Receiving messages
This documentation describes how to setup webhooks for the WhatsApp Business API.
If you are using On-Premise API, remember that it is being discontinued by Meta. No new signups will be allowed with this type of integration from May 15, 2024.
Numbers registered before this date will still be supported, but should start planning a change of hosting type as soon as possible.
Webhooks is a mechanism which enables applications to communicate with each other programmatically. It allows you to send real-time data from one application to another whenever a given event occurs. You can use the webhook to determine which endpoint we should forward the real-time data (aka Notifications). Whenever a specific event occurs, the WhatsApp Business API Client sees the event, collects the data, and immediately sends a notification (user-defined HTTP callbacks) to the webhook URL specified.
There are 3 main objects you can receive via webhooks:
messages
: Used to notify you when you get a new message and what is in the new message.statuses
: Used to notify you when there's a status change in a message you sent.errors
: When there are any out-of-band errors that occur in the normal operation of the application, this array provides a description of the error.
Webhook Response Requirements
Ensure your webhook servers can handle 3x the outgoing message traffic capacity and 1x the expected incoming message traffic capacity. For example, if you're sending 1000 messages per second with a 30% expected response rate, your servers should process up to 3000 message status webhooks and an additional 300 incoming message webhooks. See more information about throughput here.
Configure and load test your webhook server to handle concurrent requests with the following latency standards:
Median latency should not exceed 250ms.
Less than 1% of latency should exceed 1 second.
The API will attempt to re-deliver failed webhooks for up to 7 days with exponential backoff. Failure to meet these guidelines may result in delays in processing incoming messages due to the exponential backoff mechanism.
For a Webhook Notification to be considered by WhatsApp to be 'successfully delivered', ensure that your Webhook URL returns an HTTPS 200 OK
response to notifications.
If any other status code is returned, or if the client fails to correctly set up the endpoint to accept Notifications, the WhatsApp Business API Client considers it to be a 'failed delivery' and adds the Notification to its callback queue. 360dialog also has a hard limit rule of 5 seconds for the client to return a 200 status code, after which it will register as a failed delivery.
To deploy a live webhook that can receive events from the WhatsApp Business API client, your code must have HTTPS support and a valid SSL certificate.
Only use asynchronous handling of webhooks
Do not process incoming messages and notifications in the webhook handler; acknowledge immediately after receiving the webhook (with status 200), then you can process the data.
All incoming messages will automatically show as delivered
(two grey ticks).
To make them appear as read
(two colored ticks), you have to mark the messages as read.
Recommendations
For stable functioning of WABA it is recommended make the webhook performance as fast as possible. That means:
Design your service to respond as quickly, and as close to your network speed as possible.
Respond with a
200
status code immediately after receiving a notification and storing it. The callback's payload should not be processed before responding as this can lead to unacceptable delays; instead, send the response first then (asynchronously) process the payload.Reduce network latency by setting up your webhook server closer to 360dialog's datacenters (Central and Eastern Europe).
Sending
one
message as opposed to getting one causes up tothree
callback notifications (sent
,delivered
andread
). It means that the speed of processing concurrent requests should increases in accordance with the load of the number. In addition to a direct increase in the speed of processing notifications, we recommend to make your webhook process as many parallel requests as possible. Otherwise, this can lead to the occurrence and overflow of the message queue.
Set Webhook URL
The webhook URL is a resource address to which the WhatsApp Servers sends notifications, which are triggered by specific events. A suitable webhook URL must be supplied by you or by your Partner Software Provider / ISV.
You only need to set your Webhook URL once. Although you can update it or remove it at any time.
If you generate a new API-KEY, the webhook URL for that number will be removed. So you must reset it using the new API-KEY.
Example setting webhook with Basic Auth:
If the webhook URL needs to be authorized by user, USER
and PASS
should be provided in the header Authorization
that contains Basic base64(USER:PASS)
.
Request body example for USER=testuser
and PASS=testpass
Set Webhook URL for phone number
Previously, webhook for Cloud API numbers could only be configured at a WABA Level. This limitation has been lifted and, from April 2024, the Set Webhook URL for phone number endpoint can set Webhook at a phone number level, regardless of the integration type.
We recommend using this configuration to ensure the highest performance possible.
Webhook URLs or headers for Cloud API do not support "_
"(underscore)
or ":xxxx
"(port)
in (sub)domain names.
Invalid webhook URL: https://your_webhook.example.com
Valid webhook URL: https://yourwebhook.example.com
Invalid webhook URL:https://subdomain.your_webhook.example.com
:3000
Valid webhook URL: https://subdomain.yourwebhook.example.com
If you are still using On-premise API, webhooks are configured only at the Phone Number level. In this case, the endpoint will be https://waba.360dialog.io/v1/configs/webhook
POST
https://waba-v2.360dialog.io/v1/configs/webhook
Send a POST request and store the URL from the response.
Request example
Headers
Request Body
When Insights is used with an On-premise hosted setup, any custom headers that include UPPERCASE letters or underscores (_) will have these characters converted to lowercase letters and hyphens (-).
Examples:
Will be converted to:
Therefore, please avoid using UPPERCASE letters and underscores in webhook custom headers to prevent unintended alterations.
Set Webhook per WABA (Cloud API)
Webhooks for Cloud API can be set at the WABA level, although this configuration is not recommended since it can decrease the messaging performance of the channels.
This webhook URL will receive callbacks for all Cloud API numbers associated with that WABA, but not for any On-premise numbers on the same WABA.
POST
https://waba-v2.360dialog.io/waba_webhook
Send a POST request and store the URL from the response.
Request example
When this endpoint is used with the override_all
parameter set to false
, it configures the supplied webhook for Cloud API numbers missing a specific phone number webhook setting. If override_all
is true
, the webhook applies across all Cloud API numbers within the WABA.
Headers
Request Body
A typical inbound notification for WABA Webhook looks like the following:
Components (contacts
, errors
, messages
, statuses
) are inside entry.changes.value
.
Delivery prioritization
Cloud API allows configuring webhooks at a Phone Number and WABA Webhook level. For callback delivery, webhooks are prioritized as below:
Primary is Phone Number Webhook: This is the preferred route. If set, it overrides any other webhook configuration for callbacks.
Secondary is WABA Webhook: This route is used for callback delivery only if the primary phone number webhook is not configured.
Fallback: No Webhook Configured - If neither webhook is set, the system will return an empty response when attempting callbacks.
GET Webhook URL
GET phone number Webhook URL
If the phone number webhook URL is set, make a GET request to retrieve the existing resource.
GET
https://waba-v2.360dialog.io/v1/configs/webhook
GET
https://waba.360dialog.io/v1/configs/webhook
Request example
Path Parameters
GET WABA Webhook URL
Use the GET endpoint below to check the current webhook URL:
GET
https://waba-v2.360dialog.io/waba_webhook
Request example
Headers
Receiving notifications for incoming messages
When a customer replies, or sends a message to the business, the WhatsApp Business API client will send an HTTP POST request notification to the number webhook URL with the details described in our documentation below:
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