Sinch's enterprise customers can send and receive WhatsApp messages using Sinch's WhatsApp service and Conversation API. In order to send WhatsApp messages using the Conversation API as an enterprise customer, 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 know 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.
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 business portfolio. Similarly, select the WhatsApp Business Account already associated with your project from the WhatsApp Business account drop-down list. If you have never associated a WhatsApp Business Account with this Sinch project, click Create a WhatsApp Business account instead. Note the following:
You should only select Create a WhatsApp Business account if you have never associated a WhatsApp Business Account with this Sinch project before. Creating a new WhatsApp Business Account for a Sinch project that already has an associated WhatsApp Business Account may lead to issues in your solution. That being said, if you have never associated a WhatsApp Business Account with this Sinch Project, you must click Create a WhatsApp Business account. Meta's constraints prevent Sinch from making use of WhatsApp Business Accounts created outside of Sinch's flow.
If you select an existing WhatsApp Business Account, ensure you select the WhatsApp Business Account that was first associated with this Sinch Project. Selecting the incorrect WhatsApp Business Account may lead to issues in your solution. Click Next after you have populated and reviewed all the required fields.
You must review the business details that will be shared with Sinch. If information needs to be updated or provided, populate the corresponding fields. Note that this information is pulled from your the Meta business portfolio (if it exists). Click Next when all of relevant fields have been updated and/or populated.
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. Select Add a new number and provide the phone number to be used. Note: You cannot use a Sinch-provided number for this step.
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.
Once you receive the Verification code using the method you selected in the previous step, enter it and click Next.
Review the permissions 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.
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