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In order to allow your customers to send WhatsApp messages using the Conversation API, you must onboard them to Sinch's WhatsApp service. You will then create a corresponding Conversation API app for your customer. Both tasks can be accomplished using the Sinch Build Dashboard.   One method to onboard your customers is to use the partner-initiated process within the Sinch Build Dashboard. This is the default process.   This process involves the creation of a project for your customer. Then, your customer will provide business details to you and that you will enter into the Sinch Build Dashboard, allowing them to onboard. After that, you'll assign at least one business profile (and phone number) to the account. Finally, you (the ASP) will create a Conversation API app with the WhatsApp channel configured to use the Sender ID created during the process.   Note: The created sender ID is associated with a WhatsApp Business Account, or WABA. Each of your customers will only be able to provision a single WABA. However, you may assign multiple business profiles/sender IDs to that WABA. If you have already onboarded your customer and want to add more business profiles/phone numbers/sender IDs to the existing WABA, skip to the section entitled Provisioning WhatsApp business profiles and phone numbers.   The corresponding procedures are detailed below. Prerequisites Prior to completing the onboarding process, review the following prerequisites. Having all of the requisite information readily available can greatly expedite the onboarding process.   Information and Materials In order to complete the procedures described in the following sections, you or your customer must have the information described below:   The organization's WhatsApp business account name The organization's desired display name (this is the name that will be shown as the sender of the messages to your recipients and what will be displayed on your customer's WhatsApp business profile). Your customer will be able to update this name, if desired, in the future. The organization's Facebook Business Manager ID or portfolio ID. This can be found in the Meta Business Suite application. Navigate to Business settings and click Business info. You can also search for business info on Meta Business Suite and follow the instructions displayed there. Your customer’s industry (category). This category will ultimately be selected from a pre-defined list provided by Meta. If you select the wrong category, you can have it updated after your customer is onboarded.   Verifying the business Ensure that your customer has verified their business in Meta's system.     Preparing your Sinch account Prior to beginning the onboarding process, you must ensure that your (the ASP's) Sinch account is properly prepared: You must have an account type that matches your organization's goals. Because you are planning to offer customers (and yourself) access to Sinch's WhatsApp service, you must have a Reseller account. Throughout this guide, we assume you have a Reseller account. Warning: If your account is not a Reseller account, you will be unable to onboard your customers. Reach out to your Account Manager if you have any questions about your account.   Your account must be a postpaid account. Reach out to your Account Manager if your account is prepaid or if you don't know the payment structure of your account. Ensure that you have access to the WhatsApp functionality and pages on the Sinch Build 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. Project creation   When onboarding a new customer, you must create a separate project for them using your Sinch Build Dashboard account.   Note: If you are planning to use Sinch's WhatsApp service for your own business purposes, in addition to providing your customers access to Sinch's WhatsApp services, you may create a separate project for yourself as well. Ensure you complete your own onboarding process within the project you created for yourself, and not within a project assigned to one of your customers.   To create a new project for this onboarding process:   Log in to the Sinch Build Dashboard. Click the Project menu at the top left of the screen. Click View all projects. The Projects page is displayed: Click CREATE PROJECT. The Create project dialog is displayed. Enter a name for your project in the Name field. Enter a name that meaningfully represents the customer you are onboarding. The name should also be succinct; overly long names may be difficult to view on the Sinch Build Dashboard. Click CREATE.   Note: For more information, see our article on Creating a new project.     Completing the WhatsApp onboarding procedure   Warning: If you are planning to use Sinch's WhatsApp service for your own business purposes and you wish to onboard your own organization to WhatsApp, you must ensure that you onboard within your own project, and not a project assigned to one of your customers.   To onboard to Sinch's WhatsApp service using the partner-initiated method:   Navigate to the Sinch Build Dashboard. Ensure you have project you wish to onboard selected. Click the WhatsApp tab. The WhatsApp onboarding page is displayed. Ensure that the Partner-initiated option is selected. Click the Continue button and populate the form that is displayed: For explanations of these fields, see the Information and Materials section at the beginning of this guide. Review the values you provided for each field. Once each value is confirmed, click Connect to submit the information to Meta. You are returned to the WhatsApp onboarding & status screen. The Status of this request will initially appear as Pending: This will initiate a process on Sinch's backend. Sinch's Provisioning team will contact Meta with the information you and your customer provided and request the creation of a WhatsApp Business Account for your customer. Meta