Add a WhatsApp template message

Prerequisites

WhatsApp business customers can reply to inbound messages within 24 hours without a template message. After 24 hours of receipt of the original inbound message or to send a proactive outbound message, WhatsApp business customers must use pre-approved, structured messages, called template messages, to contact their customers.

To add a WhatsApp template message, follow these steps:

  1. Click Admin.
  2. Under Contact Center, click Canned Responses.
  3. Click Add Response.
  4. In the Response Name box, type a meaningful name. Agents see this name. 
  5. From the Library list, select the library this response belongs to. To specify a different library, click the library name from this list.
  6. For Response Type, enable Message Template.
  7. In the Namespace ID field, paste the Namespace ID.
  8. In the Template Name field, type the name of the message template.
  9. From the Language list, click the language for the template message.
    Note:  You must have a different response for each language that the WhatsApp template supports.
  10. In the Content box, click Import from WhatsApp. The Import from WhatsApp window opens.
  11. Paste your approved WhatsApp template message text.
  12. Click Import.
  13. To create another response, enable the Create Another check box. The new response belongs to the same library by default. However, you can select a different library if necessary.
  14. Click Save.

Notes:
  • Genesys Cloud supports body-only template messages.
  • You cannot change the Namespace ID, Template ID, language, and Body text after you save a WhatsApp template message. If you want to change a template message, you must delete it and recreate it.
  • Configured template message variables, or substitutions, from your approved WhatsApp template appear as pill buttons when you save the message. To update the names, descriptions, and default values for template variables, click these pill buttons.
    • If you make template message variable names “AGENT_NAME”, “CUSTOMER_NAME”, or “AGENT_ALIAS”, Genesys Cloud populates them with related conversation values.
    • Custom substitutions can pre-populate template message variables. A custom substitution overrides a configured default value, if provided. Agents can modify the automatically populated value.