How to use WhatsApp templates with Pingstreams

A message template is required to start a business-initiated conversation. These conversations can be customer care messages or appointment reminders, payment or shipping updates, alerts, and more.

If you haven’t yet configured a WhatsApp Business account, our guide Configure a WhatsApp Business account awaits you! Also, you can watch a video version of this guide below, too.

Create a WhatsApp template

In order to create a template simply go to Message templates page in the Meta Business Suite, select a Business Account on the left side and choose a WhatsApp Account on the right side.

Note: each phone number has a different WhatsApp Account ID, therefore a different WhatsApp Account corresponds to different templates.

Click on Create template, follow the steps and submit the template for the approval process. For further info about message template creation please refers to the official guidelines.

Set up the WhatsApp Business app on Pingstreams

Let’s see how to configure the WhatsApp Business app to allow Pingstreams to send templates. If you haven’t already connected Pingstreams with WhatsApp Business take a look at How to connect Pingstreams with WhatsApp Business.

In order to use WhatsApp templates you need to add the WhatsApp Business Account ID in the Pingstreams WhatsApp configuration.

Go to Meta Developer console, select your app and on the left-side menu, underneath products section, go to WhatsApp → API Setup. Is important to select your production phone number, then copy the corresponding Business Account ID.

Now go to Pingstreams Console, open the WhatsApp integration app and paste the Business Account ID, as in the image below.

That’s it, now you will be able to send Whatsapp templates from the Pingstreams Chat.

A template allows you to send a message to a WhatsApp user even if more than 24 hours have passed since the last message. Note that this is the only way to do it.

So, let’s open the Pingstreams Chat and select a WhatsApp conversation. Click on Templates and select one of your approved templates.

If you have added some variables to your template, you have to fill all field in order to send it. Moreover, you can also add images, files or locations. You can add these media selecting a local file or pasting a remote url.

Once your template is ready, click on the Send button and les jeux sont faits! You will see a simple preview in the Pingstreams chat, while the user will receive immediately the template.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us live on chat or at support@pingstreams.io

For more info on who we are, what we do, or what is our shtick, visit the Pingstreams Website 👩🚀

If you are a Customer.io user you may have noticed that it isn’t possible to perform a native broadcast on the WhatsApp Channel. However, it is possible to use the Webhook option to “move” the broadcast towards Pingstreams and to use our new WhatsApp dedicated actions. How is it possible? Easy, Chatbot’s actions can now be performed through API!

Let’s see how to do that!

Create and configure a Chatbot on Pingstreams

If you haven’t created a Chatbot yet, sign in on the Pingstreams Dashboard, create or select a project and click on Bot on the left sidebar. Click on Add from scratch button and create a new Chatbot.

You are now in the Chatbot Design Studio. Create a new block clicking on +add button and choose a name for this block. Before continuing, please delete the default Reply action as it isn’t necessary to reach our goal.

Now click on Add action and select the WhatsApp by Attribute action. Configure this action is very easy. Simply create a custom attribute by giving it a name that you will use later and choose it in the select “Assign to”

Done! Your action is ready to be used.

Use the action in Customer.io

Sign in on customer.io, create a new Broadcast, and configure it to your preferences choosing segments, conditions, goals, etc.

On the Step 3 (Content), choose the Webhook option and access the advanced settings click on Content box.

At this point, an HTTP request must be written correctly and to do so, it is necessary to know the language and the structure of the WhatsApp template to be sent in broadcast. But, don’t worry, we have a trick for you!

Remember that you can send messages to your customers on WhatsApp only using an approved template. For any doubt about the process of templates creation and WhatsApp configuration please refers to our guides on WhatsApp Business Integration.

Use the Fast Prototyping trick to generate the request payload

Come back on Chatbot Design Studio. Add a new block for the Chatbot previously created, than click on Add action and select the WhatsApp Static action.

Note that this block will never be executed directly, but can be used as an important fast prototyping tool.

At this point, get your Phone Number Id from the Meta for Developers platform and paste it on the Phone Number Id input field, then choose the template that you want to use in the broadcast.

It’s very probable that the selected template contains parameters, so let’s fill in the corresponding fields with some example information, including the recipient’s phone number.

If you want, you can see the preview of your WhatsApp message as the recipient will see it.

A little further down you will be able to see the auto-generated payload that we can use to compile the HTTP request on customer.io.

