Admin › WhatsApp Service (the Add WhatsApp page) is where your school gets the WhatsApp Sender for Windows. It is a program for your own office computer: it uses your own WhatsApp number, so there is no per-message charge from WhatsApp and nothing to set up with Meta.
You queue messages in EDUBase exactly as you already do — SMS Blaster → WhatsApp, or a family/admission send with a WhatsApp template. The sender on your PC collects them and sends them from your number. There is no new screen to learn.
Sending through WhatsApp once it is connected
After you download the sender and scan your WhatsApp with it, choose WhatsApp (tick the WhatsApp box) wherever you send a message — SMS Blaster, attendance, fee or result messages — and it goes out through your WhatsApp.
Setting it up
- Open Admin › WhatsApp Service and press Download on the WhatsApp Sender for Windows card. Copy link copies the same link, so you can send it to whoever sets the computer up — it always installs the newest version, so share the link rather than an old file.
- Windows will warn that it does not recognise the installer ("Windows protected your PC"). Choose More info → Run anyway. This is normal for a program that does not come from the Microsoft Store.
- Open the app and type your institute code.
- Scan the QR code with the phone that holds your school's WhatsApp number: WhatsApp → Linked devices → Link a device.
- Leave the app open.
🔴 That computer must stay switched on, connected to the internet, and with the app open. If the PC is shut down or the app closed, nothing goes out until it is opened again — the messages wait, they are not lost. Use an office computer that stays on, not a personal laptop that goes home.
The same card also appears on General › EDUBase App Links and on the Mobile Apps panel of your dashboard.
Is it free?
For most schools, yes — EDUBase currently allows the WhatsApp sender for every school. Some schools also hold a WhatsApp subscription with a message balance; if yours does, that balance is used first and you can see it inside the sender itself.
Whether it is open to everyone is set centrally by EDUBase, so if your school has been moved to a subscription, ask support in your WhatsApp group and they can confirm it on their side.
Our WhatsApp has stopped sending — check in this order
The messages sit in EDUBase and go nowhere. Work down this list; the first mismatch is almost always the cause.
- Is the PC on and the app open? This is the most common answer by a distance. The app must be running and showing itself as connected.
- Is the number still linked? WhatsApp drops a linked device that has been offline a long time. Open the app; if it shows a QR code again, scan it again from the same phone.
- Is the internet working on that PC? The sender asks EDUBase for new messages every few seconds; with no internet it simply waits.
- Does the sender say "WhatsApp Subscription Not Found" or "Expired"? Then your school is not currently allowed to send, and only EDUBase can change that — contact support in your WhatsApp group. Nothing on your side will fix it.
- Does it say "Limit Reached"? Your paid message balance is finished. Ask support to top it up.
- Was the message actually sent as WhatsApp? A message queued as App SMS or Branded SMS never reaches this sender. Check the channel you chose when sending.
- Does the parent have a mobile number on the student record, and is it a number that has WhatsApp? A student with no number is skipped.
Old messages will not suddenly be sent
When you link WhatsApp for the first time, EDUBase deliberately hands the sender only recent messages — about the last week. This is on purpose: sending months of old notices at once is the fastest way to get a WhatsApp number blocked. If you need something older sent, send it again as a new message.
If the download card is missing from the page
The card only appears for schools that are allowed to use the sender. If it has disappeared, your school's WhatsApp access has been switched off centrally — ask support in your WhatsApp group. Installing an older copy of the program will not work around it: the sending itself is what is switched off, so a copy you already have will pair and then send nothing.
Common confusion
"Is this the same as SMS?" No. SMS goes through the Android EDUBase SMS app on a phone with a SIM (it picks its campuses on login). This is WhatsApp, from a Windows PC, with your WhatsApp number. They are separate paths with separate settings, and a message is queued for one or the other, never both.
"Is this the same as Manage WhatsApp?" Admin › Manage WhatsApp links a number by QR for the accounts held inside EDUBase. This page is about the downloadable sender that runs on your own computer.
"Do we need a Meta / WhatsApp Business API account?" No. It uses your ordinary WhatsApp number on your own PC.
"Can two computers run it?" Ask support before doing that — two senders collecting the same queue is a good way to send a parent the same message twice.