Groups API functionality vs regular consumer groups functionality
WhatsApp has its own policies and functionality constraints for the Groups API, which differ from regular WhatsApp groups that don’t have an API inside. As Coral is built on top of the WhatsApp Groups API platform, these differences apply to the Coral product as well. The vast majority of features and functionality in our WhatsApp groups are the same as regular WhatsApp groups, however. Here are the differences:- The maximum number of participants in a group chat is 8, not including the API phone number.
- You cannot loop in the API phone number to an existing group chat or direct chat; you must create a new chat.
- You cannot add a contact into the group, you must pass on an invite link to the participants who must then click the link to join.
- A subject is required for the group chat.
- When a person is removed from a group chat, they cannot then re-join later. However, if they remove themselves from the group chat, they can re-join at any time.
- Audio calls and video calls are disabled.
- Deleting or editing messages is disabled.
- Optional features like AI chat summaries is disabled.
- Group chats currently cannot be viewed on the WhatsApp desktop app for Windows; they can be viewed on all other WhatsApp applications.
- More policies related to the API sending templates and messages into chats (either group or direct chat) is available in our API documentation.
Coral support for WhatsApp functionality
Coral supports most WhatsApp Groups API functionality and core direct chat functionality in our product, API, and webhooks. If we don’t support an API functionality (like sending a Flow into a chat) then we don’t support the related webhooks processing either. We support all WhatsApp groups functionality except for sending and webhooks processing of Contact and Location objects. We only pass on in the Coral webhooks notifications that relate to happenings inside both group chats and direct chats, both ‘events’ and ‘messages’ (note that events don’t exist for direct chats). We don’t pass on webhooks that don’t relate to chat content, like for template creation as an example. The term “user” in the table below means anyone using the consumer WhatsApp app, whether it’s a coraluser or a non_coraluser.| Category | Chat type | Action taken by whom? | Type | Supported by Coral (groups and direct) | Supported by WhatsApp in direct chats | Supported by WhatsApp in group chats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event | Groups only | API | group_create | Yes | n/a | Yes |
| Event | Groups only | API | group_delete | Yes | n/a | Yes |
| Event | Groups only | API | group_settings_update | Yes | n/a | Yes |
| Event | Groups only | group_suspend | Yes | n/a | Yes | |
| Event | Groups only | API or user | group_participants_add | Yes | n/a | Yes |
| Event | Groups only | API or user | group_participants_remove | Yes | n/a | Yes |
| Message | Groups and Direct | API or user | Media (Audio, Document, Image, Video, Sticker) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Message | Groups and Direct | API or user | Text (replies and regular) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Message | Groups and Direct | API | Template (all kinds) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Message | Groups and Direct | API | Interactive / freeform (buttons) | Yes | Yes | No 4 |
| Message | Groups and Direct | API | Interactive / freeform (everything but buttons, eg Flows) | No | Yes | No 4 |
| Message | Groups and Direct | user | Reaction (replies and regular) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Message | Groups and Direct | user | Button (quick reply from API message) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Message | Groups and Direct | user | Button (phone number from API message) | No | ?? | ?? |
| Message | Groups and Direct | user | Button (go to URL from API message) | No | No 3 | No 3 |
| Message | Groups and Direct | API or user | Location | No | Yes | Yes |
| Message | Groups and Direct | API or user | Contact | No | Yes | Yes |
| Message | Groups and Direct | user | Event | No | No 1 | No 1 |
| Message | Groups and Direct | user | Poll | No | No 1 | No 1 |
| Message | Groups and Direct | user | Edit message | No | Sometimes 2 | Sometimes 2 |
| Message | Groups and Direct | user | Delete message | No | Sometimes 2 | Sometimes 2 |
| Message | Groups and Direct | WhatsApp or user | Status of API message (sent, delivered, read, failed) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
- These message types can be sent into the chat by a user, but webhooks from WhatsApp come back with no information about the message
- We makes it possible for the user to send this kind of message only in some WhatsApp surfaces; webhooks from WhatsApp come back with no information about the message
- No webhooks sent by WhatsApp at all when this action is taken by the user in a chat thread
- Interactive messages are always freeform (vs a template); WhatsApp does not allow them to be sent into the group chat currently, but they can be sent into a direct chat