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The WhatsApp integration connects BOW to a WhatsApp Business phone number through Meta’s WhatsApp Business Cloud API. Users message your business number and get analyst answers right in WhatsApp.
Meta delivers incoming messages to BOW over HTTPS webhooks, so your BOW server must be reachable at a public URL. If your deployment can’t expose one, consider Slack Socket Mode or Google Chat, which connect outbound-only.

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Capabilities

  • Direct messaging — users chat 1:1 with your business number.
  • Conversation continuity — consecutive messages from the same user continue the same BOW report until the conversation goes stale (configurable).
  • Rich responses — text answers with data, plus links to the full report in BOW.

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Prerequisites

  • A Meta Business Portfolio and a Meta developer app with the WhatsApp product added (developers.facebook.com)
  • A WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) with a registered phone number
  • Admin access to BOW, and a publicly reachable BOW URL

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How to integrate

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Step 1: Collect your WhatsApp credentials

From your Meta app’s WhatsApp → API Setup page, collect:
  1. Access token — for production use, create a System User in Meta Business Settings and generate a permanent token with the whatsapp_business_messaging and whatsapp_business_management permissions. (The temporary token on the API Setup page expires in 24 hours — fine for testing only.)
  2. Phone number ID — the ID of the business phone number (not the number itself).
  3. WhatsApp Business Account ID (WABA ID).

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Step 2: Get the App Secret and choose a Verify Token

  1. App Secret: in your Meta app, go to App Settings → Basic and copy the App Secret. BOW uses it to verify webhook signatures (X-Hub-Signature-256).
  2. Verify Token: invent any random string (e.g., a UUID). You’ll enter the same value in both BOW and the Meta webhook configuration.

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Step 3: Connect in BOW

  1. In BOW, go to Settings → Integrations and open the WhatsApp integration.
  2. Enter the Access Token, Phone Number ID, WABA ID, App Secret, and your chosen Verify Token.
  3. Click Connect. BOW validates the token against the phone number before saving.

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Step 4: Configure the webhook in Meta

  1. In your Meta app, go to WhatsApp → Configuration → Webhook and click Edit.
  2. Set the Callback URL to:
  3. Enter the same Verify Token you used in Step 3 and click Verify and save — Meta calls your BOW server to confirm.
  4. Under Webhook fields, subscribe to messages.

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How to use

  1. Users send a WhatsApp message to your business number.
  2. On first contact, the bot links the WhatsApp number to a BOW account (via a verification link if it can’t be matched automatically).
  3. The bot replies with the answer and a link to the full report in BOW.
  4. Follow-up messages continue the same conversation until it goes stale — the staleness window (default: hours) is configurable in the integration settings.
WhatsApp enforces a 24-hour customer service window: the bot can only send free-form replies within 24 hours of the user’s last message. If the window has closed, the user just needs to send a new message to reopen it.