Featurecast Story 19 - WhatsApp Sandbox

Featurecast Story 19 - WhatsApp Sandbox

IM'ing (Instant Messaging) Feature Story Series  

Featurecast Story 19 - WhatsApp Sandbox

Maximize the benefits of business messaging without paying for it


What is a sandbox environment?

A sandbox environment is a virtual playground that allows you to freely test and experiment with various elements without impacting your live product. It provides a secure and isolated space for trying out new software, code, or configurations without unnecessary risks or costs. A sandbox is an excellent approach for learning, exploring, and verifying messaging functionality before integrating these elements into your business operations.

Let's say you're a developer working on a mobile app. Before releasing it to the public, you can create a sandbox environment to test the app's functionality, features, and compatibility with different devices. This lets you see how the app behaves in a controlled setting, identify and fix bugs or issues, and ensure a smooth user experience. It's like a virtual testing ground for your app before it enters the real world.

What is the WhatsApp business sandbox?

WhatsApp doesn't provide a specific sandbox environment for developers to test their apps. However, WhatsApp does offer a testing feature called "WhatsApp Business API Sandbox." It allows businesses to simulate interactions with the WhatsApp Business API before deploying it in production. This way, companies can ensure their integrations and messaging workflows work correctly before going live. It's a helpful tool for businesses to test and refine their WhatsApp integrations.

How does sandbox work? 

The sandbox comes with a pre-configured WhatsApp phone number that will be shared among all opted-in Sandbox users. You can map any of your WhatsApp test numbers to the Sandbox environment and start testing.

What is a test number?

A test number can be any default WhatsApp phone number of yours, which can be used for testing integrations within the sandbox environment.


Best practices

Zoho Desk's WhatsApp Sandbox enables you to prototype both sending and receiving messages in a test environment. You can start testing Sandbox with test numbers even before WhatsApp approves your business number and verifies your WABA. WhatsApp Sandbox is an easy way to test the functionality of WhatsApp Business Messaging APIs.

When using the WhatsApp sandbox, it's best practice to familiarize yourself with the platform's documentation and guidelines. This will help you understand the sandbox environment's features, limitations, and capabilities. Additionally, consider creating a test plan outlining the specific scenarios and use cases you want to explore within the sandbox. This will help you structure your testing process and ensure thorough coverage. Finally, collaborate with your team to gather feedback and insights from multiple perspectives, allowing you to make the most of the sandbox environment.
In summary, the sandbox environment allows businesses to validate the functionality of their WhatsApp Business API integration, resulting in a more dependable user experience.
There's more to come, so please watch this space for more IM feature stories.
 
Until next time,
 
Kavya Rao
The Zoho Desk Team


      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Sticky Posts

          • Register for Zoho Desk Beta Community

            With the start of the year, we have decided to take a small step in making the life of our customers a little easier. We now have easy access to all our upcoming features and a faster way to request for beta access. We open betas for some of our features
          • Share your Zoho Desk story with us!

            Tell us how you use Zoho Desk for your business and inspire others with your story. Be it a simple workflow rule that helps you navigate complex processes or a macro that saves your team a lot of time; share it here and help the community learn and grow with shared knowledge. 
          • Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

            Mail, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms—there are so many support channels out there. Trying to pick the right channels to offer your customers can get pretty confusing. Emails are most useful when the customer wants to put things on record. However, escalated or complicated issues should not be resolved over email because it's slow and impersonal.  When you need immediate responses, live chat is more suitable. It's also quick and convenient, so it's the go-to channel for small issues. 
          • Welcome to Zoho Desk Community - Say hello here!

            Hello everyone! Though we have been here for a while, it’s time to formally establish the Zoho Desk Community; we’re really happy to have you all here! This can be the place where you take a moment to introduce yourself to the rest of the community. We’d love to hear all about you, what you do, what company or industry you work for, how you use Zoho Desk and anything else that you will like to share! Here’s a little about me. I am Chinmayee. I have been associated with Zoho since 2014. I joined here
          • Webinar 1: Blueprint for Customer Service

            With the launch of a host of new features in Zoho Desk, we thought it’ll be great to have a few webinars to help our customers make the most of them. We’re starting off with our most talked about feature, Blueprint in Zoho Desk. You can register for the Blueprint webinar here: The webinar will be delivered by our in-house product experts. This is a good opportunity to ask questions to our experts and understand how Blueprint can help you automate your service processes. We look forward to seeing

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ




                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Empty folders are now appearing in the sidebar...

