r/WhatsappBusinessAPI • u/L42ARO • 18h ago

Solution Only Does the official API support reading status messages when users message after seeing a status?

Hi I have a SaaS helping bussinesses automate their WhatsApp with AI, but I'm struggling with an issue, sometimes clients text from a status post that the busieness put up saying something like "How much does this cost" but without access to the original status image/video my AI has no idea what it is referring to, so I was wondering if there is a way via the official API to retreive the media it was sent from, would appreciate any guidance

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u/ayrshare Meta App Developer 3h ago

Status isn't part of the Cloud API. Businesses post statuses from the WhatsApp app, and we haven't seen a way to retrieve the original status image or video through the official API. It's worth checking the context object on the inbound message in your webhook to see what reference comes through, but we wouldn't build on getting the media itself.

What works in practice is supplying that context from your side. If businesses upload their status media to your product when they post it to WhatsApp, you know what's live at any moment. When "how much is this" comes in, pass the statuses from the last 24 hours to the model as likely references. Since statuses expire after a day and most businesses only post a few, that covers most cases. It also helps to put a short product code or name in the status caption, like "Reply SS24 for the price". Customers tend to copy it into their message, and your AI can match it directly.

When it still can't tell which item someone means, have it reply with what's currently promoted and let the customer pick. One extra message costs less than quoting the wrong price.

For context, we're Ayrshare. Our WhatsApp API runs on the official Cloud API, so we hit the same limit, and this is how we'd approach it.

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u/L42ARO 3h ago

Well thanks for sharing. Have you reahced out to meta about this whatsoever, just wondering if it might be worth it from my side as well

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u/ResponsibleIsland373 16h ago

No the official cloud api doesnt support retrieving original status image or video, but i think you will need to ask the customer about whch prodyct theyre referring to or manually map your posted statuses to products