will then send a communication to your customer in the Meta Business Suite to inform that Sinch is requesting to provision a WhatsApp Business Account for your customer. The communication will request the customer’s confirmation to proceed. The WhatsApp onboarding & status screen on the Sinch Build Dashboard will update once the communication is sent. Ensure that your customer accepts the request in their Meta Business Suite: Once your customer has confirmed the information with Meta, the Status will be updated to Onboarded: After completing this procedure, you will be able to create WhatsApp business profiles (and, therefore, assign phone numbers/sender IDs) to your customer's WhatsApp Business Account. Provisioning WhatsApp business profiles and phone numbers   After provisioning your customer with a WhatsApp Business Account, you must assign at least one business profile to that account. Note that you may assign more than one business profile to your customer's WABA as well. To provision a WhatsApp business profile/phone number to your customer's WABA: Click Create new in the Business profiles section. This can be done from either the Overview tab or the Business profiles tab of the Sinch Build Dashboard: The Create business profile and add WhatsApp number page is displayed. Populate the fields with the business information provided by your customer. A preview of the business profile is displayed on the right side of the page: Select how you'd like to assign a WhatsApp business number to the profile: To use a number provided by your customer, select Bring-your-own number and enter the number in the Phone number field. To use a number already procured by Sinch, select Select procured number. To request the procurement of a new Sinch phone number, select Request new number procured by Sinch. If your customer wants more business information displayed on their business profile, click the button to show/hide profile details and then click Edit. Then, populate the fields as desired: Note: Populating these fields is optional. Once all the required information has been populated, click Save and submit profile: Once the business profile has been submitted, the corresponding phone number must be verified. Business profiles awaiting verification will have a Pending verification status with a Verify number action item. Once the phone number is verified, the status will update to Connected: After a business profile has been connected to the WABA, the corresponding phone number (or WhatsApp Sender ID) will be available for use when configuring the corresponding Conversation API app. Configuring the WhatsApp Channel of The Conversation API   In order to configure the WhatsApp Channel of the Conversation API: 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 (in this case, the WhatsApp phone number) 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 Build 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.   Learn more about the Sinch WhatsApp Business API. ... View more

Apple Messages for Business is only available at this time to existing Sinch customers during a beta program. Please use the form on this page to contact us for more information and to talk with one of our experts.   Learn more about Sinch Conversation API. ... View more

In order to allow your customers to send Facebook Messenger messages using the Conversation API, you must allow them to onboard to Sinch's Facebook Messenger service. This can be accomplished using the Sinch Build Dashboard.   This process involves the creation of a project for your customer. Then, you will create a Conversation API app for your customer. You will then temporarily invite your customer to their specific project, granting them access to the Sinch Build Dashboard. Then, your customer will provide business details and complete signup process. Finally, you (the ASP) will remove your customer's access to the project.   The corresponding procedures are detailed below. If all of the requisite information is available, completing the process may take between ten and thirty minutes. Prerequisites Prior to completing the onboarding process, review the following prerequisites. Having all of the requisite information readily available can greatly expedite the onboarding process. Admin account You must be an admin of the Facebook Page you plan to connect to your Conversation API app. For more information on Page roles, see What are the different Page roles and what can they do?.     Verifying the business Ensure that your customer has verified their business in Meta's system.     Preparing your Sinch account Prior to beginning the onboarding process, you must ensure that your (the ASP's) Sinch account is properly prepared: You must have an account type that matches your organization's goals. Because you are planning to offer customers (and yourself) access to Sinch's Facebook Messenger service, you must have a Reseller account. Throughout this guide, we assume you have a Reseller account. Project creation, app creation, and inviting your customer   When onboarding customer, you must create a separate project for them using your Dashboard account.   Note: If you are planning to use Sinch's Facebook Messenger service for your own business purposes, in addition to providing your customers access to Sinch's Facebook Messenger services, you may create a separate project for yourself as well.   You must then invite your customer to the project. First, review the information we have available on general account structure and how projects are defined and used in Sinch's systems.   