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Outbound messaging - AWS End User Messaging

Outbound messaging

WhatsApp business messaging is template-first. To open a conversation with a recipient, you send a message built from a Meta-approved template by calling SendWhatsAppMessage with your originating phone number ID, the recipient, and the approved template. After the first template message, you can exchange free-form messages within the open conversation window.

Before you send, make sure you have an approved template. For how to create and submit one, see Step 3: Get a message template.

Console

Use the console to send a test message without writing code.

To send a test message from the console

  1. Open the AWS End User Messaging console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/end-user-messaging/.

  2. Under Social messaging, choose Send test message.

  3. Choose the WhatsApp Business Account and the originating phone number to send from.

  4. For the recipient, enter a phone number in E.164 format. While your account is in the sandbox, the recipient must be a verified test number.

  5. Choose an approved template, choose its language, and provide any values the template requires.

  6. Choose Send test message.

AWS CLI

Use the send-whatsapp-message command. Pass the originating phone number ID and a Meta-formatted message payload. The following example sends an approved template to a recipient.

aws socialmessaging send-whatsapp-message \
    --origination-phone-number-id phone-number-id-abc123 \
    --meta-api-version v20.0 \
    --message '{
        "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
        "to": "+14085551234",
        "type": "template",
        "template": {
            "name": "order_update_basic",
            "language": {"code": "en_US"},
            "components": [
                {
                    "type": "body",
                    "parameters": [
                        {"type": "text", "text": "Jane"},
                        {"type": "text", "text": "12345"}
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    }'

In the preceding command, make the following changes:

  • Replace phone-number-id-abc123 with the ID of the originating WhatsApp phone number on your linked WhatsApp Business Account.

  • Replace the to value with the recipient phone number, in E.164 format.

  • Set template.name and language.code to your approved template and its language, and provide a parameter for each variable the template declares.

After the conversation window is open, you can set type to text (or another supported message type) to exchange free-form messages without a template. For the full message payload reference, see the SendWhatsAppMessage operation in the AWS End User Messaging Social Messaging API Reference.