Managing Twilio WhatsApp Message Templates

Based on our experience we recommend connecting & integrating your WhatsApp number via the 360dialog provider, as this integration allows you to connect any phone number, whereas to be able to connect a WhatsApp number via Twilio, your phone number has to be purchased from Twilio directly. The integration via 360dialog is also faster as there are no additional approval processes needed as from Twilio's side. On the other hand, the Twilio option might be cheaper due to the high monthly fee of at least 49€/month for a 360dialog account.

Quick Navigation

• Managing WhatsApp templates
• Synchronizing WhatsApp templates
• Changing templates status
• Integrating WhatsApp via Twilio (separate article)
• WhatsApp Integration Overview (separate article)
• Twilio WhatsApp integration possible problems (separate article)

To be able to start a new WhatsApp conversation with your customers or reply to customers' messages after 24 hours, you need to create WhatsApp templates in the Twilio console.

Manage WhatsApp templates

To manage your WhatsApp templates, login to your Twilio console and navigate to the Develop > Messaging > Content Template Builder section.

If you do not have the "Messaging" section in your Develop menu, click "Explore Products", and pin the Messaging product to it.

To create a new template, click on the "Create new" button in the top right corner (or "Create your first content template" if you do not have any templates yet). To create a new translation of a template in a different language, click on the three dots at the end of the row of the template, and click "Duplicate". To delete a template, click on the three dots at the end of the row of the template, and click "Delete". Existing templates cannot be edited.

Please check this and this Twilio article which explains how to correctly set the templates up. New templates or translations require approval from Twilio and Meta, see also the template approval criteria in this article.

Synchronize WhatsApp templates

Once you have the templates and their translations set up, they can be synchronized and populated into your LiveAgent account. WhatsApp templates can be synchronized in multiple ways.

Only the Text content type templates are populated. Any other template types utilizing rich features (e.g. catalogs, carousels, media templates, dynamic buttons, etc.) are not transferred as they cannot be sent via LiveAgent.

The templates are automatically synchronized by the server every 24 hours. Templates can be also synchronized manually by navigating to Configuration > WhatsApp > WhatsApp Numbers & clicking on the number for which you want to synchronize the templates. Opening the WhatsApp number configuration window synchronizes the number's templates, indicated by the "Synchronizing templates..." message in the "Message templates" section. The templates are successfully synchronized once the label states "Templates successfully synchronized.".

Additionally, templates can be also synchronized while viewing the list of templates by clicking on the "Change" button next to the "Message templates" header and clicking "Synchronize" in the Message templates window.

Change templates' status

If you want to make a specific template unavailable but do not wish to delete it completely, you can deactivate it. For that, in Configuration > WhatsApp > WhatsApp numbers, click on the number of which templates' status you want to change, click the "Change" button, and in the Message templates window click on the template translation of which status you want to change. Each template translation can be set as active or inactive separately. Disabling a template in LiveAgent won't change its status in your Twilio console or Meta account.