WhatsApp messages to doctors, each backed by consent.
A healthcare group wanted to reach its doctors and staff on WhatsApp for organisational messages. The group is made of five separate companies: each needs its own consent and its own sender.
We built a standalone Laravel and Filament app for the organisational WhatsApp messages a healthcare group sends to doctors and staff through Meta's WhatsApp Cloud API. Each contact has consent recorded for each of the group's five companies, and each company has its own sender. Anyone who replies with a stop keyword, or whom Meta flags with error 131050, is removed from sending automatically.
Context
Doctors and staff work across different sites, often with several companies of the same group. The group wanted a direct channel for organisational messages, on a tool everyone already uses, without mixing it into its management systems.
The problem
Under data protection law the five companies are separate controllers: consent given to one doesn't cover the others, and the sender has to be the right one too. WhatsApp also has its own rules: starting a conversation requires Meta-approved templates, and people who have stopped marketing messages must really be excluded, not just flagged.
What we did
- 01
A consent chain per company
Each contact has consent recorded for every company they deal with. Each company sends under its own sender, so recipients always know who is writing to them.
- 02
CSV import
Contacts are loaded from CSV files, with consent tied to the right company.
- 03
Scheduled campaigns with approved templates
You pick the Meta-approved template, the sending company and the recipients, then schedule the send.
- 04
Automatic opt-out
Anyone replying with a stop keyword is removed from sending with no manual step. The same happens when Meta returns error 131050, meaning the user has chosen to stop receiving marketing messages.
- 05
Restricted access
The panel opens only for addresses on two company email domains. The app is kept separate from the group's other systems.
How it went
The group has a WhatsApp channel for organisational messages where every send is backed by recorded consent, the right company's sender and a simple way to stop receiving messages.
Tools
FAQ
Can free-form WhatsApp messages be sent?
Only inside a conversation the recipient opened in the last 24 hours. Starting a conversation requires Meta-approved templates.
What does error 131050 mean?
It's the code Meta uses to report that the recipient has chosen not to receive marketing messages from that business. The app records it and stops writing to them.
Why a separate app rather than a module of the management system?
To keep consent, senders and Meta access keys in a single-purpose system that is simpler to control and audit.