WhatsApp Business
A WhatsApp message to a chosen number for every alert that fires — the channel for an on-call phone rather than a chat room. Delivered through the WhatsApp Business Cloud API, and a Business plan feature.
Prerequisites
- A Meta business with the WhatsApp Business Platform product added to an app in Meta for Developers.
- A permanent system-user access token with
whatsapp_business_messaging(Meta for Developers → your app → WhatsApp → API setup, or Business Settings → System users). Temporary tokens expire after 24 hours and will silently stop alerts. - An approved message template whose body has a single
{{1}}parameter — alerts arrive outside any 24-hour customer-service window, so WhatsApp only delivers them as template messages.
What to collect
| Value | Where to find it | Stored as |
|---|---|---|
| Phone number id | Meta for Developers → WhatsApp → API setup — the numeric id under the sending number, not the number itself. | Config |
| Recipient number | The phone that receives alerts, in international format, digits only (15551234567). |
Config |
| Template name | The approved template, lowercase with underscores. | Config |
| Template language | en_US unless the template lives under another code. |
Config |
| Access token | The permanent system-user token. | Vault |
The message
◆ Alert firing: API latency
p95 of api.request.duration is above 500 (currently 912.50) over the last 15 min
The rendered notification is passed as the template's single body parameter,
capped at 1024 characters, sent to
https://graph.facebook.com/v21.0/<phone-number-id>/messages.
Verifying
Press Send test. The template arrives on the recipient's phone with the
test text filled in. A failed delivery records the HTTP status and Meta's error
body — 401 for a bad or expired token, a template error when the name does
not match an approved template.
Limitations
- One recipient per channel. Create a second channel for a second phone.
- Conversations, replies and message status callbacks are not part of the channel — it only sends.
- Meta rate-limits template messages by quality rating; alert storms belong on another channel.