Sangoma CX Technical Note - WhatsApp Support

Setup your WhatsApp channel with WhatsApp Cloud API

Sangoma CX supports the official WhatsApp Business API. You can connect the phone number and start managing your WhatsApp customer queries from the Sangoma CX Agent Panel. Follow the steps below to enable your WhatsApp inbox with WhatsApp Cloud API.

Prerequisites​

Sangoma CX Tier

This feature is part of the omnichannel capabilities only available in the Sangoma CX Premium Tier. You can review the tier enabled in your tenant by clicking the name associated with the logged user in the upper right corner on the Sangoma CX portal. 

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If you want to upgrade your current tier to enable this capability, please get in contact with your Sangoma Partner or a Sangoma Sales Representative. 

Configure your Facebook Developer App​

First, you need to create your Facebook Developer app, with “WhatsApp Product enabled”. Go to the WhatsApp Cloud API Guide and follow the instructructions including Step 3.

Once you finish this step, you have at least a phone number in the “WhatsApp'' section of your Facebook developer app. If you completed the steps successfully, you should be able to obtain the “Phone Number ID” and “Whatsapp Business Account ID” as shown in the below screenshot. Sangoma CX will require these values for creating the WhatsApp Inbox.

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Please note the phone numbers provided by Facebook at this time are for testing purposes only. To add a real business number you will need to follow the instructions in step 5 in the WhatsApp Cloud API Guide

Configure a system user for your Facebook Business Manager​

Create a system user in your Business Manager with access to the WhatsApp App. Generate an access token for the user, which will be required as the API key for setting up an inbox in Sangoma CX.

When generating the access token, make sure the “whatsapp_business_management”, and “whatsapp_business_messaging permissions” are selected.

1. Create a system user in the System Users tab of Business Manager.

2. Add the system user. Under the WhatsApp Accounts tab, select “Add People” and select the system user to grant access to the WhatsApp Business account.

3. Generate the access token and request permissions.

Refer to this video for detailed steps.

Setup WhatsApp Inbox in Sangoma CX

1. Login in the Sangoma CX portal with a user that has privileges to create inboxes and click in the menu: Contact Center > Management > Digital Channels > Inboxes. The following screen will be displayed. 

2. Click the “CREATE INBOX” button and select WhatsApp

3. Fill in the appropriate details.

This information is available in the WhatsApp > API Setup Screen App you previously created in https://developers.facebook.com/apps/.

4. Click on the “CREATE” button. A window will pop-up providing the following information: “Webhook Verify Token” and “Whatsapp Webhook Callback URL”. Copy this information before closing this window. This information is required by Facebook Developer App to make this integration work.

The WhatsApp Inbox won't be ready until configuring the “Webhook Verify Token” and “Whatsapp Webhook Callback URL” in Facebook Developer App is completed. Please review the section “Enable the webhook” that details how to configure the settings. 

Enable the webhook​

To configure the webhook in Facebook Developer App follow these steps

1. Head back to the “WhatsApp” section in the Facebook Developer App. Navigate to the “Configuration” subsection and click “Edit” button set up the “Callback URL” and “Verify Token”

2. Paste the Callback URL and Verified token provided by Sangoma CX when creating the WhatsApp Inbox and click the “Verify and save” button.

3. The application must subscribe to message fields events under Webhooks Fields on your Facebook Developer App. To configure the setting, click the “Manage” button.

4. Scroll down and enable the subscribe checkbox for “Messages” and click the “Done” button.

5. Once you finish all the steps, the configuration screen should look like the following.

Additional Inbox settings​

Your freshly configured WhatsApp inbox should now appear in your list of inboxes. The Inbox Contact Information column will display the WhatsApp Phone number.

The following changes can be done when editing this inbox:

• Under the General tab:

  • Name: Inbox name

  • Greeting Message: First message provided to the customer when initiating a conversation with this inbox.

• Under Agents tab:

  • Provides the ability to assign and unassign agents to the inbox. Alternatively Agents can be assigned or unassigned to queues and inboxes through the Agent editing screens.

Please note, editing the Inbox won’t allow changing the WhatsApp integration settings. If these need to change you will need to create a new WhatsApp inbox. 

Supported media types​

FAQ​

Validating Whatsapp API Key​

Sangoma CX internally validates a WhatsApp key with the following GET API call:

To test the key, make the above API call and check for any errors.