There was one already, but as @Breno_Nunes himself said, we needed a better one. That one was using the 3rd party service for the integration. And my pack doesnāt ā it integrates directly with Facebook API.
One gotcha. This pack is only for sending messages, not receiving them.
Processing incoming updates is tricky, but Iām working on it
And when thatās done, eventually thereāll be a Full/Pro pack, which will have all the formulas for working with incoming messages, replying and reacting, and processing incoming button clicks. It will be a premium pack aimed at those who want to build functional chat bots right in their Coda docs. Itās not a priority project for me, but if you want to fast-lane it and open to sponsoring the development, Iām all ears: paul@codatricks.com
P.S. Huge thanks to @Eric_Koleda for suggesting a much better way to set up authentication with Facebook than I would think of.
This sounds great @Paul_Danyliuk . Thank you for releasing it! Does it require businesses to pay to use the API to send messages? Or is it only for personal numbers to send messages?
I donāt remember the pricing exactly; you can look for the info here:
If I remember correctly, thereās some number of interactions that you can do for free (1000 or 10000 or 100000 per month, I donāt remember honestly) and then you have to pay if you go over the limit. An interaction is one chat with unlimited messages but limited to 24 hours since the first message (i.e. any message after 24 hours starts a new interaction). Also I donāt remember if the limit is for any interactions or only those initiated from the business (i.e. a mass send over your subscribers). If itās the latter, then the bot can basically function for free (i.e. work as a reply bot to user messages)
Oh, and thereās also two stages:
In development youāll be using a temporary token. It has to be refreshed every 24 hours. It gives you a fake WhatsApp number, and it only allows sending messages to up to 5 contacts (developers). Obviously you canāt go into production with it, even for your own use itās very tedious to refresh it every day.
To fully use the platform youāll have to get your business verified. I havenāt passed that yet lol so I have no idea what the process is. From what Iāve read, theyāll require paperwork and that you have a website with company info etc.
Youāll pay (or not pay) Meta. This pack is free. A more complete pack will be paid. Getting messages into Coda also will be paid either way: youāll have to use either some Zapier or Make (both basically paid) or my upcoming āDoc as APIā platform that Iāll keep reasonably priced (i.e. youāll be able to subscribe from a single-user workspace so that you wonāt have to pay for every maker; as a pack maker I donāt know how many seats youāre paying for anyways)
Full disclosure, not a big fan of whatsapp bots. When it comes to messenger bots, Telegram absolutely kills it. I only made this pack to complete my ādoc as apiā demo. As for Telegram, there are some very basic packs for it in the gallery ā I havenāt yet made mine but I have ambitions for it, as Iāve been having quite some experience building TG bots this last year.
For our business, we have a need to send (from Coda) WhatsApp messages to WhatsApp groups and I am pretty sure that it canāt be done this way.
I am using a commercial solution to send new messages from Coda to our WhatsApp groups (ultramsg.com). I could have opted for sending each message by itself to each group member individually, but that was for our purposes not a very good solution.
Itās pretty straight forward - the concept (I think) is that ultramsg sends messages from their system as if they were you sending a message. The only implication is that their systems have have access to your whatsapp account and consumes one of your four allowed simultaneous connections and that your phone canāt be inactive for longer than 14 days (but I guess that never happens anymore).
They have a free trial period, but thatās only for three days or so and max 100 msg per day. After the free trial you have to extend the trial every day (I donāt know how long you can use it that way).
If this can be done with a 3rd party platform, this can be done in a pack this way or another Right now for me itās a matter of priorities. Iām trying this and that to see what might have a bigger demand. If thereās a lot of excitement for the WhatsApp integration, Iāll put more effort into it sooner.
Also, Facebook designs their APIs the same way it designs their UXā¦ top company with elite talent my -ss
Hi, Iām currently trying to make this work, but I canāt get past the API token pageā¦
Iāve tried reading the Metaās docs, setup app, test sending message from test phone number (and successful), add payment method, using temporary token, using permanent token (by creating System user specific for the app), and basically following what the Meta Developers system asked, but still not working. Not sure whatās wrongā¦
Iām with you. I canāt get it to work. Iām either going to keep using the WhatsApp URL pack for now and possibly look into hiring someone to get this to work in the near future.
Right now for me itās a matter of priorities. Iām trying this and that to see what might have a bigger demand. If thereās a lot of excitement for the WhatsApp integration, Iāll put more effort into it sooner.