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WhatsApp integration, if already using the API

  • 25 October 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 241 views
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We’re looking forward to implementing WhatsApp for Intercom, considering the documentation on integrating the WhatsApp App with Intercom we have some concerns, we hope people who have already done this integration may be able to answer.

We’re currently using the WhatsApp API for custom marketing messaging and authentication, it simple, it only redirect the user to our App, however we would like a way to see if the user reply, and if so, for our customer service team to continue the conversation, note that there’s no third party manager of the account, we call the API ourselves, the WABA is hosted on Meta directly, we hope that can be achieved through this integration, so in concrete these are our concerns:

  • If we integrate WhatsApp, we’ll lose access to manually call the WhatsApp API for authentication OTP and marketing messages?
  • Can the API still create new conversations with new users?
  • Can the integration at Intercom see those message, so the Customer Support team see the entire conversation history?
  • Since no third party is holding our WABA, there’s no migration, nor new creation process involved, what to do here?
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Best answer by Eden 9 November 2023, 23:39

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Eden
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Hey @andynadal 👋 Eden from the support engineer team here.

 

Something to keep in mind is that it's not possible to use the WhatsApp mobile app or the WhatsApp Business mobile app with the same phone number that you use with the WhatsApp Intercom integration. This means that once you connect the number to Intercom you will not be able to use it for outside connections. That being said, it is likely here that you will not be able to utilize those outside WhatsApp connections. 

 

There is currently no way to start a new WhatsApp conversation via the REST API. You can reply to WhatsApp conversations via the REST API 'Reply to a conversation' endpoint here but you can't initiate a WhatsApp conversation from the REST API. Once a conversation has been started in your Inbox via the WhatsApp integration, your team will be able to view all of the replies to the conversation within the UI. 

 

In order to migrate your existing WhatsApp phone number, you can follow the instructions in that article here! As a note, before migrating you must ensure that 2FA is disabled. Let me know if you have questions on that. 👍

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