Once you have reviewed the above articles, complete the following procedures (detailed in the subsections below):   Create a new project for your customer. Note: You must create a new project, NOT a subproject. Create a new Conversation API app for your customer. Invite your customer to the newly created project as a Limited member. This will give them access to the requisite Build Dashboard functionality. Project creation   To create a new project for this onboarding process:   Log in to the Sinch Build Dashboard. Click the Project menu at the top left of the screen. Click View all projects. The Projects page is displayed: Click CREATE PROJECT. The Create project dialog is displayed. Enter a name for your project in the Name field. Enter a name that meaningfully represents the customer you are onboarding. Click CREATE.   Note: For more information, see our article on Creating a new project.   After creating the project, you must invite your customer to the project. This procedure is detailed in the next section.     App creation   Create a Conversation API app for your customer after creating their project. Ensure that, when you create this app, you set the region to the region in which the customer's data is to be stored.   To create a new Conversation API app:   Log in to the Sinch Customer Dashboard. Select Conversation API from the left menu and select the Apps option (highlighted in red below). The Conversation Apps page is displayed: In the Apps section, click NEW APP. The New App form is displayed. Specify a name and an appropriate region for your App. Click CREATE. Note: The region you select is the region in which your Conversation API app will be hosted (and, therefore, where the associated data will be stored). Once you have selected a region for your App, you cannot change it. The newly created APP will be displayed in the APPS section Inviting customers to the project   After creating a project and app for your customer, you must invite the customer to the newly created project. This will provide the user with access to that project's Build Dashboard functionality, including the Facebook Messenger signup process.   To invite your customer to the new project,:   Log in to the Sinch Build Dashboard and select your profile icon in the top right corner. Your profile menu is displayed. Click the User Management option. The User management page is displayed. To invite users to your account, click Invite users. The Invite a user form is displayed. Enter the e-mail addresses for the users you want to invite in the Email field and select the Limited member user type role for this user. Select the project you created for the customer from the drop-down list. Note: Ensure that you select the Limited member user type. Other user types may grant them more or less access to your account than required. Once you have completed the form, click Send x invite (where x is the number of invites you are sending) to send the invites to your specified users. Note: For more information, see our article How do I invite another user to my Sinch Build Dashboard account?. Once the customer accepts the invite, they'll be able to onboard to Sinch's Facebook Messenger service.     Completing the Facebook Messenger onboarding procedure   Note: This procedure is to be completed by your customer after they gain access to the project that corresponds to their organization.   After your customer accepts the invite and gains access to the project that corresponds to their organization, they can log in to the Sinch Build Dashboard.   In order to onboard to Sinch's Facebook Messenger service:   Log in to the Sinch Customer Dashboard.   Select Conversation API from the left menu and select the Apps option. The Conversation apps page is displayed: Click the application with which the Facebook Page will be associated. The application's page is displayed: In the Set up channels section, click the Facebook Messenger option. The Configuration section of the Facebook Messenger page is displayed: Select the type of token you'd like to use to connect your Page. If your Page is a personal Page, select the User access token option. If your Page is associated with a business in the Meta Business Manager, select the System User access token. Click Login with Facebook. Enter your Facebook credentials. If you chose the System User access token option, you must also select a business portfolio associated with your account. You are prompted to select a Facebook Page for Sinch to manage. Warning: Deselecting any previously connected Facebook Pages in the list will remove the Facebook Page from the Conversation API app. For example, if you are setting up a Conversation API app, and an existing Conversation API app is already connected to a different Facebook Page, that Facebook Page is displayed as already selected and connected to Sinch. Deselecting this Facebook Page will invalidate your existing Conversation API app integration. Select one available Facebook Page to connect to your Conversation API app. Note: Only select one new Facebook Page each time you connect a Facebook Page to a Conversation API app. Click Next. You are prompted to confirm permission assignments to the Conversation API app: After reviewing all permissions, click Save. The status of the integration is displayed: The process of connecting your Facebook Page with your Conversation API app is asynchronous and, while it is ongoing, the status will appear as ACTIVATING CHANNEL. Once the Facebook Page has been successfully connected to the app, the status will appear as ACTIVE. Once the integration is ACTIVE, you can start using the Facebook Messenger channel on your Conversation API app. Removing customer access to project   Note: This procedure is to be completed by you, the ASP, after your customer configures the Facebook Messenger channel on their Conversation API app.   After your customer has completed configuring the Facebook Messenger channel, you must remove their access to the project. This will help ensure project stability and limit security risks.   To remove the customer's access to the project:   Log in to the Sinch Build Dashboard and select your profile icon in the top right corner. Your profile menu is displayed. Click the User Management option. The User management page is displayed. To remove a user, click the three vertical dots corresponding to the user you want to remove and select the Remove option from the pop up menu . Your customer's Conversation API app is now configured to send messages using Facebook Messenger. For full information on the Conversation API's capabilities, see the API reference.   Learn more about the Sinch Messenger API for Facebook Messenger. ... View more

