With this article, we are embarking on a journey to learn all about EZsotion. From the basic setup to more advanced features, we will cover everything within this series. In this article, we will discuss about getting access to WhatsApp Cloud API. Now WhatsApp Cloud API is freely available to all businesses. But before getting access to it, you must meet a few prerequisites.
First of all,
You should have a Meta Business Manager account. Your meta business manager account must be verified and you must also have a meta developer account and finally you must have a meta app. Once you have all of these things in place then within a span of few minutes you can get access to WhatsApp cloud API. So, without any delay, let’s get right into it.
If you have a Meta business Manager account, then please feel free to skip to the next part of the article.
The second step
Now,
For those who do not have a Meta business Manager account, please follow along. account so i will login with my facebook credentials. Ok so we are logged in so now click on go to meta business suite. Ok so once you are logged in go to the top left corner and here you will see a drop down menu.
If you are able to see the business name under business account, that means you already have a business manager account. But if you want to create a new one, then you can scroll to the bottom of this menu and click on create a business account. Here you will have to enter the name of your business. Hit create. You can skip this part and hit skip again. Alright now click on confirm. Our meta business manager account is created.
Now let’s move to the next part.
Open developers.facebook.com in a new tab. Here click on get started on the top right side of the menu bar. Click on continue. Click on owner founder you can choose anything that you want here. Click on complete registration. Okay, our second step is also completed. We have successfully created a meta developer account
Third step
Let’s click on create app Click on business Scroll down and click on next. Here you have to provide a name for the app. In this case I will give it the first name of the company. Here you have to add an efficient email address for the app.
Now in this drop down you have to select the business manager that you just created. Now click on create app, enter your password, alright so our app is also created. At this stage you are eligible to get access to WhatsApp Cloud API but I would highly recommend that you get your meta business verified before you move on to getting your WhatsApp Cloud API access.
So, in order to get your meta business verified, you have to scroll down within this page until you see WhatsApp card. Click on setup. Click on continue. Alright so let’s go back to the previous tab. We can directly go to the tab or we can also open business.facebook.com. So once you are on this page, on the top left corner you should be able to see the name of the meta business manager account that you just created it and right next to it there is a gear icon so you have to click on the gear icon.
So this takes you to the settings page here in the middle section you have to scroll down until you see business settings link and click on this link. Now this takes you to the business settings page. Here in the left menu scroll down to the bottom until you see security center. Now click on security center and you should see this card eligible for verification. Now click on start verification followed by get started. Now, select the country where your business is located, in my case it’s India, now you have to re-enter the details of your organization, yup, alright.
Alright, so now there are few methods how Meta can verify your business. So I definitely recommend that you choose the first one. So the first one is email. Now here your email has to be your business email. You cannot use a Gmail or Yahoo or a Hotmail account. It has to be your domain-renated business email.
So select this option and hit next you could also use other verification means as well but it’s definitely going to take much longer so I’ll click on next so here in this section I have to upload two documents the first one being the business registration certificate and the second one is usually an address or a phone So I have uploaded my documents here, now I can click on next. In this window I have to provide my office email address and then click on send email. So you should be receiving an email on your office email address and there you will get a confirmation code. So, I will open my email address in a new tab. So as you can see, I have received an email from Facebook.
So this is the code that I have received, I will just copy it and paste it here and hit next. So, we have successfully submitted our business verification application and it is in review now. So, it might take anywhere between 2 to 48 hours for the approval to happen. Okay, and just in case the approval does not happen, you might have to repeat this process why and once the review process is completed and our business is verified, I’ll continue the remaining part of the tutorial.
Finally after 36 hours our meta business account is verified. Now after this verification, this account is eligible for higher message sending limits and also to apply for an official business account status. Now that all our prerequisites are met, let’s move on to finally get access to WhatsApp Cloud API. So, we will open developers.facebook.com in a new tab. Go to my apps, click on the app that you created, scroll down on the left side of the menu and click on whatsapp followed by getting started it. Now here you can scroll down to the bottom and click on add phone number. So when you want to link a phone number to WhatsApp Cloud API, you have to ensure that this number is not previously linked with any WhatsApp application. So, if it is in case connected to your WhatsApp app or your WhatsApp business app, then it is best that you go to the settings and delete that phone number from that app. Although you would lose all your old WhatsApp conversations, but that’s a sacrifice that you’ll have to make when you’re switching to WhatsApp Cloud API. So now we have to add a WhatsApp display name. The few essential things to take care here are that the name should begin with a capital letter.
If this name resembles the name of your website or it resembles the name of your business, then chances of its approval are really high. Now we will select the time zone and we will choose a category. And then you don’t need to add business description you can do that later we’ll click on next now we’ll add the phone number here. Now enter your phone number that you would like to connect. Now here you will have to choose a way to verify your phone number, you can select text message or phone call. Here I will continue with text message selected. Click on next. Now here you will receive an OTP.
Ok after you enter the OTP hit next. Alright, the phone number has been added, but we still need to validate if the display name associated with this phone number is approved or not. So lets scroll down and click on configuration under the whatsapp menu. And here we can click on manage phone numbers. On this page you can see that the number that we added is now showing here. Navigate to the left menu and under account tools click on phone numbers. So here you would be able to see the same number. So under certificates click on view. Here you can see that our display name is approved. So finally we have access to WhatsApp Cloud API and it is ready to be connected with your easy social account. Thank you for your time.
