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Auto-Templating

In this article, you will learn how Apifon automatically converts your Transactional & OTP Viber Business messages into approved templates, with no integration changes required.

What is the Auto-Templating mechanism?

Auto-Templating automatically turns your plain-text Viber messages into approved Viber Transactional or OTP templates — with no changes required to your existing API requests.

The mechanism works by recognizing recurring patterns in the text messages you send, submitting them to Rakuten Viber for approval as Transactional or OTP templates, and then automatically routing any matching messages through the approved template.

Why this matters

Under Viber's transactional messaging policy, a plain-text message that would previously have been billed at the transactional rate is now only eligible for that rate if it's sent through an approved template. Rewriting your integration to build and manage templates manually takes time and engineering effort — Auto-Templating removes that work entirely: your integration keeps sending the same requests, and template creation, submission, and routing all happen behind the scenes.

Scope: plain-text messages only

Auto-Templating applies only to Viber messages that contain plain informational text with no additional elements. Messages that include buttons, images, carousels, or file attachments are classified as promotional and are not eligible for Auto-Templating — these continue to be sent through the standard sending flow.

How to enable Auto-Templating

  1. From the dashboard's left-hand menu, go to Templates.

  2. Select Viber Templates.

  3. At the top center of the screen, click Settings.

  4. The Auto-Templating panel will open. Click on Auto Templating to view its settings.

  5. Under Sender ID, choose which Viber sender these settings should apply to.

  6. Use the Auto Templating toggle to turn the feature on or off for the selected sender.

Optional: HOLD

If you'd like matching messages to wait briefly for template approval rather than sending immediately, enable HOLD. This parks a text-only message for up to a specified duration while the corresponding template is created and reviewed. As soon as the template is approved, the message is sent automatically. HOLD applies only to non-scheduled messages — scheduled messages already benefit from a waiting period by design.

You can set the HOLD duration anywhere from 5 minutes (recommended) up to 1 hour using the slider.

No template available

This setting determines what happens to a message if no matching approved template exists by the time the message must be sent:

  • Send (promotional): the message is sent at the promotional rate.
  • Do not send (reject): the message is not sent.

Template tags

Template tags are fixed pieces of text automatically added to every auto-generated template to improve compliance with Rakuten Viber's template approval requirements.

You can configure both a Prefix and a Suffix, each with a maximum length of 50 characters.

Save your settings

After configuring your preferences, click Save at the top of the panel to apply your changes.

🚀 Thanks for reading!

You're all set! Auto-Templating can now automatically create and use approved Viber templates while your integration continues working exactly as before.