                                    ...and the folder list is now auto-collapsed by default with no way to change. Neither of these recent updates are useful or user-friendly. ==================== Powered by Haiku https://www.haiku.co.uk ====================
                                  • Client Script | Update - Client Script Support For Custom Buttons

                                    Hello everyone! We are excited to announce one of the most requested features - Client Script support for Custom Buttons. This enhancement lets you run custom logic on button actions, giving you greater flexibility and control over your user interactions.
                                  • Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

                                    Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything
                                  • Create custom rollup summary fields in Zoho CRM

                                    Hello everyone, In Zoho CRM, rollup summary fields have been essential tools for summarizing data across related records and enabling users to gain quick insights without having to jump across modules. Previously, only predefined summary functions were
                                  • Monthly Webinar - Getting Started with Zoho LandingPage

                                    Are you building your first landing page and want a little guidance? Join our monthly Getting Started with Zoho LandingPage webinar and learn how landing pages fit into your marketing strategy, drive lead generation, and improve conversions. Here’s what
                                  • View all email threads directly from record's History and Interactions

                                    Greetings all, We've introduced the ability to view complete email thread conversations directly from records' History and Interactions sections, along with email delivery status and sentiment insights on the Interactions page—which makes it easier for
                                  • Marketing Tip #22: Check website and navigation for broken links

                                    Do you inspect your online store frequently? If not, here's your reminder to do it now. Broken links frustrate customers and make your store feel unreliable. Whether it’s a missing product page, an outdated menu item, social media accounts, or a broken
                                  • Is there a way to show contact emails in the Account?

                                    I know I can see the emails I have sent and received on a Contact detail view, but I want to be able to see all the emails that have been sent and received between all an Accounts Contacts on the Account Detail view. That way when I see the Account detail
                                  • All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

                                    The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Latest update
                                  • Custom function return type

                                    Hi, How do I create a custom deluge function in Zoho CRM that returns a string? e.g. Setup->Workflow->Custom Functions->Configure->Write own During create or edit of the function I don't see a way to change the default 'void' to anything else. Adding
                                  • push notification to Cliq when user is @mentioned in CRM notes

                                    push notification to Cliq when user is @mentioned in CRM notes. Currently users that is @mentioned gets an email to be notified. User/s that is @mentioned should get a Cliq notification.
                                  • How to make entries for restaurant sales in Zoho Books?

                                    Hello, I'm new to Zoho Books. I need to understand how to record our restaurant sales in Zoho Books. We can't raise invoices for each bill from the daily sales report generated by our POS (duplicated effort). We need a means of entering cumulative sales
                                  • Creating Restaurant Inventory Management on Zoho

                                    Hi,  We run a small cloud kitchen and are interested to use Zoho for Inventory and Composite Item tracking for our food served and supplied procured to make food items.  Our model is basically like subway where the customer can choose breads, veggies,
                                  • Allow Admin to Configure Report > More Options Button

                                    As an Admin, I want to configure the options of the Report > More Options button to improve UX and reduce Developer overhead. See attached screenshot. Original question posted here: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/modify-standard-rep
                                  • Sending emails via Books

                                    Anyone else getting similar problems recently ??..... Hi, Your message to the following recipient was not delivered. Please find the details below.  Bounce Details: Bounced Address : someone@google.com Bounce Reason : other ; Status : 5.0.0 (undefined status) ; Daignostic-Code : smtp;542 someone@google.com Rejected ; Bounced Time : Sep 05, 2017 06:37 PM BST Regards, Zoho Team The email addresses were fine only a few days ago but are now being rejected ?
                                  • Integrate with WooCommerce using Wordpress Plugin

                                    We’re thrilled to announce a powerful update to the Zoho Marketing Automation WordPress plugin with WooCommerce integration! This enhancement enables new possibilities for businesses running online stores using WooCommerce, empowering them to merge seamless
                                  • Workdrive on Android - Gallery Photo Backups

                                    Hello, Is there any way of backing up the photos on my android phone directly to a specific folder on Workdrive? Assuming i have the workdrive app installed on the phone in question. Emma
                                  • Auto sync Photo storage

                                    Hello I am new to Zoho Workdrive and was wondering if the is a way of automatically syncing photos on my Android phone to my workdrive as want to move away from Google? Thanks
                                  • Users may not pick the fields to be shown as columns in the Choose Account window when creating a new Deal record

                                    Hi there, by talking with other users I found out that I, as an Admin, am the only one who can pick fields to be shown as columns in the Choose Account window when creating a new Deal record. In fact, if other users click on the "Add Column" symbol on
                                  • Zoho Subscriptions -- Zoho Commerce integration

                                    Is there integration between Zoho Subscriptions and Zoho Commerce? I would like to create subscription plans in Zoho Subscritpions and list them for on my Zoho Commerce store.
                                  • Restoring records from the recycle bin programatically

                                    Background I'm working on a piece of software to automate conversion of Leads into Deals based on order status from my company's website. The process is mostly complete, right now I'm just working on handling a few edge cases to ensure data integrity.
                                  • How can I clone my website in order to try new templates?

