How to send WhatsApp Business notifications with Novu
Learn about how to use WhatsApp for chat notifications
Getting Started
To integrate WhatsApp Business with Novu, You will have to create a facebook developer app and obtain the necessary credentials.
Step 1: Create a Facebook developer app
Visit the Facebook Developer Portal and create a new app.
Select “Other” for “What do you want your app to do?” and select “Business” for “Select an app type”.
Step 2: Setup WhatsApp product
On the App Setup page, click on “Set Up” under the “WhatsApp” product. You will need to create or add a Facebook Business Account to your app.
Step 3: Send a sandbox message
Copy the following pieces and paste them in the Novu WhatsApp Business integration settings:
- Temporary access token - Access API token field
- Phone Number ID - Phone number identification field
It’s important to note that the test credentials for whatsapp cannot be used in production and will expire in 24 hours. You will need to submit your app for review to obtain production credentials.
Step 4: Add a test phone number
You can add a test phone number to the sandbox by clicking on the “Add Phone Number” button. This number can be used to test your integration with Novu before submitting for a review.
Step 5: Send a test notification from Novu
You can now create a new workflow with a “chat” node, and add your content. Save your workflow, and click on “Trigger Notification” button.
In the to field, specify the phone number you added in the sandbox, and click on “Send Notification”.
{
"subscriberId": "TEST_SUBSCRIBER_ID",
"phone": "+11111111111"
}
and in the overrides
field, add the following:
{
"chat": {
"template": {
"name": "hello_world",
"language": {
"code": "en_US"
}
}
}
}
For test credentials you can only used the built in Whats App Template.
Going to production
Register a business phone number
To go live you will need to add a real business phone number and submit your app for review. Follow the Facebook Instructions on how to proceed.
Generate a permanent access token
Follow the Facebook Instructions on how to generate a permanent access token. Depending on your use case.
Create a WhatsApp template
You will need to create a WhatsApp Template to send notifications to your customers. Create a template in the Business Manager and submit it for review.
After your template is approved, you can use the template_name
to send notifications to your customers.
To send a notification with a template, you will need to add the following to the overrides
field:
novu.trigger("workflow-id", {
to: {
subscriberId: "SUBSCRIBER_ID",
phone: "+11111111111",
},
payload: {},
overrides: {
chat: {
template: {
name: "template_name",
language: {
code: "en_US",
},
},
},
},
});