How to connect your school's WhatsApp number to Inkwelly

1. Open the Channels page

Sign in to Inkwelly and open the Communications module from the left sidebar. Click Channels under the Setup section. The Channels page is where every provider connected to your school lives in one place — WhatsApp, SMS, email and push. Inkwelly ships with branded email and push already switched on for every school, so this page already shows two active rows. Connecting WhatsApp adds your school's own number to that list and unlocks WhatsApp on every parent notification — fee receipts, payment-link reminders, attendance alerts and homework updates.

2. Pick WhatsApp as the channel

Click the Connect channel button at the top right of the Channels page. A channel picker opens with three options — WhatsApp, SMS and Email. Pick WhatsApp; the picker tags it Recommended because it carries the strongest parent reach for Indian schools. The WhatsApp setup form opens with three sections: Identity, Meta Cloud credentials, and Defaults. Each section asks for information you already have if your school is currently sending WhatsApp messages from another ERP or directly from Meta Business Manager — no fresh approval, no new number, no waiting on Meta.

3. Enter your sender phone number

Fill the Identity section. Type a recognisable name for the account in Account name — for example, School WhatsApp or Main Office WhatsApp — so anyone on the team knows what this row controls. Enter your school's WhatsApp Business phone number in Sender using international format with the country code (+91... for India). Optionally type a sender display name. This is the number parents see the message come from; if you have been sending from another ERP, paste the exact same number here so parents keep seeing the chat they already saved.

4. Enter your Meta Cloud credentials

Open Meta Business Manager in a second tab and copy four values into the Meta Cloud credentials section: Phone Number ID (Meta Business Manager → WhatsApp → API setup), WhatsApp Business Account ID (WhatsApp → Overview), System User access token (Business Settings → System Users — generate a long-lived token with the whatsapp_business_messaging scope), and App secret (Meta App dashboard → Settings → Basic). Inkwelly encrypts every credential before it touches the database. The token and app secret are write-only after this — your own team cannot read them back, which closes the most common WhatsApp-credential leak in school ERPs.

5. Save the account

Scroll to the Defaults section and toggle Set as default for this channel on if this number should be the primary WhatsApp sender for the school. Most single-branch schools leave it on. Click Connect. Inkwelly saves the encrypted credentials, generates a unique webhook URL plus a verify token for this account, and opens the account detail page. The status pill starts as PENDING — the account is saved but not yet receiving delivery confirmations from Meta. One more step closes that loop.

6. Set the webhook in Meta

On the account detail page Inkwelly shows a Webhook URL and a Verify token, both with one-tap copy buttons. Switch back to Meta App dashboard → WhatsApp → Configuration → Webhook. Click Edit, paste the Webhook URL into Callback URL, paste the Verify token into Verify token, and click Verify and save. Meta pings Inkwelly to confirm the handshake. On the same Webhook screen, subscribe to the messages field — this is what tells Meta to forward every delivery receipt, read receipt and parent reply back to Inkwelly.

7. Verify the connection

Back on Inkwelly's account detail page, click Verify. Inkwelly re-decrypts the stored credentials, calls Meta's identity endpoint, and confirms the phone number, display name, and Meta-assigned quality rating. The status pill flips from PENDING to ACTIVE with a fresh verifiedAt timestamp. Your school's WhatsApp number is now live across Inkwelly. Every fee receipt, payment-link reminder, attendance alert and homework notification that fires for any student in this school from now on uses this number — no further setup needed.