Good news, you can now integrate your WhatsApp Business account with your Locale command center to deliver alert notifications on WhatsApp!

In this article, you will learn how to set up your WhatsApp Integration with Locale to use WhatsApp as a channel for broadcasting critical alerts to your customers, vendors, and ops teams.

Locale supports sending notifications for alerts via your WhatsApp business account. To enable it, please follow the steps below.

Step 1: Creating your Meta Business Account

Step 2: Create a Facebook Developer Account and enable Whatsapp Business APIs

Step 3: Connecting Whatsapp Business Account to an App and Generating APIs Keys

Step 4: Connect your Whatsapp Business Account with Locale.

Step 5: Creating Message Templates to use with Locale

Locale uses WhatsApp Cloud API and WhatsApp Business Management API to send messages to your contacts via your WhatsApp Business Account. These APIs are part of Meta’s Graph API, so you need to set up a Meta developer account and a Meta developer app.

1. Go to https://business.facebook.com to create a new business account.

2. Provide details like the name of your business & email address, and click on Submit. Once the form is submitted, you will be asked to confirm your email address.

3. Once you have verified your business, you will be taken to the Business Dashboard.

Locale uses WhatsApp Cloud API and WhatsApp Business Management API to send messages to your contacts via your WhatsApp Business Account. These APIs are part of Meta’s Graph API, so you need to set up a Meta developer account and a Meta developer app.

Here's how you can do that.

1. Go to https://developers.facebook.com and click on Get Started to start setting up your developer account.

2. Verify your account using your mobile number and email and complete the setup as shown in the images below.

3. Once you have completed the registration, click on the “Create App” Button to set up a new app to send notifications via your business account.

4. Choose the Type of your App as Business to allow the app to access and manage your WhatsApp Business Account, and click on Next.

5. On the next screen, Provide the name of your app (You can use any name of your choice to identify that the app is created for use with Locale), provide an App contact email, and choose the business account that we created in the previous step — Click on the Create App button.

6. Once the App is created, you will be taken to the App Dashboard, Scroll down to see Whatsapp and click on Setup.

8. Click on Continue, and you will be taken to the WhatsApp Business API onboarding screen with a test WhatsApp account created for you.

9. Click on Start using the API to get your test credentials, and scroll to the bottom of the page to click on the option “Add Phone number”

10. If you haven’t verified your Business, Meta might ask you to verify your business. Fill in your business information and click on Next and complete the setup

11. On the next screen, it will ask you to add a phone number to your Whatsapp Business account. Enter the phone number and verify your number via text message to complete the setup.

1. Goto your Meta Business account settings https://business.facebook.com/settings/

and click on WhatsApp Accounts to make sure the number we just registered is present there along with a test WhatsApp account.

2. To generate API keys to send messages via Locale. You need to create a System user and generate the API keys. Click on System users on the left panel under the Users tab and click on the Add button and accept the Terms.

3. On the next popup, add the System username as Locale.ai and assign Admin permissions.

4. Once the asset is added, you will be able to see the App listed under the System user. Now select the newly created app from the dropdown.

5. Then make sure the permissions: business_management whatsapp_business_messaging and whatsapp_business_management are selected. And then click on Generate Token.

6. Copy the Access Token provided and make a note of it somewhere safely (it won't be visible again after clicking on OK), because you will need this token later to connect your account with Locale.

With this setup completed, Whatsapp Messaging will now be successfully integrated into your Locale account. 🎉
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You can now simply head over to any existing alerts on the My Alerts page on your Locale dashboard and edit them or create a new one to add Whatsapp Notifications.

WhatsApp does not allow you to send plain text messages directly to your users. Instead, you need to create message templates and get them approved by WhatsApp to use these templates to send messages.

Here's how you can do that:

1. Choose from the list of options between Transactional/Marketing/One-Time Password

2. Input a template name — This will later be available for selection while you're configuring your alerts on Locale.

3. Choose a single language (Preferred: English) Locale currently only supports templates with a single language.

4. On the next screen, you will be able to add Headers, Body, Footers, and Call To Action Buttons.

Once you are done configuring, Click on the Submit button. Wait for your template to get approved by the WhatsApp team.

Once approved, you will be able to select it while you're configuring your alerts on Locale.
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​Happy Alerting 🙌🏻

WhatsApp's usage pricing is based on the number of messages you send via Locale, Locale doesn’t charge you for this usage and is charged by WhatsApp on your WhatsApp Business Account.

This expense shall be handled by the users via their WhatsApp Business Account. You will have 1000 Free Tier conversations per month, to increase that please add your Payment method to your Meta Business Manager. Head over to your business manager settings to add your Payment method.