You can manage contacts easily if you’re using Sinch’s RCS service through Conversation API. To learn how to create and manage contacts using Conversation API:   Review the Conversation API contact management document. This article provides insights into how and when new contacts are automatically created in the Conversation API. It also provides troubleshooting instructions to address any conflicts that might arise during contact creation/resolution. Explore the API reference material for Conversation API contacts. This resource details every contact-related API call and response that can be made to and from the Conversation API. For more information on RCS, visit the Sinch RCS product page. ... View more

Sinch's WhatsApp service is provided through the Conversation API. To learn how to create and manage Conversation API contacts:   Review the Conversation API contact management document. This article provides insights into how and when new contacts are automatically created in the Conversation API. It also provides troubleshooting instructions to address any conflicts that might arise during contact creation/resolution. Explore the API reference material for Conversation API contacts. This resources details every contact-related API call and response that can be made to and from the Conversation API. Learn more about the Sinch WhatsApp Business API. ... View more

To learn how to create and manage Conversation API contacts:   Review the Conversation API contact management document. This article provides insights into how and when new contacts are automatically created in the Conversation API. It also provides troubleshooting instructions to address any conflicts that might arise during contact creation/resolution. Explore the API reference material for Conversation API contacts. This resources details every contact-related API call and response that can be made to and from the Conversation API. Learn more about Sinch Conversation API. ... View more

In order to allow your customers to send WhatsApp messages using the Conversation API, you must allow them to onboard to Sinch's WhatsApp service. You will then create a corresponding Conversation API app for your customer. Both tasks can be accomplished using the Sinch Build Dashboard.   The easiest and fastest method to onboard your customers is to use the embedded signup process within the Sinch Build Dashboard.   This process involves the creation of a project for your customer. You will then temporarily invite your customer to their specific project, granting them access to the Sinch Build Dashboard. Then, your customer will provide business details by completing the embedded signup process. Finally, you (the ASP) will remove your customer's access to the project and create a Conversation API app with the WhatsApp channel configured to use the Sender ID created during the embedded signup process.   Note: The created Sender ID is associated with a WhatsApp Business Account, or WABA. Each of your customers will only be able to provision a single WABA. Even if more than one phone number is associated with the WABA, the display name for each phone number associated with the WABA.   The corresponding procedures are detailed below. If all of the requisite information is available, completing the process may take between ten and thirty minutes. Prerequisites Prior to completing the onboarding process, review the following prerequisites. Having all of the requisite information readily available can greatly expedite the onboarding process.   Information and Materials In order to complete the procedures described below, the organization you are onboarding will need the pieces of information and materials described in the list below. Note that you may not need to collect this information as the ASP; your customer must have this information available when completing the embedded signup process. The organization's legal business name The organization's Facebook Business Manager ID  The organization's official primary address, including the country The time zone corresponding to the location above The 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 A brief description of the organization and the services/goods/etc. it offers The industry the 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 the organization     Verifying the business Ensure that your customer has verified their business in Meta's system.     Preparing your Sinch account Prior to beginning the onboarding process, you must ensure that your (the ASP's) Sinch account is properly prepared: You must have an account type that matches your organization's goals. Because you are planning to offer customers (and yourself) access to Sinch's WhatsApp service, you must have a Reseller account. Throughout this guide, we assume you have a Reseller account. Warning: If your account is not a Reseller account, you will be unable to onboard your customers. Reach out to your Account Manager if you have any questions about your account. Your account must be a postpaid account. Reach out to your Account Manager if your account is prepaid or if you don't know the payment structure of your account. Ensure that you have access to the WhatsApp functionality and pages on the Sinch Build 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. Project creation and inviting your customer   When onboarding customer, you must create a separate project for them using your Dashboard account.   