A WhatsApp campaign: one message to many
How a WhatsApp message is sent to the staff, to SchoolOS's own audience or to a list from a file: the connection, the approved template, the recipients, the send, and the report.
What it is for
A campaign is one message on a WhatsApp template Meta has approved, to a number of recipients: the group's staff, or numbers from a file (a list of those who signed up for an event, say). It is built on one page with a phone preview beside it, then sent now or at a set time, and each message's delivery is followed in its report.
Step by step
- Make sure the group's WhatsApp account is connected under Settings → “Messaging connection”, and that the “WhatsApp centre” is on for the group.
- Under “WhatsApp templates”, have a template Meta approved that suits campaigns, by your name for it; an optional campaign needs one with the stop-messages link. Under “Messaging connection”, choose the “Name in messages” the templates close with.
- Under “Campaigns” → “+ New campaign” the builder opens: the name, the template, the type (“service” or “optional”) and the recipients: SchoolOS's own audience where it has one, the staff, or an Excel or CSV file of up to 5,000 rows; then “Prepare the recipients”.
- Give every placeholder its source (the recipient's data or a text you write), upload the message's header file if the template has a header, and check the message in the phone preview for the first three recipients.
- Choose “now” or “at a set time”, then “Send to…” and confirm: everything is saved with the confirm, and the send is refused if a placeholder is empty for any recipient or the message is longer than 1,024 characters. A message cannot be recalled once sent.
- Follow the report: what was sent, what failed, what was not sent and why, and export it to Excel.
How it works
The system sends the campaigns that are due every two minutes, one message at a time, sharing the sending time fairly between groups, and never sends to the same recipient twice. Before each message it checks: a cancelled campaign stops; an invalid number, or one blocked in the chats, is left with its reason; a template no longer approved sends the campaign back to draft and tells its creator; a broken connection fails the message. A failure that may clear is retried up to five times, waiting longer each time: two minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, two hours. When nothing is left to send the campaign is marked “sent” and its creator told. Staff are the group's active staff at their primary phone, one message per number. A “service” campaign reaches everyone; an “optional” one does too, staff, others or a file list alike, except whoever stopped messages: a number on the stop list or a person who withdrew consent — the number's owner stops them with the link when the message carries one, or by replying “إيقاف” or STOP. This is checked at the moment of sending, not when the campaign is prepared. The report shows fifty lines to a page, with the rest on the next pages, and its Excel export all of them; in both, numbers are partly masked except for someone holding “Manage people and staff”, “Reply to WhatsApp chats” or “Send WhatsApp campaigns”. “Cancel campaign” stops what has not gone yet, and a cancelled campaign can be restored as a draft.
The pages in this flow
Questions
- Why is my template not offered for the campaign?
- Only a template Meta approved, of a kind that suits campaigns, is offered.
- Why did fewer people get the message than the recipients?
- The report gives the reason for each message not sent: an invalid number, a blocked one, a number that stopped messages, or no agreement to optional messages.
- Who sends campaigns?
- Whoever holds “Send WhatsApp campaigns”; in the built-in roles the owner and the manager, and the owner can grant it to other roles under Roles and permissions.