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Managing VBM Templates

Create, submit, and manage Viber Business Messages (VBM) templates across the Promotional, Transactional, and OTP categories.

Written by Yousef Negmeldin

Why VBM uses templates

Like WhatsApp, VBM requires proactive, business-initiated messages to be pre-approved. Templates are how you register the message patterns you want to send (for example, “order shipped,” “verification code,” “weekend sale”) so Viber can review them against its content and quality guidelines before you use them.

Each template belongs to one of three categories, and the category decides how it’s reviewed:

  • Promotional — marketing and informational messages. Created instantly inside Octopods; Viber never reviews these.

  • Transactional — account and order updates (shipping confirmations, appointment reminders, and similar). Submitted to Viber for real moderation.

  • OTP — one-time passcodes and verification codes. Also submitted to Viber for real moderation, and must include a verification code variable.

Before you start

You need:

  • A VBM channel that has been fully activated on your workspace. See Setting Up Viber Business Messages.

  • Admin access to the workspace — only an account admin can create, edit, or delete templates.

Step 1: Open the VBM Templates dashboard

  1. Open the VBM channel’s detail page.

  2. Click Manage Templates.

  3. The dashboard lists every template on this channel with its Name, Category, Body preview, Language, and Status. Use the category and status filters above the table to narrow the list.

Step 2: Start a new template

  1. Click New Template.

  2. Choose a category — Promotional, Transactional, or OTP. This can’t be changed once the template is created.

Step 3: Fill in the template details

Every category shares two fields:

  • Name — letters, digits, and spaces only, up to 64 characters.

  • Language — the language the template text is written in.

The Template Text field and its rules depend on the category you chose.

Promotional templates

Write your message text, then choose how you want to add variables:

  • Numbered — classic {{1}}, {{2}} placeholders, filled in by position when you send.

  • Named — {{customer_name}}-style placeholders. If you switch to Named, add an example value for each variable (optional, for your own reference).

Promotional templates can also include, both optional:

  • An image header, checked with the Include image in template box.

  • A button, with its own Button Text (up to 30 characters) and Button URL.

Promotional templates are created and made active immediately — Viber doesn’t review them.

Transactional and OTP templates

Write your message text using named variables only — {{first_name}}, {{order_id}}, and so on. Numbered placeholders like {{1}} aren’t accepted in these two categories.

Rules Viber enforces on the text:

  • Must start and end with plain text — it can’t open or close with a variable. The one exception: an OTP template’s final token can be {{pin}}.

  • Two variables can’t sit directly next to each other — separate them with at least a space.

  • Up to 1000 characters total, and up to 8 variables per template.

  • Variable names can use letters, digits, underscores, and spaces, up to 50 characters each.

Transactional and OTP templates are text-only — they can’t have an image header or a button.

Important: OTP templates must include a {{pin}} variable somewhere in the body.

For every variable in a Transactional or OTP template, add an example value below the body — Viber requires one for moderation. Example values can’t contain a link.

Step 4: Submit

Click the button at the bottom of the form:

  • Promotional — labeled Create Template. The template is created and active right away.

  • Transactional / OTP — labeled Submit for Moderation. Creating the template and submitting it to Viber happen in the same step — there’s no separate “save as draft.”

Warning: Once you submit a Transactional or OTP template, you can’t edit it again. Double-check the text, variables, and example values before you click Submit.

Template statuses

  • Draft — only shown for an older template that predates this flow and hasn’t been submitted to Viber yet. See Migrating an older template below.

  • In Review — submitted to Viber and awaiting moderation.

  • Approved — ready to send. Promotional templates reach this status immediately; Transactional and OTP templates reach it once Viber approves them.

  • Declined — Viber rejected the template. Open it to see why, then use Copy & Edit to submit a corrected version.

  • Deleted — removed from Octopods (and, if it had already reached Viber, from Viber too).

Checking for status updates

A Transactional or OTP template can sit In Review for a while. Octopods checks in with Viber automatically about every 3 hours to pick up moderation decisions. If you don’t want to wait, open the template dashboard and click Sync Templates at any time to fetch the latest status for every template on the channel immediately.

Editing, copying, and deleting templates

  • Promotional templates can be edited at any time — open the template and click Edit from the Actions menu.

  • Transactional and OTP templates can only be edited before they’ve been submitted to Viber for the first time. Once a template is In Review, Approved, or Declined, Edit is no longer available.

  • Copy & Edit is always available from the Actions menu, on every template. It opens the New Template form pre-filled with the original’s category, name, text, and variables, so you can adjust it and submit it as a separate template — this is how you fix a declined Transactional or OTP template, or update one that’s already approved.

  • Active / inactive — a template can be switched to inactive to stop it from being usable for sending, without deleting it. Reactivate it later to make it sendable again. Deactivating a template doesn’t affect its moderation status with Viber.

  • Delete removes the template from Octopods. If the template had already reached Viber, deleting it also permanently removes it from Viber — there’s no undo. Either way, the template stays listed here marked Deleted.

Migrating an older template

If your workspace has a Transactional or OTP template created before this dashboard existed, opening it for Edit shows a migration notice instead of the usual form. These templates were never actually sent to Viber for review, so:

  • Their existing {{1}}, {{2}}-style variables are already valid — you don’t need to rename them, just add an example value for each.

  • Saving the form is what submits the template to Viber for verification for the first time. After that, like any other Transactional or OTP template, it can’t be edited again.

  • If the template has an image header or a button, saving removes them — Viber’s Transactional and OTP categories are text-only.

Using an approved template to send messages

Once a template is Approved and active, you can send messages based on it from the Octopods API using your channel API key, or from the Intercom Inbox App.

See Sending VBM Messages via API for the endpoint and payload format.

What’s next

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