Warning! In the specific case of customer.io it is necessary and sufficient to enter only one recipient.

Copy the auto-generated payload and move again on customer.io. Paste the static payload on the editor e make it dynamic.

Place the variables provided by customer.io to fill parameters like recipient phone_number, name, etc. Then, pay attention to the following changes:

payload.text must be the name of the WhatsApp by Attribute action
payload.token must be the chatbot token provided by Pingstreams

Get chatbot token

You can get the token associated with your chatbot from the Chatbot Design Studio itself, clicking on General on the left side menu, and under the Developer tab you can generate a new token simply clicking on Get Token button.

Let’s complete the HTTP request on customer.io specifying:

Method: POST
Url: https://api.pingstreams.com/v3/modules/pingbot/ext/YOUR_BOT_ID
Header: Content-Type: application/json

That’s all! You will now be able to make your first WhatsApp broadcast with Pingstreams.

You can perform a test by clicking the Send test button on customer.io to be sure that all works correctly, then you can save changes, review your entire broadcast and choose whether to send it immediately or schedule it.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us live on chat or at support@pingstreams.io 📧

For more info on who we are, what we do, or what is our shtick, visit the Pingstreams Website 👩🚀

How to perform a WhatsApp broadcast using Pingstreams

If you want to perform a broadcast operation on the WhatsApp Channel you are in the right place! Let’s see how is possible to use the powerful of Pingstreams and the new Chatbot Design Studio to send WhatsApp templates to you customers using the API. Not only this, let’s see also how to check the broadcast status and how to receive real time notifications using a webhook.

Create and configure a Chatbot on Pingstreams

You are now in the new Chatbot Design Studio. You can customize your chatbot as you prefer.

It is not necessary that the actions that we are going to setup will be part for the principle flow, so it can be unconnected with the others blocks.

Drag and Drop the WhatsApp by Attribute action in the canvas (you can find it under the Integrations section) and change the name of the block like you prefer. In this example we called it ‘whatsapp_broadcast’.

Configure this action is very easy. Simply create a custom attribute by giving it a name that you will use later and choose it in the “Assign to” select box.

Done! Your action is ready to be used.

Use the Fast Prototyping trick to generate the request payload

In order to use this action with the Pingstreams API is necessary to discover how the request payload is made. To do this we can use another action which purpose is only to help you understand the structure of the json.

Drag and Drop the WhatsApp Static action in the canvas and start working on it, but note that this block will never executed directly, but can be used as an important fast prototyping tool.

Get your Phone Number Id from the Meta for Developers platform (go to WhatsApp >> API Setup, as below) and paste it on the Phone Number Id input field, then choose the template that you want to use in the broadcast.

It’s very probable that the selected template contains parameters, so let’s fill in the corresponding fields with some example information, including the recipient’s phone number.

A little further down you will be able to see the auto-generated payload that we can use to compile the HTTP request.

Keep entering all your recipients to have a complete payload or continue adding them in the editor you like best.

Perform the request

Once your payload is completed and ready to be used we can finally process sending the broadcast. In this example, we used Postman as a platform to build and perform API requests, but feel free to use whatever software you find comfortable.

Let’s configure the HTTP request as follows:

Method: POST
Url: https://api.pingstreams.com/v3/modules/pingbot/ext/YOUR_CHATBOT_ID
Header: Content-Type: application/json

Paste the auto-generated payload making sure that:

payload.text must be the name of the WhatsApp by Attribute action
payload.text.request_id must be on the format “automation-request—”
payload.token must be the chatbot token provided by Pingstreams

Get chatbot token

You can get the token associated with your chatbot from the Chatbot Design Studio itself, clicking on Settings on the left side menu, and under the Developer tab you can generate a new token simply clicking on Get Token button.

That’s all! Just send the request and wait for the magic. Pingstreams will take care of the broadcast request and send the messages to the selected contacts.

Broadcast results

You may ask where and how you can check the broadcast status and the status of every single message.

Well, come back to the Pingstreams Dashboard and go to Settings → Automations Log. Here you can find all your automations and their status.

Click on one automation to see the details. Here you see how many messages are currently processed and the status coming from WhatsApp directly, but above all it is possible to get feedback on any errors when sending the message.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us live on chat or at support@pingstreams.io 📧

For more info on who we are, what we do, or what is our shtick, visit the Pingstreams Website 👩🚀

How to set up a webhook for your WhatsApp updates

In this article you will learn how to set up a webhook to receive Real Time Updates for your WhatsApp Broadcasts and all Whatsapp Updates for your standard conversations.

