Sending WhatsApp messages in LatePoint

You can send notifications via WhatsApp using LatePoint workflows. There is a limitation in WhatsApp that you can only send a pre-created template messages. You can use variables inside of those templates, to make them more dynamic, but you have to create a template first and get it approved by Meta/Facebook first. It’s a simple process and takes less than 5 minutes, but you still have to do that in order to send WhatsApp notifications. Learn how to create templates by following this link. If you want to send booking related notifications, you will need to pick “Utility” as a message category.

Install WhatsApp add-on

Navigate to Add-ons -> Communications and install WhatsApp addon.

Enable WhatsApp by Meta notification processor and enter your WhatsApp business credentials:

Get Phone Number ID and Business Account ID

1. Go to Meta Developer Site
2. Click on My Apps in top right corner
3. Select the app that you are planning to use or create a new one.
4. Navigate to API Setup in the WhatsApp section

You can see your phone number ID and Business Account ID here:

!Important: Do not use Access token from a screenshot above, as your system user access token in LatePoint settings. That token expires every 24 hours, you have to create a System User and get a token instead, which will not expire. In the next section we explain how to create a system user and a token.

Get System User access token

To be able to view and send templates you need to have an access token. To generate a system user and get a token you need to:

1. Navigate to Facebook Business Portal
2. Select the app you are using for sending WhatsApp messages, or create a new one.
3. Click on “Settings” cog icon

4. Open “System Users” and click on “+ Add“

5. Give this user a name and select Admin as a system user role

6. Once created – click on that user and then Generate Token

7. It will ask you to select your App and set expiration (you can set to “Never”). Then you will have to pick “whatsapp_business_messaging” and “whatsapp_business_management” as permissions to grant.

Enter the generated token into your WhatsApp settings in LatePoint.

Creating WhatsApp templates

To be able to send notifications via WhatsApp, you first have to create templates, that need to be approved by WhatsApp, it usually takes less than a day to get them approved. Create templates in your WhatsApp account by going to WhatsApp Manager -> Message Templates:

You can use numbered variables inside of your templates, which them be available for replacements in LatePoint.

Setting up a workflow to send a WhatsApp message

Now that you have templates in your WhatsApp account, you can trigger sending them in LatePoint workflows. Create a new workflow or edit an existing one, and add “Send WhatsApp Message” as an action.

In example below we have picked “booking_created-en [APPROVED]” as a template that will be sent. It shows a language of the template and it’s status. You can see we have {{1}} {{2}} {{3}} {{4} in our WhatsApp template, now we need to match them with our LatePoint variables that we want to use in their places, like {{order_confirmation_code}} {{customer_first_name}} etc…