                                    I want to try a new template for my existing Zoho website without the risk of changing the current site or accidentally publishing the wrong template. Therefore I thought a 'clone website'-option should be somewhere, but I can't find it. How do I try
                                  • Select forwarding

                                    For Zoho mail online on PC in web browser: I had forwarding enabled in section "Mail accounts / Forwards", and I also have some filters that send emails from some unwanted senders to Archive. But it doesn't work as intended, it forwards everything (obviously
                                  • Custom view inconsistencies

                                    Why is "is not" missing from criteria, along with other comparison operators ??? It makes it almost impossible to build required custom views, I don't want "void" invoices listed & why on earth would "Void" invoices be showing when the criteria includes
                                  • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

                                    Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards
                                  • system not picking my default custom service report template

                                    Can you tell me why when we create a service report always pick the (standard old) template? Even when I have a custom service report selected as Default.
                                  • Restrict Appointment Booking to Approved Clients

                                    Dear Zoho Bookings Support Team, We'd like to propose a feature enhancement for managing appointments within Zoho Bookings. This feature would ensure only pre-approved clients can schedule meetings. Desired Functionality: We propose the introduction of
                                  • Automate Credit Card Surcharge

                                    Is there a way to create an automation that will add a 3.0% credit card surcharge to a subscription whenever a customer pays via credit card?
                                  • Product Request: Send email to Secondary email

                                    Guys, we should be able to send the campaign to the secondary email too.  Is this on the plans for Zoho Campaign? It looks like I can map the secondary email from the CRM to the Campaigs, but can not send the message.  
                                  • I have the item field and Quantity field in the sub form , on the submit of the form if the quantity is grater than inventory means show alert on submit validation only for item type goods ,

                                    I have the item field and Quantity field in the sub form , on the submit of the form if the quantity is grater than inventory means show alert on submit validation . Stock Check Validation only for item type goods , not for item type service . For the
                                  • CRM notes

                                    I want to be able to add notes to a task that do not necessarily get rolled up into an account or contact.   For example, I tasks to work on a Court Order for John Doe divorce account.  There might be lots of updates (in the form of notes) that employees
                                  • Disappearance of all articles in the knowledge base

                                    Hi there! It seems like all of our articles have disappeared from the knowledge base: However, the names still appear in the "sort articles" section:
                                  • Logic for sending to a non-primary email address

                                    Hi, I have a scenario where contacts are able to sign up for emails with 2 different email addresses (example: work, personal). I've mapped both to Campaigns from Zoho CRM, but when I go to target an email only the primary email addresses are pulling in. How can I update this to look at both of the email addresses - or specifically the secondary email address in Campaigns? Thanks, Jenny
                                  • Apple Messages for Business in Omnichannel communications?

                                    Hello, Apple launched "Apple Messages for Business" but Zoho CRM or Zoho Desk don't appear in the list of possible integrators. Zoho already promotes https://www.zoho.com/crm/omnichannel.html Omni Channel integration, but Apple Messages does not yet appear.
                                  • Add "Reset MFA" Option for Zoho Creator Client Portal Users

                                    Hello Zoho Creator Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an important enhancement related to Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for client portal users in Zoho Creator. Currently, Creator allows us to enforce MFA for portal users,
                                  • Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?

                                    It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?
                                  • Does Zoho has chatroom/chatbot url feature?

                                    Hi Zoho community! I’m looking for a quick "Yes/No" answer for my dev team regarding Zoho’s capabilities. We currently use Zoho Desk for our Service Team and Zoho CRM for our Marketing Team to bring both functions under one platform. Our question: Does
                                  • One Support Email Managed By Multiple Departments

                                    Hello, We use one support email (support@company.com). Incoming emails come to the "Support Department" and based on what the customer is asking, we route that ticket to different departments (billing, technical support, etc.). When users in these different
                                  • What's New in Zoho Analytics - February 2026

                                    Hello Users! We're back with another round of updates for Zoho Analytics. This month's release focuses on giving you greater flexibility in how you visualize, manage, and act on your data - with new features like custom visualizations, remote MCP server,
                                  • Is it Possible to Modify Standard Report Urls

                                    Is there a way to permanently modify standard report Urls? Use case: Suppose I have a Products report. Showing list as timeline, calendar, or kanban doesn't make sense. Want to hide that from users by adding #Report:Products?zc_ShowAs=false&zc_Print=false
                                  • Next Page