WhatsApp Messaging Integration

[martinch]

So I've read a few posts around WhatsApp integration with ViCiDial and I've taken the initiative and decided I will attempt to provide that functionality for you. Note that this will not be using the official WhatsApp API which is offerred to businesses at a cost and will instead use a personal WhatsApp account that you may have access to.

Notes for the development;

• This functionality will likely sit as a third-party plugin that can interface with ViCiDial via the Non-Agent API. If the required functions to get this working do not exist, I will create them.
• With that said, ViCiDial may wish to include the plugin in the "extras" directory but this piece will most likely not sit within the ViCi codebase. At best, a link or written reference may be provided.
• This development will utilise the web version of WhatsApp.
• You will need additional software to use this plugin, namely Node.JS and the fantastic Puppeteer. These are not provided by the ViCiDial team but instructions may become available later down the line.
• There may be performance issues on ViCi instances that are low spec. I'll do my best during the development testing to do a benchmark on how this will run on low spec boxes.
• I'm unsure of the legalities of such a plugin. Mass messaging can be done legitimately but the rules on it will vary from region to region.
• You will need a phone with WhatsApp installed and you do need the phone to be on the same network as your ViCiDial instance.
• Bonus...there's no reason why this plugin would be limited to WhatsApp either. If web versions exist for other messaging platforms then there's no reason others couldn't be included. Let me know which app you would like to see and I can see if I can incorporate it after this build.

Development points (high level);

• Build initial page. ⏳
• Build dependency check process. ⏳
• Build process to install dependencies. ⏳
• Build process to sync Puppeteer instance to physical WhatsApp account. ⏳
• Build interface to interact with WhatsApp and bridge ViCiDial functionality into it. ⏳

If anybody has any input on this or would like to help build this with me...you can reply to this post or join the IRC channel on Libera.Chat ##vicidial https://web.libera.chat/ if you need more info check this post -> http://vicidial.org/VICIDIALforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=41712

Here's a little taster of a mock up design of the page initialisation / dependency checking process.



Thanks all!

[martinch]

So I found a wonderful project called wppconnect that is going to do all the gubbins with regards to Whatsapp. It looks well designed and well built and fits into Node.JS like a glove;

https://github.com/wppconnect-team/wppconnect



And here is the app init;



Still testing out the library but it looks good. I may be done with this sooner than I thought thanks to the superb library.

I'm using Node.JS on Windows for the testing as...I had a multitude of problems on openSUSE (ViCiBox 10).

[martinch]

Hey guys, small update.

I'm still developing this plugin and it should appear on Github at some point in the next week or so I hope. At least that's the plan for version 0.1. Just some points here;

When using this plugin, we'll need to setup an API user for the plugin to interact with ViCiDial and I believe I'll be using the following functions in `non_agent_api.php`;

'lead_search'
'list_custom_fields'

These should provide us with the basic building blocks to compose our WhatsApp messages and send them to the numbers that we wish to.

Here is a screenshot of the message composer area of the plugin. It's pretty sparse right now and you can only send text messages either to a single phone number or a list (if one is selected). Futher updates will be made including sending multimedia, receiving messages and all that stuff (probably in phase 2 of the release).



Feedback is welcome. Thanks guys.

[carpenox]

Looks good to me

[martinch]

Looks good to me

Thank you Chris! Always appreciate your feedback on stuff dude.

Just to pick your brain a bit...do you think your clients would get any benefit from something like this? Appreciate that WhatsApp isn't a big thing over the pond in the US...I could be wrong...I have no idea what people are using over there...a friend of mine in Kentucky doesn't use it...they told me it's not really used over there...but it's got a massive userbase in the UK and I think in Europe in general and also in India it's quite big...so yeah. If you think your clients could use it, what kind of uses do you think they'd do like...marketing message or maybe a customer update...maybe some lead gen stuff? Cheers dude.

[egorky]

Looks good to me

Thank you Chris! Always appreciate your feedback on stuff dude.

Just to pick your brain a bit...do you think your clients would get any benefit from something like this? Appreciate that WhatsApp isn't a big thing over the pond in the US...I could be wrong...I have no idea what people are using over there...a friend of mine in Kentucky doesn't use it...they told me it's not really used over there...but it's got a massive userbase in the UK and I think in Europe in general and also in India it's quite big...so yeah. If you think your clients could use it, what kind of uses do you think they'd do like...marketing message or maybe a customer update...maybe some lead gen stuff? Cheers dude.

You are right, Martin, WhatsApp is not that big of a deal in the US, but everywhere in the world (like South America, from where I am) is the number 1 via of communication with customers. So, this is a very important channel to add to Vicidial. Given what I just said, we use several libraries to connect to WhatsApp, I read that you have found WPP Connect, well, there is also whatsapp-web.js (https://github.com/pedroslopez/whatsapp-web.js) and Baileys (https://github.com/WhiskeySockets/Baileys). If you want to test a ticket based system using these libraries give Press-Ticket a try (https://github.com/FilipeCamillo/Press-Ticket)

[egorky]

Hey guys, small update.

I'm still developing this plugin and it should appear on Github at some point in the next week or so I hope. At least that's the plan for version 0.1. Just some points here;

...

Feedback is welcome. Thanks guys.

Do you have it on gitHub already? I can help you test if you like.

