Getting Started with Vonage’s WhatsApp Business API: Embedded Sign Up

Did you know you can be onboarding and sending  WhatsApp messages in as little as 10 minutes?  Vonage’s Embedded Sign-Up is the fastest and most efficient way to get started with WhatsApp for Business. 

What is Embedded Sign-Up?

It’s a self-service onboarding tool, embedded in Vonage’s Customer Dashboard, allowing you to create your own WhatsApp Business Account (WABA). Creating your own WABA means it's owned and managed by you and your business, giving you more control and flexibility.

Who can use the Embedded Sign-Up?

You must be a direct customer, i.e. you will be using WhatsApp for your own business’s usage.

If you are creating a WhatsApp Account on behalf of another business, for example as a Partner or Billing Agent, you’ll need to use our Managed Onboarding Process, kick-started by completing Vonage’s Application Form.

Prerequisites for using Embedded Sign Up

• • You must have access to your business Vonage Account, via the Vonage Dashboard
  • You must have an active personal Facebook Account
  • You must have access to your business’s Facebook Business Manager Account. If you don’t have one, you can create one via Embedded Sign Up. See below.
  • You’ll need the phone number you want to use for WhatsApp. This can be either a Vonage LVN or your own number. In either case, the phone number must follow the below requirements:
    • Not already being used elsewhere on WhatsApp - either on the personal or business app. If your number needs to be migrated from another WhatsApp Business API Provider, you’ll need to onboard via our Managed Onboarding Process, as above
    • Accept VOICE calls or SMS (for Contact Centre numbers, the IVR system must be able to be disabled or intercepted in order to complete the 2FA)
    • Not a short code or toll-free number

Onboarding Action Items:

To use Embedded Sign Up, watch this short tutorial video, or follow the instructions below. 

1.  Access Embedded Sign Up

Navigate to the External Accounts section in the Vonage Dashboard.  Click on “Set up my WhatsApp Business Account”

2.  Continue To Facebook Hosted Set Up

You’ll then be presented with an introductory screen explaining the requirements and important information about embedded sign-up.

Ensure you have read and understood this information before you click through to the Facebook-hosted screens

3. Login with Facebook

In order to use Embedded Sign Up you will need to have an active Facebook account. The first thing you’ll need to do is log in with this Facebook account. If you do not have a Facebook account, you will need to create one.

4.  Confirm WABA Sharing with Vonage

You’ll need to share your WABA with Vonage.  Vonage will handle the billing and payment with Facebook, so you need to grant Vonage access to do so.

You will not be able to handle the billing yourself; every WABA must be managed by a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider (BSP)

Click continue.

5.  Select or Create your Facebook Business Manager

Select the Facebook Business Manager of the business that you are creating a WABA for. If you do not have one, you can create a new one, by selecting the first option.

If you choose to create a new one, you will be taken through a few additional screens, not outlined on this page. You’ll need to enter your business name, phone number and registered address, and then the account will be created for you.

6.  Select or Create your WhatsApp Business Account

If you already have a WABA created, and want to add a number to that WABA, select it here

If you do not have a WABA created, you can create a new one by selecting the first option.

If you choose to create a new one, you’ll be asked to confirm the name and timezone of the account.

7.  Create  your WhatsApp Profile

Enter the display name you want to use for your WhatsApp number. All display names must meet Facebook’s Display Name Guidelines. Facebook will give you prompts on the screen if they detect that your display name might be breaching these guidelines. The display name will be reviewed against these guidelines later on in the process.

Select your business category and add a description of your business if you’d like. All this information in your WhatsApp Profile will be visible to the end-user when they receive a message from your business on WhatsApp.

8.  Submit & Verify your WhatsApp Phone Number

Add the phone number you will be using for WhatsApp. Note the phone number requirements at the top of this document for more information. 

• If you would like to purchase a phone number on the Vonage API Dashboard you can do this through the Buy Numbers section (additional documentation over here: How to purchase a number for your Virtual Agent?)
• In the scenario that you are trying to verify using a number purchased on the Vonage API Dashboard, you will need to go to the SMS Logs section and select Phone number, enter the purchased phone number under 'To' Number and set Direction as 'Inbound', as shown below;

Facebook will send you a code, to verify that you own this phone number. Select whether you would prefer to receive the code via SMS or Voice Call and then “Send Code”.

Once you’ve received the code, enter it in the next screen

If you haven’t received the code, wait the allocated time until you can retry. If you are still having trouble, ensure that your phone number is able to accept Voice Calls or SMS. The code can sometimes come from a US (+1) phone number, so ensure your phone number accepts international calls. If you need to change the phone number, follow the instructions on the screen to “provide a new one”

9.  Return to Vonage Set Up

Once the code has been verified, Facebook will confirm that the phone number has been set up

Click “Ok” and navigate back to your Vonage screen

Although your phone number is live with Facebook, you’ll need to complete a few more steps in order to start using it with Vonage. This screen explains those steps. Click “Next”.

10.  Associate Number to a Vonage API Key

Select the phone number you want to provision and the API key you want to send the WhatsApp traffic on.

We recommend linking each WhatsApp phone number to its own dedicated sub-API key.

11.  Vonage Provisioning

Vonage will then provision the WhatsApp phone number with your selected API key. This can take a few minutes. Do not close this window whilst the provisioning is taking place.

Once successfully complete, your number will be live with Vonage! The phone number will now appear on your Vonage Dashboard, under External Accounts.

12.  Integration with Vonage’s API

Follow the steps outlined in our Post Go Live Guide to start sending messages with Vonage.

You can start messaging customers without having to complete Business Verification or Display Name reviews. With the above steps complete, you will immediately be able to:

• Respond to unlimited customer-initiated conversations (24-hour messaging windows)
• Send business-initiated conversations to 250 unique customers in a rolling 24-hour period
• Register up to 2 phone numbers

There is no time limit to this stage. Businesses can remain on this "unverified" status as long as required, only completing Business Verification to scale or gain Official Business Account status.  If you want to increase these limits, you will need to complete the business verification process.

13.  Finalise WABA Set Up for Unlimited Usage

If/when required, you can start the Business Verification process.  Once Business Verification is approved, the display name review is triggered automatically, for all numbers within the WABA.

With your business verified and display name approved, you can scale your business-initiated conversations following Facebook’s standard messaging limit tiers, you can add more than 2 phone numbers to the WABA and you can request Official Business Account (Green Label) status.

Get Help

If you get stuck at any point during the process, please reach out to our Support team via our Support Channel.