Note: If you are planning to use Sinch's WhatsApp service for your own business purposes, in addition to providing your customers access to Sinch's WhatsApp services, you may create a separate project for yourself as well. Ensure you complete your own onboarding process within the project you created for yourself, and not within a project assigned to one of your customers.   You must then invite your customer to the project. First, review the information we have available on general account structure and how projects are defined and used in Sinch's systems.   Once you have reviewed the above articles, complete the following procedures (detailed in the subsections below):   Create a new project for your customer. Note: You must create a new project, NOT a subproject. Invite your customer to the newly created project as a Limited member. This will give them access to the requisite Build Dashboard functionality. Project creation   To create a new project for this onboarding process:   Log in to the Sinch Build Dashboard. Click the Project menu at the top left of the screen. Click View all projects. The Projects page is displayed: Click CREATE PROJECT. The Create project dialog is displayed. Enter a name for your project in the Name field. Enter a name that meaningfully represents the customer you are onboarding. Click CREATE.   Note: For more information, see our article on Creating a new project.   After creating the project, you must invite your customer to the project. This procedure is detailed in the next section. Inviting customers to the project   After creating a project for your customer, you must invite the customer to the newly created project. This will provide the user with access to that project's Build Dashboard functionality, including the WhatsApp embedded signup process.   To invite your customer to the new project,:   Log in to the Sinch Build Dashboard and select your profile icon in the top right corner. Your profile menu is displayed. Click the User Management option. The User management page is displayed. To invite users to your account, click Invite users. The Invite a user form is displayed. Enter the e-mail addresses for the users you want to invite in the Email field and select the Limited member user type role for this user. Select the project you created for the customer from the drop-down list. Note: Ensure that you select the Limited member user type. Other user types may grant them more or less access to your account than required. Once you have completed the form, click Send x invite (where x is the number of invites you are sending) to send the invites to your specified users. Note: For more information, see our article How do I invite another user to my Sinch Build Dashboard account?. Once the customer accepts the invite, they'll be able to onboard to Sinch's WhatsApp service.     Completing the WhatsApp onboarding procedure   Note: This procedure is to be completed by your customer after they gain access to the project that corresponds to their organization.   After your customer accepts the invite and gains access to the project that corresponds to their organization, they can log in to the Sinch Build Dashboard.   Warning: If you are planning to use Sinch's WhatsApp service for your own business purposes and you wish to onboard your own organization to WhatsApp, you must ensure that you onboard within your own project, and not a project assigned to one of your customers.   In order to onboard to Sinch's WhatsApp service:   Navigate to the Sinch Build Dashboard. Click the WhatsApp tab. The WhatsApp page is displayed. Ensure that the Embedded signup (faster) option is selected. Click the Login with Facebook button and complete the corresponding flow (summarized in the steps below). 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 Build 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. 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. After completing this procedure, the WhatsApp Sender ID will be available for use when configuring the corresponding Conversation API app.   Removing customer access to project   Note: This procedure is to be completed by you, the ASP, after your customer completes the embedded signup process.   After your customer has completed the embedded signup process, you must remove their access to the project. This will help ensure project stability and limit security risks.   To remove the customer's access to the project:   Log in to the Sinch Build Dashboard and select your profile icon in the top right corner. Your profile menu is displayed. Click the User Management option. The User management page is displayed. To remove a user, click the three vertical dots corresponding to the user you want to remove and select the Remove option from the pop up menu . Configuring the WhatsApp Channel of The Conversation API Note: This procedure is to be completed by you, the ASP, after your customer completes the embedded signup process and you have removed their access to the project.   In order to configure the WhatsApp Channel of the Conversation API: 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 Build 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.   Learn more about the Sinch WhatsApp Business API. ... View more

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 Build 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 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. 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 Build Dashboard. Click the WhatsApp tab. The WhatsApp page is displayed. Click the Login with Facebook button and complete the corresponding flow (summarized in the steps below). 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. 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. 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.   Learn more about the Sinch WhatsApp Business API. ... View more