Notify a third party
Notify a third party sends an approved WhatsApp template to someone who is not the customer: a manager, a director, the person who has to approve what the customer just finished. The template carries a quick reply button, and when that person taps it, the flow assigned to the button opens in their conversation, with the variables you chose already copied over from the customer's.
The customer's flow does not wait for that tap. The node sends the template, copies the variables and moves on to the next node, so you usually follow it with a Message that tells the customer their request is under review.
The node lives in the Messages group of the palette. It is available in WhatsApp and web flows; email flows do not offer it.
When to Use It
An approval that someone else gives. The customer applies for a credit line or submits an order, and a manager has to say yes or no. The manager gets a template ("A new request from {{1}} is waiting for you") with a Review button, and the tap opens the approval flow with the request's data in place.
Alerting a person in charge. A branch director needs to know when a high-value case arrives. The template informs, and the button lets them act on it from their own WhatsApp.
A queue of requests. When several requests can be pending at once, one notification per request is not enough on its own (see Things to Know). The WhatsApp approval queue guide combines this node with Packages and the dynamic mode of Interactive Options to build one.
Configuration
The panel has five sections.
| Section | What you set |
|---|---|
| Template | The template to send. Only approved templates with at least one quick reply button are listed, because the button is what opens the flow |
| Template variables | One row per variable of the template ({{1}}, {{2}}...). Every row needs a value, and each value can use flow variables |
| Recipient | Country code and Number. The number is either a Fixed number, always the same person, or comes From a variable |
| Where each button leads | Read-only. Lists each quick reply button of the template and the flow or agent it opens |
| Variables for the target flow | Rows of name plus source variable. Each one is copied to the third party's conversation under that name before they tap the button |
The template decides where the tap goes, not the node. Each quick reply button has its own destination, configured in Templates: a flow, or a handover to an agent. That is why "Approve" and "Reject" can open two different flows. To change a destination, edit the template; the node only shows it.
Choosing the number from a variable hands that choice to whoever filled the variable. If the customer types it, the customer decides who receives their information. For an approver, a fixed number, or a variable your own flow sets, is the safer choice.
Template values accept dotted paths, the same as any message: {{request.content.amount}} reads a field inside a package the flow read earlier. Whole numbers go out without decimals (150000, not 150000.0).
What the Third Party Receives
The variables you list under Variables for the target flow arrive in the third party's conversation with the name you gave them and the value exactly as it was in the customer's: a list of files stays a list, a number stays a number. On top of those, the node always adds origin_conversation_id, the id of the customer's conversation, so the target flow can tell which conversation the case came from.
The copy happens right after WhatsApp accepts the template. When the third party taps the button, the flow of that button starts with those variables already there.
Rules That Matter
The template must be approved and routed. It has to be approved, have a quick reply button, and at least one of its quick reply buttons must lead to a flow or an agent. A button without a destination is allowed next to routed ones, but a tap on it lands in the connector's default reply; the publish check warns about it.
The number of values is exact. A template that declares three variables needs three values. Meta rejects a template with a missing parameter, so the node checks the count before sending and sends nothing when it does not match. A value that comes out empty, because its variable has no value, stops the send for the same reason.
The template leaves from its own connector. Meta approves a template on one WhatsApp number, and only that number can send it. A template with a connector assigned is sent from there, whatever channel the customer is on. A template without one is sent:
- from the conversation's own number, when the customer's flow runs on WhatsApp;
- from the organization's WhatsApp number, when the flow runs on the web and the organization has exactly one.
Both fallbacks leave a warning notice, because Meta rejects the template if it does not exist on that number. From a web flow, when the organization has no WhatsApp number or has several, nothing is sent: the node leaves a failure notice asking you to assign the connector to the template, and takes the Error output.
The number is composed, not pasted. The node joins the country code and the number with the rules WhatsApp expects. A number written with + ignores the country code field; a number that already starts with the country code is kept as it is when it only makes sense that way; a trailing .0 from a number stored as decimal is dropped. A number that is still not valid is reported with a warning, masked, and nothing is sent.
Output Handles
| Handle | When it fires |
|---|---|
| Next node | WhatsApp accepted the template and the variables were copied to the third party's conversation |
| Error | No template or a template that cannot be sent (missing, not approved, no quick reply button, no routed button), a wrong number of values, an empty value, an invalid number, no connector to send from, WhatsApp refused the template, or the variables could not be copied |
Every Error exit leaves a notice on the customer's conversation with the cause, readable in the notices panel in Chat and in Flow Notices.
Publish Gate
| Rule | Result |
|---|---|
| No template, no country code or no number | Blocks publishing |
| A template variable without a value | Blocks publishing |
| A variable for the target flow without a name or without a source variable | Blocks publishing |
| The template no longer exists, is not approved, has no quick reply button, or none of its buttons leads anywhere | Blocks publishing |
| The template declares more variables than the node fills | Blocks publishing |
| One of the template's buttons has no flow or agent | Warning: a tap on it falls back to the default reply |
Things to Know
One pending case per person. The third party has one conversation per WhatsApp number, and a notification marks it as having a pending case. A second notification to the same person while the first is still pending replaces it: the variables of the first case are cleared, the second case's are copied, and the customer's conversation gets a warning notice. The earlier case can no longer be reached from that tap. If several requests can be waiting at once, do not rely on the copied variables to know which case to review; keep the cases somewhere the approval flow can list, as the approval queue guide does.
The customer's conversation remembers it asked. If the customer's conversation is interrupted while waiting (for example by the inactivity timeout), it goes back to the flow that sent the notification instead of the connector's default bot, so a decision that takes hours does not strand the customer in a bot that knows nothing about their request.
A send nobody confirmed is not repeated. If WhatsApp does not answer, the node cannot know whether the template arrived. It does not send it again, so it can never arrive twice; it copies nothing, leaves a warning saying so and takes the Error output. Check with the third party before trying again.
A late rejection reaches the customer's conversation too. WhatsApp can accept a template and report minutes later that it could not be delivered. That failure is written on the third party's conversation and also on the customer's, attributed to this node, so you can also see it from the customer's side.
Templates are what reach people outside the 24-hour window. A manager who has not written to your number in the last day can only be reached with an approved template, which is why this node sends one instead of a free-form message.