[martinch]

You are right, Martin, WhatsApp is not that big of a deal in the US, but everywhere in the world (like South America, from where I am) is the number 1 via of communication with customers. So, this is a very important channel to add to Vicidial. Given what I just said, we use several libraries to connect to WhatsApp, I read that you have found WPP Connect, well, there is also whatsapp-web.js (https://github.com/pedroslopez/whatsapp-web.js) and Baileys (https://github.com/WhiskeySockets/Baileys). If you want to test a ticket based system using these libraries give Press-Ticket a try (https://github.com/FilipeCamillo/Press-Ticket)

Hey guys, small update.

I'm still developing this plugin and it should appear on Github at some point in the next week or so I hope. At least that's the plan for version 0.1. Just some points here;

...

Feedback is welcome. Thanks guys.

Do you have it on gitHub already? I can help you test if you like.

Thanks so much for your post egorky.

I'm actually building the piece for use on the newly released ViCiBox 11 and testing is going well with WPPConnect. Thanks for linking the other projects too...they all seem to be using puppeteer and NodeJS so perhaps I can include them in this integration and allow you guys to switch between engines. That will be under consideration for the second phase of this.

I'm hoping to release this by the end of the week, time permitting and as soon as I do, I'll link it here Thanks for the support.

Here is a screenshot of the piece on ViCiBox 11 Beta (released a few weeks ago). It shows the dependency check and I've debugged the commands needed to run to install all the dependencies;

[egorky]

Baileys does not uses puppeteer, it uses websockets directly emulating the whatsapp desktop app. Since you are already on a roll it wouldn't hurt if you were to add WhatsApp Cloud API support. he he he

[martinch]

Baileys does not uses puppeteer, it uses websockets directly emulating the whatsapp desktop app. Since you are already on a roll it wouldn't hurt if you were to add WhatsApp Cloud API support. he he he

Ahhhh cheers Websockets would be a good thing...interesting take on it. I'll experiment with that. Sorry, I hit a brick wall with this on ViCiBox / openSUSE Leap 15.5 regarding the Sharp module in Node.JS...and I wrestled with that thing for hours trying to overcome it if anybody can help, it would be much appreciated. Meet me over in ##vicidial and we can discuss or DM me on here. It might be an architecture thing and I'll probably try building it on different hardware. Work shall continue on this piece as I have a feeling people want to see this out cheers. Yeah Cloud API would be cool.

[martinch]

It does appear I have been defeated here. I can't compile Sharp on openSUSE 15.3 or 15.5 and therefore, need to change course. I'll be looking into the other WhatsApp Web projects to see if I have any luck. Apologies for the delay guys. wppconnect seemed a sure thing. If it does not work on openSUSE, that means ViCiBox users will not be able to use the piece and that's unfair to them and they are many in number. I'll plan the next stages for this one.

[martinch]

So I've ditched wppconnect for now and switch to Whatsapp Web as suggested bt egorky https://github.com/pedroslopez so far, so good. It installs fine on openSUSE 15.5 Leap, the distro used for ViCiBox 11. It "may" even work with previous ViCiBox builds but I'll worry about that at a later date. The library is installed and now it's time to test Whatsapp connectivity and functionality. I'll touch base here when that happens. Fingers crossed it works fine

[egorky]

wonderful news! let us test it too hahaha

[Sufyan Khan]

@martinch could you please guide where is the code and how to deploy it

[egorky]

@martinch could you please guide where is the code and how to deploy it

I would believe it is in this address: https://github.com/TheBlode/mDial

[corretico]

Hello everyone.

I am working on an element that allows WhatsApp or any other social network to be integrated into vicidial, interacting with vicidial as if it were a chat, but adding some additional elements such as animations, images, audios, etc., etc.

The idea is that this element is the one that integrates on one side with social networks and on the other with vicidial. I already have a first 100% functional version for several Call Centers in Costa Rica.

I'm going to upload some demonstrations so you can see how it works.

I would like to know how I can post the content so that it can be reviewed by the people at vicidial and see if it can be integrated natively into VICIDIAL, since I have made many updates to the source codes to make them more attractive, pleasant and functional taking into account which applies to call centers that have multiple clients or accounts.

PD/Sorry for my english.

Best Regards from Costa Rica

[carpenox]

Post it to the mantis tracker

[egorky]

What is the mantis tracker link? Can anybody participate?

[egorky]

Tienes el código en algún github para probarlo ?

Hello everyone.

I am working on an element that allows WhatsApp or any other social network to be integrated into vicidial, interacting with vicidial as if it were a chat, but adding some additional elements such as animations, images, audios, etc., etc.

The idea is that this element is the one that integrates on one side with social networks and on the other with vicidial. I already have a first 100% functional version for several Call Centers in Costa Rica.

I'm going to upload some demonstrations so you can see how it works.

I would like to know how I can post the content so that it can be reviewed by the people at vicidial and see if it can be integrated natively into VICIDIAL, since I have made many updates to the source codes to make them more attractive, pleasant and functional taking into account which applies to call centers that have multiple clients or accounts.

PD/Sorry for my english.

Best Regards from Costa Rica

[williamconley]

Post it to the mantis tracker

Mantis is the name of the package being used to track issues.

What is the mantis tracker link? Can anybody participate?

At the top of this page is "Vicidial Issue Tracker". Yes, anyone can participate.

[egorky]

Thanks @ williamconley