How Meta reviews WhatsApp templates, what each status in Avox means, how status emails work, and how to edit and resubmit a template.
Every template you create goes to Meta for review before it can be sent. Avox submits it for you, shows its status on the Templates page and on the template's own page, and keeps that status up to date as Meta reviews it.
You submit the template
Clicking Submit to Meta in the Create template wizard sends the template to Meta. It appears in Your templates with the status Meta returns, usually Pending review.
Meta reviews it
Meta reviews the template's content against the example values you gave it. Review isn't instant, so the template stays Pending review until Meta decides.
Avox receives the result
Meta tells Avox when a template's status changes, and the Templates page shows the new status the next time you open or refresh it. Refresh from Meta asks Meta straight away.
Templates created from Meta's template library skip the review wait, since Meta has already verified their content.
When Meta reports a quality rating for a template, hovering its status badge shows it, for example "Quality: GREEN" (a rejected template's badge shows the rejection reason instead). Any other status Meta reports is shown with Meta's own name for it.
Every Switchboard member sees the same statuses. Status changes arrive from Meta on their own; Refresh from Meta on the Templates page also brings in the latest status, category, quality rating, and rejection reason for every template at once.
When a template becomes Rejected, Paused, Disabled, or Flagged, Avox emails every Admin of the Switchboard with the template's name, language, new status, and Meta's reason (when Meta gives one), plus a link to the Templates page. These emails belong to the WhatsApp account alerts preference on Compliance, which we recommend keeping on. See Emails for every email Avox sends.
Read Meta's reason
Open the template's page. The Issues panel shows Meta's reason code explained in plain English, with how to fix it. (Hovering the Rejected badge also shows the code.)
Fix the content
For a Custom message template, click Edit and resubmit on its page and change the wording (see Editing a template). For any other type, create a new template with the corrected content and delete the rejected one.
Resubmit
Submitting the edit sends it straight back to Meta, and the status returns to Pending review.
See Template categories for how Meta applies categories, and Create for the content checks Avox runs.
Paused, disabled and flagged templates get the same plain-English explanation on the template's page, including any note Meta sent: the first pause lasts 3 hours, the second 6 hours, and after that Meta disables the template.
The Issues panel on a template's page keeps a timeline of everything Meta reported about it - approvals, rejections with their reason, pauses, quality changes, and category changes (including Meta's notices that it will move a template to another category) - plus every edit submitted from Avox and which parts it changed.
Custom message templates can be edited in place, without creating a new one. Meta's rules decide when:
Avox counts an approved template's edits itself and refuses an edit over the limit before it reaches Meta. When the button is unavailable, the template's page says why and when the next edit is possible. Any Switchboard member (Admin or Manager) can edit.
Open the template
Click Manage on its row in Your templates, then click Edit template (or Edit and resubmit for a rejected or paused template).
Change the content
You can change:
Jordan, #A1042.Buttons carry over unchanged, as the dialog notes.
Click Review changes
Review your changes lists each part that changed, before and after, and any problems Avox's checks found in the new content. Problems that break Meta's rules must be fixed before you can submit. An edit that changes nothing can't be submitted (AVX-3165), so it never uses up one of your edits.
Click Submit to Meta
You see "Template updated - back in review with Meta", and the status returns to Pending review.
If Meta refuses the edit, you see Meta's own explanation when it gives one, or "Meta rejected that edit" (AVX-3051). Check the wording and try again.
One-time passcode, Calling permission request, and Catalogue templates contain parts Meta fixes itself. To change one of these, create a new template.
An automation's Send a template action can only use an Approved template, and an automation can only be switched on while every template it sends is still approved. If a template it uses leaves Approved, switching the automation on shows "One of this automation's actions sends a template that's no longer approved". Pick a different template for that action, or get this one approved again. While an automation that's already on fires, an action whose template isn't Approved is skipped and the rest of the chain carries on. See Actions.
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