To set up WhatsApp, you’ll first need to sign in to your Facebook developer account and create an access token.
This will allow you to link WhatsApp and Flow Notify together.
Step 1: Create the Meta app and generate an access token
To get started, we’ll log in to Facebook for Developers and create a way to link Facebook and WhatsApp together.
To do this, take the following steps:
- First, log in to developers.facebook.com.
- Then click on the My Apps link in the top menu. Once done, click the Create App button on the right-hand side of the page.
- On the page that appears, click Business and the Next button.
- In the next step, enter the app name and email (these are for admin purposes). Then select a Business Account. If you don’t have a business account, Facebook will create one for you. Next, click the Create App button
- Once done, enter your Facebook account password in the confirmation popup.
- The app will then be created and you’ll be asked to select products that you want to add to the app. Scroll down until the end and click on the Set up button under WhatApp.
- On the next page, Select or Create a Meta Business account using the dropdown. Then click continue.
- It will redirect you to the Getting Started page. Now you only need to add your phone number to the WhatsApp API. This will be the number from which the messages will be sent.
Notes:
- This number cannot be already associated with an existing WhatsApp account.
- Once you migrate a phone number to the WhatsApp Business Platform, you cannot use that number on the WhatsApp Messenger or WhatsApp Business App concurrently. For further reading, refer to the WhatsApp documentation.
Not ready to use a real number?
If you are not ready to link your phone number with WhatsApp API, you can use the Testing number provided by WhatsApp.
Please note that you can only send messages to the approved recipients while using the test number. To add a recipient, click on Add phone number button under the To dropdown. Enter your number in the popup and verify it with the received verification code.
- Once clicked, you’ll need to enter the details for your WhatsApp profile.
- Finally, enter the phone number and verify it by entering the verification code received.
- Now the WhatsApp app is all set up, we need to copy the Access Token, Phone Number ID, and Business Account ID and paste these into Flow Notify.
Creating a permanent access token
Note that this is a temporary access token. This means for security reasons, the token expires in less than 24 hours. You can use it for testing.
To generate a permanent access token, refer to the WhatsApp documentation.
Step 2: Connect WhatsApp to Flow Notify
Now we’ve set up the technical part in Facebook, let’s connect WhatsApp to Flow Notify. To do this, take the following steps:
- From your WordPress dashboard, go to Flow Notify > Connection > WhatsApp
- Then, paste your WhatsApp From number ID, Token, WhatsApp Business Account ID into the fields.
Click Save Changes. Check Connection. Let’s test the connect. Click Check Connection.
If successful, you will see the banner ‘Connected’. If not, review the documentation and verify the steps.
Now we’ve connected the two services together, you can start setting up WhatsApp templates for messages.