Receive Inbound Messages and Interactions

Overview

This guide explains how to handle webhook responses when you receive inbound messages or interactions from your users on your WhatsApp number. The following use cases are covered in the code snippets below:

• Your WhatsApp number is receiving a text message.
• Your WhatsApp number is receiving a media message.
• Your WhatsApp number is receiving a location message.
• Your WhatsApp number is receiving a response when a user clicks a quick reply button sent in an interactive templated message.
• Your WhatsApp number is receiving a response when a user clicks an interactive button message you sent.
• Your WhatsApp number is receiving a response when a user clicks an interactive list message you sent.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a Ruby development environment.

You must have an onboarded WhatsApp account to receive inbound messages. If a number is listed as connected, it can receive inbound messages.

Create a Rails controller to receive messages.

Change to the project directory and run this command to create a Rails controller for inbound messages.

$ rails generate controller Plivo whatsapp

This command generates a controller named plivo_controller in the app/controllers/ directory and a respective view in app/views/plivo. We can delete the view as we don’t need it.

$ rm app/views/plivo/whatsapp.html.erb

Edit the app/controllers/plivo_controller.rb file and paste this code into the PlivoController class.

class WhatsappController < ApplicationController
  skip_before_action :verify_authenticity_token

  def receive
    data = JSON.parse(request.body.read)

    from_number = data['From']
    to_number = data['To']
    content_type = data['ContentType']

    case content_type
    when 'text'
      puts "Text Message - From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, Text: #{data['Body']}"
    when 'media'
      puts "Media Message - From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, URL: #{data['Media0']}, Caption: #{data['Body']}"
    when 'button'
      puts "Button Message - From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, Text: #{data['Button']['Text']}, Payload: #{data['Button']['Payload']}"
    when 'interactive'
      interactive = data['Interactive']
      if interactive['Type'] == 'button_reply'
        puts "Interactive Button - From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, ID: #{interactive['ButtonReply']['Id']}, Title: #{interactive['ButtonReply']['Title']}"
      elsif interactive['Type'] == 'list_reply'
        puts "Interactive List - From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, ID: #{interactive['ListReply']['Id']}, Title: #{interactive['ListReply']['Title']}, Description: #{interactive['ListReply']['Description']}"
      end
    when 'location'
      location = data['Location']
      puts "Location - From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, Latitude: #{location['Latitude']}, Longitude: #{location['Longitude']}, Name: #{location['Name']}, Address: #{location['Address']}"
    end

    render json: { message: 'Message Received' }, status: :ok
  end
end

Configure a webhook URL in your WhatsApp Business Account

Add or update a webhook URL from this link to a WhatsApp Business Account. Once you’ve done this, you should be able to receive inbound messages.

Test

Send a WhatsApp message to the Plivo number you specified using WhatsApp application.