinch account
Prior to beginning the onboarding process, you must ensure that your Sinch account is properly prepared:
- You must have an account type that matches your organization's goals. Review the account types below and reach out to your Account Manager if you need to update your account type (or if you do not know what kind of account you have):
- If you are planning to offer customers (and yourself) access to Sinch's WhatsApp service, you must have a Reseller account.
- If you are planning to use Sinch's WhatsApp service for your own business purposes, you must have a Direct business account. Throughout this guide, we assume you have a Direct business account.
- If you are planning to offer customers (and yourself) access to Sinch's WhatsApp service, you must have a Reseller account.
- Your account must be a postpaid account. Reach out to your Account Manager if your account is prepaid or if you don't the payment structure of your account.
- Ensure that you have access to the WhatsApp functionality and pages on the Sinch Customer Dashboard. If you don't have access to these pages, or the functionality on these pages is not available, reach out to your Account Manager.
We also encourage you to review the information we have available on general account structure and how projects are defined and used in Sinch's systems. If you'd like to create a new project for this particular onboarding process, see our article on Creating a new project.
Onboarding
The process of onboarding involves the following procedures:
- Completing the WhatsApp onboarding procedure
- Configuring the WhatsApp channel of the Conversation API
These procedures are detailed in the following sections.
Completing the WhatsApp onboarding procedure
In order to onboard to Sinch's WhatsApp service:
- Navigate to the Sinch Customer Dashboard.
- Click the WhatsApp tab. The WhatsApp page is displayed.
- Depending on your account status, you may be asked to do one or both of the following:
- Update your account to a monthly, invoiced account. Click Send request. You will be unable to proceed until your account is updated.
- Select how you will use your business account. Select Reseller if you plan to offer customers (and yourself) access to Sinch's WhatsApp functionality. Select Direct business if you are using Sinch's WhatsApp service for your own business purposes. Throughout this guide, we assume you have a Direct Business account.
- Update your account to a monthly, invoiced account. Click Send request. You will be unable to proceed until your account is updated.
- Click the Start onboarding project button.
- Populate the Company information form with the values that correspond to the organization you are onboarding. As you populate the fields, the sample profile on the right side of the screen will automatically update.
Click Continue when you are done populating the form. - Populate the Business profile form with the values that correspond to the organization you are onboarding. As you populate the fields and provide the relevant images, the sample profile on the right side of the screen will automatically update.
Click Continue when you are done populating the form. - Populate the WhatsApp business number form with the values that correspond to the organization you are onboarding. Note that, for this step, you are providing your primary phone number (as opposed to your WhatsApp Sender number, which is provided later in this procedure). As you populate the fields, the sample profile on the right side of the screen will automatically update.
Click Continue when you are done populating the form. - On the Facebook Embedded Signup step, click the Login with Facebook button and complete the corresponding flow.
Note: Third-party software is subject to change at any time. Any descriptions or images of third-party software are included only as an aide, and may not represent the current version of the software or tool. Also note that this particular flow is dynamic, so the experience may vary slightly for each user. This guide seeks to provide an exhaustive review of each step, which may differ from your actual experience.
- Login with the Facebook credentials of the organization you are onboarding. If you are already logged in, you may click the button that continues the flow. Otherwise, enter your credentials and continue.
- A request to connect your account to Sinch is displayed. Review the page and click Get Started to proceed.
- You must review the business details that will be shared with Sinch. If everything looks correct, click Confirm. Note that this information is pulled from your the Meta business portfolio (if it exists). If information needs to be updated or provided, click Edit. For thoroughness, this guide assumes you will click Edit.
- If you selected Edit in the previous step, select the business portfolio to use for this onboarding process from the Business portfolio drop-down list. The business portfolio represents the organization you are onboarding. Alternatively, you may Create a new business portfolio. Make your selection and ensure that you populate and review the information fields with the values that correspond to the organization you are onboarding.
Click Next after you have populated and reviewed all the required fields.
Note: At this stage, agreeing to the Insights Terms of Service is not mandatory. - Select the WhatsApp Business Account to use for this onboarding process from the Choose a WhatsApp Business Account drop-down list. Similarly, choose the WhatsApp Business Profile to use for this onboarding process from the Create or Select a WhatsApp Business Profile. In both cases, you may either select existing entries (if they exist) or create new ones. For thoroughness, this guide assumes you will create both a new WhatsApp Business Account and a new WhatsApp Business Profile.
Click Next. - If you chose to create a new WhatsApp Business Account and WhatsApp Business Profile in the previous step, populate the fields with information that corresponds to the organization you are onboarding. Click Show more options to review and add more information about the organization you are onboarding. Ensure that the information you provide aligns with the the information you have already provided on the Sinch Customer Dashboard.
Click Next after you have populated and reviewed all the required fields. - Provide the phone number to associate with the organization you are onboarding. This is the phone number people will see when they interact with the organization using WhatsApp. Also, select how you would like to verify the number from the options provided.
Click Next after you have populated the required fields and made your selection.
Note the following:
- If the organization you are onboarding is migrating from other solution providers to Sinch, ensure that your previous solution provider has deactivated two-factor authentication for the phone number.
- If you select a verification phone call, ensure that the number you provide is NOT configured for Interactive Voice Response (IVR). If the number is configured for IVR, the verification will fail.
- If you provide a virtual phone number (for example, a virtual phone number provisioned by Sinch), ensure that the number you provide has the capability to receive the verification method you select. For example, any text messages sent to the number could be routed to an actual handset.
- If the organization you are onboarding is migrating from other solution providers to Sinch, ensure that your previous solution provider has deactivated two-factor authentication for the phone number.
- Once you receive the Verification code using the method you selected in the previous step, enter it and click Next.
- Review the summary screen and click Continue.
- Once everything has processed, the final page of the flow is displayed. Click Finish to complete this flow.
- Login with the Facebook credentials of the organization you are onboarding. If you are already logged in, you may click the button that continues the flow. Otherwise, enter your credentials and continue.
- Once you have completed the previous step and have been returned to the Sinch Customer Dashboard, populate the WhatsApp business account form by selecting the appropriate WhatsApp business account and WhatsApp business number.
Click Finish when you are done populating the form.
After completing this procedure, the WhatsApp Sender ID will be available for use when configuring your Conversation API app. The process of configuring a Conversation API app is described in the next procedure.
Configuring the WhatsApp Channel of The Conversation API
In order to configure the WhatsApp Channel of the Conversation API, you must:
- If you haven't already done so, create a Conversation API app.
- Select the Apps option. The Conversation Apps page is displayed.
- Click the name of the app to which you want to add the WhatsApp channel.
- In the Set up channels section, locate the WhatsApp channel and click SET UP CHANNEL.
- The Configuration dialog box is displayed:
Select the Sender Identity you'd like to assign to this Conversation API app. The app will use this Sender Identity when sending messages on the WhatsApp channel.
Click Save after selecting the sender.
Your Conversation API app is now configured to send messages using WhatsApp. Note the following:
- In order to initiate certain types of conversations, you must use specific message templates. These templates can be created using the Sinch Customer Dashboard or the Sinch Provisioning API. Once you have created your templates, see our documentation on sending WhatsApp template messages. See the linked documentation for more information on the circumstances that require message templates.
- If you (or your client) is messaged first, you are often able to respond using generic, non-template messages.
For full information on the Conversation API's capabilities, see the API reference.
