In this tutorial you can learn about how Webhook events work and how to integrate Webhook between OneChat and your software, application or CRM, in order to process inbound and outbound messages exchanged through your WhatsApp number(s), covering multiple use cases and examples.
Introduction to Webhooks
Webhooks are a incredibly useful and a efficent way to implement event observability and integration in software systems.
In essence, Webhooks provide a communication mechanism where a server-side application can notify a third-party server-side application when a new event that the consumer application might be interested in, has occurred on the system.
Webhooks operate on the concept of "event reaction" (don't call me, I'll call you if I have something new), and thus avoids the need for constant polling of the server-side application. Thus, rather than doing your consumer application constantly polling the server-side application to check for new events, the server-side application calls your application by invoking a client provided webhook URL via HTTP protocol anytime the server-side has something new to report.
A clear and well-defined use case would be precisely a WhatsApp conversation, where you don't know when a user will send you a message, yet you need to process that message right after is being received and possible reply the user with another message. This can be achieved in an efficient and simple way by using Webhooks between your software and OneChat. Webhooks are the foundation to creating automated conversations such as chat bots.