Once you have collected information from your users via NeetoForm, you might want to reach out to them. For example, a teacher might want to send course-related updates to her students, or a sales representative might want to send pricing details. Although email is a perfectly fine option, it can go unnoticed. With over 3 billion users on WhatsApp, it can be a better mode of communication with your users.
With NeetoForm, you can integrate WhatsApp, which allows you to reach out and send updates to the people who submitted the form.
To connect your Whatsapp number to NeetoForm, you need the following things.
Have a registered phone number in your name with voice call and SMS services enabled.
Have a Facebook account.
Seeking Help
Please note that the terminologies used by the Whatsapp team are confusing. We are trying our best to be as clear as possible in this document. However, at any point in time, if you are confused, then please click on "Contact us" at the bottom of this page, and the Neeto team will help you set up your Whatsapp number.
Follow these steps to integrate your WhatsApp account with NeetoForm
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Go to the form's Configure page. Under Integrations, click on WhatsApp and then on Connect WhatsApp.
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Click on Onboard new business. This will redirect and open the embedded flow on Facebook.
Follow the steps on Facebook's multi-step onboarding flow, where Facebook will guide you in onboarding your phone number. During the process, Facebook will create a WhatsApp business account, a WhatsApp business profile and a WhatsApp business platform. You can refer to this document for any help.
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Once you complete the Facebook onboarding steps, you will be redirected to NeetoForm. Here, you need to select the phone number you use for WhatsApp. Select the phone number and click on Continue.
You should have now successfully connected your WhatsApp with NeetoForm. But before you can send messages, you will have to create a WhatsApp message template.
WhatsApp message Templates
WhatsApp Business does not allow you to send free-form messages directly to your users. You first need to create message templates and get them approved by WhatsApp. Once approved, you can use these templates to send messages.
How to create a WhatsApp message template?
Currently, the template creation process is manual. You will have to visit https://business.facebook.com/wa/manage/message-templates and follow the steps mentioned here to create a WhatsApp message template.
Soon, we will build the functionality to create and manage WhatsApp templates from within NeetoForm.
Approval Process
Once a template is created, it can be submitted for approval. It can take up to 24 hours for approval. If your message template is approved, its status will be set to Active - Quality pending and it shall be ready for sending to customers. If it is rejected, you can edit and resubmit for approval.
You can visit Facebook's message templates guidelines page for more details on handling templates.