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The Welcome Message

The Viber API only allows for sending messages to users after they have subscribed to the
bot. However, Viber permits the bot to send one "welcome message" to a user as soon as
they initiate a conversation, prior to their subscription.

This welcome message will be sent in response to a conversation_started event, which
will be received from Viber once the user opens a conversation with the bot. For further
information about this event and when it is triggered, refer to the conversation started
section in the API events.

Flow of the Welcome Message​

Sending a welcome message will follow the following steps:

  1. A user initiates a one-on-one conversation with the account.
  2. The Viber server sends a conversation_started callback to the bot's webhook.
  3. The account receives the conversation_started callback and responds with an HTTP
    response, which includes the welcome message in the response body.

The welcome message will be in JSON format according to the structure of the
send_message request, but without the receiver parameter. An example of a welcome
message would appear as follows:

{
  "type": "text",
  "text": "Hello World",
  "sender": {
    "name": "Viber Bot",
    "avatar": "http://avatar.example.com"
  }
}
Pay attention

The welcome message should be included in the body of the HTTP
response to the conversation_started callback, and not sent to the send_message
endpoint.