Send WhatsApp templates from the inbox

WhatsApp only lets businesses write freely for 24 hours after the customer’s last message. After that, the only messages it delivers are templates that Meta has approved. Dazza reads your approved templates from your WhatsApp Business Account, so your team can send one from the inbox.

When the window has closed

Open the conversation. In place of the reply box, Dazza says the window has closed, when the customer last wrote, and why a typed reply wouldn’t arrive. While it’s open, the reply box shows when it closes in its last few hours.

Press Send a template.
Pick a template. Each shows its language and category, and a preview of its text.
Fill in its variables. Dazza fills in what it knows: the customer’s name after a greeting (“Hi {{1}}”) or in a variable called first_name or name, their email or phone, your business’s name, and your name (“it’s {{2}} from…”).
Check the preview, which shows the template as the customer will see it, then press Send template.

Sending a template takes the conversation over from Dazza, as replying does. The message shows in the thread with the template’s name, and its delivery is tracked like any reply: Sent, Delivered, Read, or Not sent with WhatsApp’s reason and Try again.

Once the customer writes back, the window opens again and you can reply normally.

What can be sent

Text in the heading and body, with numbered ({{1}}) or named ({{first_name}}) variables.
A picture, video or document heading, from a public https:// address you give.
Link buttons with a variable at the end of the address, and copy-code buttons.
Quick-reply and phone buttons, which need nothing filled in.

Sign-in code (authentication) templates are sent by your own system, so the inbox doesn’t offer them. Neither does it offer templates with a location heading or catalogue buttons.

Your templates

Create and edit templates in Meta’s WhatsApp Manager (Account tools → Message templates). Meta usually reviews a new one within a day.

Dazza reads them when you connect WhatsApp, when the list in the inbox is an hour old, when Meta says one was approved, paused or rejected, and whenever you press Read again (in the inbox, or on the WhatsApp connection in Channels). The Channels page shows how many are approved.

To read templates, the access token you connected needs the whatsapp_business_management permission as well as whatsapp_business_messaging. If it’s missing, the inbox says so.

Plans

Templates are part of WhatsApp, on Growth and above.