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Communicating with your Customers through WhatsApp

Context:

WhatsApp is an extremely popular chat application that many MSPs - particularly in the UK, Australia and South America - use to communicate with their customers. MSP Process can be linked to your WhatsApp for Business account, and that integrate allows you to have chats within your PSA, over WhatsApp, to your customers.

This KB article outlines how to link your MSP Process tenant to a WhatsApp for Business account, and how to use the messaging features with the MSP Process Pod/Insight.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have a WhatsApp for Business account
  • You must have an account on https://developer.facebook.com 
  • You must be on the Pro license within MSP Process
  • You must be an Admin-level user within MSP Process

Creating an App in your Facebook Developer Account

  1. Login to https://developer.facebook.com 
  2. Click on My Apps, in the top right-hand corner of the site
  3. Click the Create App button
  4. Follow the wizard to complete setting up the app:
    • We recommend naming the app MSP Process
    • Choose the Connect with customers through WhatsApp use case:
    • On the Business step of the wizard, you'll want to choose which business portfolio you want to link to the app. If you've already got a business portfiolio setup - great! If not though, set one up:
    • Choose your business portfolio:
    • On the Requirements step of the wizard, you can just click the Next button:
    • On the Overview step of the wizard, review what you've setup, and click the Go to dashboard button to finish creating the app:
  5. You can log out of https://developer.facebook.com 

Configuring the WhatsApp App in Meta Business

Creating a System User

  1. Login to https://business.facebook.com 
  2. Navigate to Settings -> Users -> System Users
  3. Click the + Add button
  4. Enter a name for the user, and choose the Admin system user role
  5. Click the Create system user button to save the user

Assigning the MSP Process app to the System User

  1. Click the ... button and choose Assign Assets
  2. Select the MSP Process app, and enable all of the available permissions
  3. Click the Assign assets button

Creating a Token

  1. Click the Generate Token button
  2. On the first step of the wizard, select the MSP Process app
  3. On the second step of the wizard, set the expiration period to Never:
  4. On the third step of the wizard, assign all of the available permissions to this token:
  5. On the final step of the wizard, you'll be presented with the token; copy it somewhere secure, as you'll need to enter it into MSP Process a little later on. Click the Done button to close the wizard

Obtaining your WhatsApp Account ID

  1. In the https://business.facebook.com UI, navigate to Settings -> Accounts -> WhatsApp Accounts
  2. Record the ID shown for your WhatsApp Business account - you'll need to provide it to MSP Process later:

Creating a Message Template

In order to send messages through WhatsApp to your end-users, you need to first create a template of that message in the WhatsApp Manager UI.

  1. Use the Search capability in the menu of https://business.facebook.com to search for WhatsApp Manager

  2. Open the WhatsApp Manager tool
  3. Go to Message Templates -> Manage Templates
  4. Click the Create template button
  5. Choose the Utility category, and then click Next:
  6. Fill in the template fields as follows:
    • Name: msp_process
    • Type of variable: Number
    • Body: MSP Process here - hey {{1}}. We'd like to help you with the support ticket that you've raised.
    • Variable Sample: James
  7. Click the Submit for review button to save your template

NOTE: Meta can take up to 24 hours to review a submitted template

Configuring the WhatsApp Integration in MSP Process

Setting up and testing the integration

  1. Login to https://app.mspprocess.com as an Admin-level user
  2. Navigate to the Settings -> Integrations -> WhatsApp Messaging page
  3. Enter the Auth token that you generated earlier, and the WhatsApp Business ID
  4. Enter msp_process as the Default Template Name (if you named your default template something else, enter it's name here)
  5. Click the Test Connection button to have MSP Process confirm that it can communicate with your WhatsApp account

Configuring WhatsApp to Send Message Events to MSP Process

Once the connection between MSP Process and WhatsApp has been tested, you'll now need to configure your WhatsApp "app" to send webhooks to MSP Process when your customers message you on WhatsApp.

Before you leave MSP Process, click on the Copy Webhook URL button; you'll need that URL in just a minute:

  1. Login to https://developer.facebook.com 
  2. Click on My Apps, in the top right-hand corner of the site
  3. Click on the MSP Process app you created earlier
  4. Click on the Use Cases menu item
  5. Click the Customize button for the Connect with customers through WhatsApp use case
  6. Go to the Configuration menu item
  7. Paste in the URL from earlier into the Callback URL field
  8. Enter mspp in the Verify token field
  9. Click the Verify and Save button

Congratulations! You're now able to start using MSP Process to chat with your customers, through WhatsApp.

Using WhatsApp to Message Your Customers

For MSPs Who Use Autotask:

You can access the WhatsApp messaging function from within the Messaging module; simply click the Create button and choose WhatsApp:

 

For MSPs who use ConnectWise or HaloPSA:

Once you've gone through the steps in this KB article, the Pod in ConnectWise or HaloPSA will have a new WhatsApp feature on the left-hand side of the UI:

 

For MSPs who use SuperOps, Syncro, or Kaseya BMS:

Access to WhatsApp is available on the PSA Tickets page in MSP Process; from that page, go to the Actions column for the ticket in question, and open the Pod for that ticket:



 

 

Using Message Templates

When MSPs text their customers - either through SMS, or through WhatsApp - there are often very commmon messages that are sent to end-users:

  • Hey - do you have a minute to talk about this that you raised to us?
  • Hey - thanks for working with me to fix that issue; I'm glad we got it solved! I'm going to go ahead and close off this ticket.

To save your technicians time, to avoid unncessary typos, and to make our WhatsApp integration as user-friendly as possible, you can create Message Templates that allow your technicians to very quickly create a text message without having to type it out.

Creating Message Templates can be done by Admin-level users, from the Messaging -> Message Templates page in MSP Process.

Using those Message Templates can be done by clicking the following button in the MSP Process Pod:

 

Troubleshooting

- This error means that the template you created earlier hasn't yet been approved by Meta. Patience, my son.