Building a WhatsApp CRM & Customer Engagement Platform for ERPNext

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on a WhatsApp integration project for ERPNext. Initially, the goal was simple: connect ERPNext with WhatsApp and send messages.

However, as the project evolved, it became clear that businesses need much more than a simple WhatsApp sender.

The current implementation focuses on customer engagement and campaign management directly from ERPNext.

Current Features

Contact Synchronization

  • Synchronize customer WhatsApp numbers from ERPNext

  • Normalize phone numbers automatically

  • Match WhatsApp contacts with ERPNext Customers

  • Support Prospect contacts

Campaign Management

  • Create WhatsApp campaigns directly inside ERPNext

  • Target inactive customers

  • Target prospects

  • Filter recipients by customer group

  • Personalized messages using variables

Example:

Hello {{customer_name}}

We have a special promotion available for you.

Queue-Based Delivery

Instead of sending messages directly from the UI, campaigns generate records in a WhatsApp Outbox queue.

Architecture:

WA Campaign
→ WA Outbox
→ Background Processor
→ WhatsApp Gateway
→ WhatsApp

This prevents UI freezes and allows large campaigns to be processed safely in the background.

Scheduled Delivery

  • Schedule campaigns for future delivery

  • Configurable delay between messages

  • Sequential processing through the Outbox queue

Attachments

Current support includes:

  • Text messages

  • PDF attachments

  • Images

Attachments are stored in ERPNext and delivered through the WhatsApp Gateway.

Future Direction

The long-term vision is not simply a WhatsApp Gateway, but a complete WhatsApp CRM and Customer Engagement Platform for ERPNext.

Potential features include:

  • Invoice notifications

  • Payment reminders

  • Delivery notifications

  • Customer follow-up automation

  • Loyalty point notifications

  • Promotional campaigns

  • Product restock alerts

  • Lead nurturing workflows

  • Customer support integration

Why Build This?

Many ERPNext users rely heavily on WhatsApp for daily business communication.

However, customer engagement workflows are often disconnected from ERPNext and handled manually.

The goal of this project is to bring those workflows directly into ERPNext while keeping the system scalable through queue-based processing.

I would love to hear feedback from the ERPNext community:

  • Would this be useful in your organization?

  • Which WhatsApp-related workflows are currently handled outside ERPNext?

  • What features would be most valuable for your team?