For any doubt on how to connect you WhatsApp Business account with Pingstreams and how perform WhatsApp Broadcasts, please refer to the following guides.

Receive Real Time Update for a WhatsApp Broadcast

After starting a broadcast operation, you can receive all updates regarding it. Pingstreams will send these updates automatically, so you just need to create your own webhook endpoint and subscribe to the correct event.

Then click on Add Subscription to create a new subscription.

Select from the dropdown menu the event ‘Event Emit’, type your webhook endpoint address and click on Create Subscription.

From now on you will receive all events on your webhook.

In order to discriminate the events that concern a broadcast, simply add on your webhook the following code:

app.post('/hook', async (req, res) => {
    if (req.body?.payload?.name === "pingstreams.whatsapplog") {
        let whatsapp_log = req.body.payload.attributes?.messageLog;
        console.log(whatsapp_log);
    }
});

👉 Check out the Public example on Glitch

Receive all updates from WhatsApp

Similarly to the previous case, the only thing you need is to create your own webhook endpoint and subscribe to the correct event.

Again, login to Pingstreams Dashboard, select a project and go to Settings → Project Settings → Developer → Manage Webhook.

Then click on Add Subscription to create a new subscription.

Select from the dropdown menu the event ‘Event Emit’, type your webhook endpoint address and click on Create Subscription. Feel free to choose the same endpoint then before or a new one. Just be careful how to discriminate this type of event on your webhook, for which you will have to follow the following code:

app.post('/hook', async (req, res) => {
    if (req.body?.payload?.name === "pingstreams.whatsappfw") {
        let whatsapp_body = req.body.payload.attributes?.whatsappBody;
        console.log(whatsapp_body);
    }
});

👉 Check out the Public example on Glitch

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us live on chat or at support@pingstreams.io 📧

For more info on who we are, what we do, or what is our shtick, visit the Pingstreams Website 👩🚀

How to integrate ActiveCampaign with Pingstreams

Intro

This tutorial will guide you through integrating ActiveCampaign with Pingstreams to send WhatsApp messages triggered by an automation workflow. Follow these steps:

Step 1: Create a New Bot in Pingstreams

Create a new bot:

You can either build a bot from scratch or import one using the provided template.
Import this bot from the Pingstreams Community.
Once the bot is set up, proceed to configure actions.

Step 2: Configure the WhatsApp Action in Pingstreams

Navigate to the Actions Menu within your bot settings.

Select the action Send WhatsApp from the list.

Populate the following required information:

Phone Number ID: Obtain this ID from the Meta for Developers platform where you’ve installed your WhatsApp app. You can find it in the API Configuration section.
WhatsApp Template: Choose any pre-approved WhatsApp template you’ve created in Meta. If you need help with creating templates, see more about templates here.
Variables: Insert the relevant placeholders, such as the recipient’s phone number and first name, for dynamic messaging.

Step 3: Create an Automation in ActiveCampaign

Go to the Automation section and create a new workflow.

Select your desired Trigger and choose the Webhook option from the workflow list. This will allow ActiveCampaign to call Pingstreams when the trigger conditions are met.

Step 4: Set Up the Webhook URL in ActiveCampaign

To integrate ActiveCampaign with Pingstreams, you need to generate a Webhook URL for your bot:

Use the base URL: https://api.pingstreams.com/v3/modules/pingbot/

Append the following details to complete the Webhook URL:

Project ID: Your Pingstreams project ID.
Chatbot ID: The ID of the chatbot you want to trigger.
Block Name: The name of the block to activate (usually “start”).

Insert this Webhook URL into ActiveCampaign’s webhook field in your automation workflow.

Example: Complete Webhook URL

Suppose your:

Project ID: 12345
Chatbot ID: 67890

Your Webhook URL will look like this: https://api.pingstreams.com/v3/modules/pingbot/block/12345/67890/start

With this integration, you’ve successfully linked ActiveCampaign and Pingstreams. Now, whenever the automation trigger fires in ActiveCampaign, your Pingstreams bot will send a WhatsApp message using the configured template.

If you have any questions or run into issues, feel free to reach out to the Pingstreams Community for support!