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This walkthrough takes you from a blank template editor to an approved WhatsApp template in about fifteen minutes. You only need a connected WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) and an operator with settings access.

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What is a WhatsApp template

A WhatsApp template is a reusable message definition that Meta pre-approves before you can send it. Every outbound business-initiated message — a booking confirmation, an invoice notification, a seasonal promotion — must reference an approved template. The template carries the structural shell (text, buttons, header media) and your runtime code fills in the {{1}}, {{2}} placeholders per recipient. Templates are the only way to re-engage a contact outside the 24-hour customer-service window, so a clean, approved library is the foundation of every campaign and journey you will run on Switchbord.

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Why templates need Meta approval

WhatsApp is a consent-first channel. To protect users from spam, Meta requires every business template to go through a pre-approval pipeline that checks:
  • Structure — placeholders are well-formed, examples are realistic, the body does not start or end with a variable, buttons are within limits.
  • Category fit — the content actually matches UTILITY, MARKETING, or AUTHENTICATION.
  • Policy — no prohibited industries, no misleading claims, opt-out present on marketing.
You cannot ship a template that has not cleared this review. The Switchbord editor runs the same structural checks locally before it submits, so the majority of violations are caught before Meta ever sees the payload. See Template rules reference for the full list.

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Step by step

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1. Open the template editor

1

Open Templates

From the left sidebar, click Templates. You will see the library of templates this workspace has already submitted, filterable by status (draft, pending_approval, approved, rejected).
2

Start a new draft

Click New template in the top right. A blank editor opens with four panels: metadata, components, preview, and validation.

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2. Pick a category

The category drives billing, approval tolerance, and which components you can use. Pick the one that matches the intent of the message, not the content. Writing “20% off” in a UTILITY template will either be rejected or silently re-categorised by Meta. See Marketing templates for the full decision tree.
Leave Allow category change enabled on marketing drafts. It lets Meta auto-correct the category during review instead of rejecting outright.

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3. Write the body with variables

Compose your body text and use {{1}}, {{2}}, {{3}} for runtime substitutions.
Example body
Three rules to internalise from day one:
  1. Never start or end the body with a placeholder. Prefix it with a greeting, suffix it with a full stop plus context.
  2. Never put two placeholders adjacent with only whitespace or punctuation between them ({{1}}, {{2}}). Put at least one word between them.
  3. Number sequentially starting at {{1}}. No gaps, no repeats.
The live validator panel highlights violations inline and links to the exact rule.

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4. Add examples for every variable

Every {{n}} needs a realistic example value. Meta uses these to judge whether the template matches the category and to render a preview during review.
Example body_text payload
Avoid:
  • Bare numbers ("20", "5")
  • Single symbols ("%", "€")
  • The literal placeholder text ("{{1}}")
  • URLs if the body contains none
Bake the unit into the example itself — write "20%" for the body fragment "sconto del {{1}}", not just "20".

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5. Submit

Click Submit for approval. Switchbord runs the final client-side validation, then POSTs to Meta’s /message_templates endpoint. On success the local status flips to pending_approval and the template disappears from the drafts filter.

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What happens next

Meta’s review is almost always fast:
  • Minutes for well-formed UTILITY templates that match the category.
  • An hour or two for MARKETING templates that go through content review.
  • Up to 24 hours under load or when a human reviewer is pulled in.
You do not need to poll. Our webhook handler listens for the message_template_status_update event and flips the row to approved, rejected, or records a category migration. The Templates list updates in real time via Supabase Realtime.

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If the template is rejected

A rejection is not a failure — it is just a checklist item. Switchbord stores Meta’s human-readable reason in the rejection_reason column and surfaces it at the top of the editor.
1

Read the error

Open the rejected template. The red banner shows Meta’s error_user_msg verbatim — e.g. “Variable parameters cannot be next to each other.”
2

Match it to a rule

Every message maps to a rule on the Template rules page. The validator error code is in the URL anchor.
3

Fix and resubmit

Duplicate the rejected template (the original is locked), apply the fix, and click Submit for approval again. There is no penalty for resubmitting — Meta rate-limits at 100 templates/hour per WABA, which is plenty.
If the same template is rejected twice for different reasons, that usually means the first fix masked a second violation. Run Validate (dry-run linter, no Meta call) to catch both before resubmitting.

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Next steps