WhatsApp Integration

Establishing communication via social media platforms like WhatsApp is essential in handling customer requirements and it also helps answer basic inquiries, build the engagement activities easily.

Now Kommunicate allows to integrate with WhatsApp business account and handle the queries via Kommunicate chatbot and with the help of human agents.

Twilio is used for WhatsApp integration, and the Twilio signup process must be completed before starting the integration with Kommunicate.

Instructions to set up Twilio account and WhatsApp number

• Sign up to Twilio

• Please have the following information handy to start the process.

  • Facebook Business Manager account ID
  • You will need your Twilio Account SID

• Request access to enable Twilio numbers for WhatsApp.

  • To do the integration on Kommunicate one need to have the WhatsApp number that is provided by Twilio, In order to get the number of WhatsApp, and fill out Twilio's "Request Access" form with accurate and up-to-date information, including the Facebook Business Manager ID.
  • Please refer to Twilio’s documentation for more details

• Submit a WhatsApp Sender request in the Twilio console

  • Once you fill the Request Access form and submit it, you will receive the pre-approval email from Twilio. Check out this reference link for the next steps.

• Allow Twilio to send a message on your behalf in the Facebook Business Manager console.

• Submit Facebook Business Manager account for Business Verification

• Twilio completes WhatsApp Sender registration from thier end

Once all of the above steps have been completed, the WhatsApp number can be retrieved to be added in Kommunicate. integration section, WhatsApp enabled number can be found in WhatsApp enabled senders section of the Twilio console, refer to the following screenshot for more details.

The instructions below will guide you through adding all of the necessary details to the Kommunicate dashboard and Twilio account.

• Copy Account SID, Auth Token from Twilio console, and WhatsApp Enabled Number from Whatsapp enabled senders section and add it in Kommunicate integration section.

• Integrate with Kommunicate as shown below

• Once integration on Kommunicate is finished, visit WhatsApp enabled senders section on Twilio and click on Edit Sender.

• Now add the webhook URL and select the HTTP POST. Also, add a URL in the status callback URL textbox and Save/Update Whatsapp sender. URL

Now Kommunicate is successfully integrated with WhatsApp account, try sending messages to the number linked to the account and these messages will be sent to Kommunicate chat as well, if the chatbot is already integrated, the bot will start replying to the queries on your WhatsApp chat.

Conversation on Kommunicate dashboard will be displayed in this format

Rich message buttons in WhatsApp

WhatsApp lets you add buttons to message templates. There are two types of buttons Quick Replies and Call to Action buttons.

1. Quick replies let businesses define buttons that users can tap to respond. When a Quick reply is tapped, a message containing the button text is sent in the conversation.

2. Call to action (CTA) buttons trigger a phone call or open a website when tapped.

To use buttons, you need to submit them as part of a message template to WhatsApp. Once approved, templates containing buttons can be sent by sending the message text in your API request.

Create Templates with Buttons

To implement the buttons, Navigate to the Twilio console, go to Programmable Messaging > Senders > WhatsApp Templates and click the New message template button. Here, a template containing the buttons must be submitted.

Send buttons as part of WhatsApp messages once the template with buttons has been approved. Send a message containing the template's body to send a button. The buttons are appended to the message automatically.

Limitations

• Only certain media files are allowed to be sent or received. See more info here

• If more than 24 hours have passed since the last user message, only template messages will be allowed.

• Rich message response from bot is not supported by WhatsApp, so they will not be received by the end-user.