WhatsApp

Connect a WhatsApp Business number through Meta's WhatsApp Cloud API. Every message a customer sends then lands in Conversations, becomes a contact and a deal if they are new, and your team replies from the same screen. This page walks through the one-time setup in Meta and the settings to enter on each side.

Before you start

• Who can do it: owners and administrators of the company.
• Plan: available when your plan includes Conversations inbox and WhatsApp channel. The number of connected channels is a plan limit.
• A pipeline: new contacts get a deal in the stage you choose. See Deals and pipelines.
• In Meta: a Meta Business account that owns the WhatsApp Business account and the phone number, and someone who can manage its apps and system users. A number used in the WhatsApp Business phone app must be moved to the Cloud API first, which Meta handles.
• Costs: Meta charges for some conversations and for template messages. These are paid to Meta, not through Rutba CRM.

Step 1: get four values from Meta

Do this once, as the owner of the Meta Business account.

1. In Meta for Developers, create an app of the Business type, add the WhatsApp product, and link it to your WhatsApp Business account and number.
2. In Meta Business Settings, open System users. Create a system user with the Admin role, then click Generate token for your app with the permissions whatsapp_business_messaging and whatsapp_business_management, and choose a token that does not expire. This is the access token.
3. In the app, open WhatsApp → API Setup. Copy the Phone number ID and the WhatsApp Business Account ID.
4. In the app, open App settings → Basic and copy the App secret.

Keep these values to yourself. Type them into Rutba CRM directly; never send them in a chat or email.

Step 2: add the channel

1. In the sidebar open Conversations, then click Channels.
2. Open Connect WhatsApp Business and fill in:

3. Click Add channel. The values are stored encrypted and never shown again.
4. The channel card now shows Webhook address and Verify token. Keep this page open.

Step 3: point Meta's webhook at Rutba CRM

1. In your Meta app open WhatsApp → Configuration, and in the Webhook section click Edit.
2. Paste the Webhook address into Callback URL and the Verify token into Verify token.
3. Click Verify and save. Meta checks the address at once; it succeeds only while the channel is on.
4. Under Webhook fields, subscribe to messages. This brings in customers' messages and the delivery and read status of yours.

Step 4: test it

1. From your own phone, send a WhatsApp message to the business number.
2. In Conversations, the conversation appears within moments. A new contact is created from the phone number, with a deal in the chosen stage.
3. Reply from the conversation. The message reaches your phone, and its status updates as WhatsApp reports delivery and reading.

If someone sends a voice note, an image or a PDF, it shows in the conversation once it has been downloaded.

Templates and the 24-hour window

WhatsApp lets a business reply freely only within 24 hours of the customer's last message. After that, only templates that Meta has approved can be sent.

1. Create templates in WhatsApp Manager and wait for Meta to approve them.
2. On the channel card, click Sync templates. The button shows only while the channel is on. Approved templates are brought in; removed ones disappear.
3. In a conversation whose window has passed, the box Send an approved template lists them. Fill in each value, on one line and up to 200 characters, then click Send template.

Templates are also used for reminders about unfinished checkouts; see Alerts and digests.

Chats from Click-to-WhatsApp ads

When someone writes to you from a Click-to-WhatsApp ad, Meta adds the ad to their message, and Rutba CRM records it automatically: nothing needs to be turned on. The ad, with its title, appears as Ad in the contact's Customer journey, when your plan includes Tracking and customer journey, and the Ads that open a chat card on the Advertising page shows how many people each ad brought and what they bought afterwards.

To tell Meta which of those chats became sales, so it shows the ads to people who buy, see Advertising. That needs the channel's WhatsApp Business Account ID (for templates).

Good to know

• Matching: a message is matched to an existing contact by phone number. A WooCommerce order whose phone was turned into international form meets the same contact.
• New deals: a deal is created only when the contact has no open deal in that pipeline.
• Several numbers: one Meta app can serve several numbers. Add a channel for each; messages are routed by their phone number ID, and never to another company.
• Files: you can attach one file to a reply: an image (JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF), an MP4 video, audio (OGG, MPEG or M4A) or a PDF, up to 16 MB.
• Turning the channel off stops replies and Meta's deliveries. If your plan stops including the channel, messages that arrive are still saved, so no customer's words are lost.
• Automatic replies: the assistant that replies to customers can be turned on per channel; see AI agent. How the team works in the inbox is in Inbox.

Troubleshooting