Create and send a simple text template. This type of template allows you to predefine the configuration of text message and personalized fields (placeholders).

The body of a message template should only contain text, personalized fields and emojis. There is no limit to the number of parameters allowed in the body but when sending the message template, the total number of characters may not exceed 1024. If using parameters in the body, they may contain many characters as long as the total body length does not exceed the aforementioned 1024 characters.

The requirements before sending the Text Message Template to the recipients via WhatsApp Business API are the following:

• Create the Text Message Template from the Digital Engagement Platform, in the Templates section or by the Templates API.

• Once you have created the text message template, you'll need to submit it for WhatsApp approval. This can be done directly from the Digital Engagement Platform where the message template is created.

• It takes WhatsApp up to 48 hours to review a message template.

• After a text message template is created and approved, you can send it to recipients via API by copying each value of the template message to the request body.

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WARNING

You must carefully copy each value according to its corresponding parameter you set when creating the text template via UI (Digital Engagement Platform) to the request body.

Sending Text Message Template

Once the text message template has been created via UI or API and approved, the next step is sending the template to the end users through the Messaging API.

🚧

WARNING

You can not edit the template content in the request body because the values of each parameter have been approved by WhatsApp. You are only able to edit the value for placeholders in the body (text message).

Personalized Fields (placeholders)

This section will guide you on how to include the placeholders in the request body for sending the WhatsApp text message template that you set up during the template creation.

Text Message Body

If the created template includes a "Text Message" component with placeholder(s), the example payload JSON will be as follows:

"placeholders": {  
    "name": "Elizabeth",  
    "lastName": "Smith"  
}

From the "placeholders" object, set as parameter the placeholder you configured that is inside double curly braces {{...}} when creating the template. Then set the value of the placeholder parameter.

For instance, according to the previous example, the text message body of the created template is as follows:

{  
   "type":"BODY",  
   "text":"Welcome {{name}} {{lastName}} we have a new offer for you!",  
   "example":{  
      "body_text": [  
         [  
            "John",  
            "Doe"  
         ]  
      ]  
   }  
}

The placeholders must be correctly formatted in the order in which the template was created.

🚧

WARNING

The personalized fields (placeholders) you set when creating the WhatsApp Text Message Template for each component are editable when you send the template.

Make sure these are examples and do not include any confidential or personal information.

Once the template is approved and ready to be sent, replace the placeholders with the actual (real) placeholder values.

We are going to send a text message template that includes a text body with a personalized field (placeholder) by entering the following parameters in the request body:

HTTP Request : POST / notification

{
  "channel": "WHATSAPP",
  "request": {
    "from":"1000000001",
    "to":"+1000000002",
    "templateName":"code_shipping",
    "templateLanguage":"en",
    "message": "Hi! your discount code is {{code}}",
    "placeholders":{
       "code":"34871"
    }
  }
}

The parameters presented in the request body example when sending a Text Message Template are the following:

When you send a Text Message Template, the response body contains the following data:

{
  "meta": {
    "timestamp": 1642531254980,
    "transactionId": "077da1d0-e089-487e-aed0-59534ba2d9f5",
    "explain": "Send Notification"
  }
}

Parameters presented in the response body example when sending a Text Message Template are the following: