A WhatsApp message template is a message format that you can use over and over again to message users. To use a message template, you must first submit it to WhatsApp. Meta reviews and approves each message template to maintain high-quality content and avoid spam. Once WhatsApp has approved your template, you can use the message template to send notifications.

If a WhatsApp user has sent your company a message — whether it's a reply to one of your outbound messages, or they have initiated communication themselves — you have a 24-hour window (sometimes called a "24-hour session") to send that user messages that don't need to use a template.

When your company sends a message to a WhatsApp user outside a 24-hour session, the message must use an approved template.

The Content Template Builder Console guides you through the content creation process to create and manage templates across channels like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS. With Content Templates, you can ensure that your customers receive an engaging messaging experience in the channel they prefer.

Please note: to access the Content Template Builder, you must first sign in to your Twilio account.

Users interested in sending messages outside the 24-hour window should create their own templates for these messages. Templates are created in the Content Template Builder.

1. If you do not have the Messaging product in your develop sidebar, go to Explore Products, and pin the Messaging product.

2. Click on the Messaging product in and the dropdown select Content Template Builder.

3. Click on Create new to start creating a new template and fill in the following fields.

Template Name: Provide your template a name. This will also be the name you submit to WhatsApp for template approval.

Please note that template names can contain only lowercase letters and underscores. No other characters or spaces are allowed.

Template Language: Specify the template language.

Select Content Type: Select the type of content your template will contain.

At the moment, RemOnline supports only Text content, so we strongly recommend that you choose only this type of content for your templates to work correctly. We are working on adding other content types in the future.

Supported channels will be displayed on the template listing page and template detail pages.

4. Then click Create.

Templates of the Text type have only one field that needs to be filled in - Body. Here, you need to enter the message you want to send to the client. There is a limit of 1600 characters.

Variables can be added in Content Template Builder with the + Add Variable button shown in the image below, or by typing or copying in text with the right notation of {{}} brackets.

Variable samples are required in certain templates that require WhatsApp approval. We recommend supplying samples for all variables so that your messages have a placeholder value if a variable is not defined at send time.

Samples can be set upon Save or Save and submit to WhatsApp Approval within Twilio's sample modal shown below. Samples may be required or optional, depending on the template type and whether you submit for WA approval.

For more information on the terms and examples of using variables, please follow this link.

After filling out the template, at the bottom of the page, you have several options for saving it.

We recommend that you use the Save and submit for WhatsApp approval option for saving, as in order for the templates to appear in RemOnline, they must go through the WhatsApp approval process.

Meta typically processes approvals within an hour, but some approvals take up to 1 business day. You will need to select a template category upon submitting a template for review.

In order to be able to use the created templates in RemOnline, all of them must be approved and receive approval from WhatsApp.

If you need to add a template translation:

Meta reviews and approves every message template to ensure that your content is of high quality and spam-free. Once WhatsApp approves your template, you can use it to send messages.

Most templates sent for approval on WhatsApp are reviewed within a few minutes. You can learn more about the WhatsApp approval process and get additional tips and tricks here.

At this time, editing WhatsApp templates is not possible.

If you want to edit a template, you can duplicate it, change the content of the new template, and save it. In this case, the template will be called copy_name.

There are two ways to delete a template:

1. In the Content Template Builder, select a template from the list, open the select menu, and click Delete.

2. Go to the template page by clicking on its name and click Delete at the bottom of the page.

WhatsApp by Twilio chats have the option to use templates. The use of templates is always available, but if it's been more than 24 hours since you last chatted with a customer, you will only be able to initiate a message if it is an approved template.

If it's been more than 24 hours since your last interaction, and you need to write to the customer:

1. Go to Chats.

2. Select the desired chat and click on the symbol in the lower left corner of the input field. This is the WhatsApp templates menu.

Here you can view your available templates and choose the one you need. The template language is indicated in parentheses.

3. Click on the selected template - the text will automatically appear in the input field, where you can edit the variables, if any. You cannot edit the template text.

4. Send your message.

You can also find a link to this article about creating templates in Content Template Builder directly from the chat.