Manually Creating a Custom channel

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Posted on by FV-01121256-0

Hi everyone!

I will do my best to fully explain my question. I am currently working on manually creating a custom channel so that I can send messages through whatsApp within CI-Journeys. I did my best to follow all the steps here in this Microsoft Guide: Manually create a Custom Channel in CI-Journeys. Previously I had an issue which correlated to Meta in getting access to the WhatsApp API and Phone Id. Now that I have them I've been continuing my development within the Microsoft side. I created the necessary CustomAPI's and the plugins correctly established I believe. However, when establishing the custom channel within CI-Journeys, It doesn't work as expected.

When I want to create a message within CI-Journeys via the new custom channel I keep seeing a loading screen. I don't necessarily know why, I believe I'm supposed to see a text input box? Then again i am pretty new to doing this completely, especially manually. Another thing is that when I was adding the fields to the main form, I am not entirely sure where the attribute "Sender" is... I've created two seperate attributes, Phone ID, and temp key, that stores the phone ID and api key needed to run the api.

Why not use the standalone WhatsAPP custom channel already available? Because I wanted to learn how to do things manually and understand things in a different perspective. Not only that but at somepoint I plan on integrating a custom channel towards a different provider not provided within CI-Journeys.

In general, this is my first time creating a custom channel manually. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

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Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys

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ManoVerse 1,164 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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every channel instance = one sender (for WhatsApp, that’s your WA business number).
MS expects this “Sender” to come from your extended configuration entity , the custom table you created to hold Phone ID, token , If you don’t have a field named “Sender” in that entity and on its form, the setup screen will still ask for it but can’t bind properly so Add a simple text field named something like sender to your extended configuration entity -> add it to the same form you linked in your channel definition -> publish -> reopen the channel setup , after this i think sender box should behave normally.
The message editor loads only if:

Your message parts (msdyn_channelmessagepart) exist

They are linked to the correct channel definition

Their metadata follows Microsoft’s rules

If you created a custom editor, it includes the matching attributes

If any part is missing or mismatched, the editor fails and you see the endless spinner , i think 99% chance your message parts is not fully set up or not tied to the channel definition. Create at least one message part (e.g., text) Set msdyn_name = "text" , Set msdyn_type = plaintext (192350000), Set msdyn_channeldefinitionid = your Channel Definition
Publish customizations , After this, the message editor should load and show a text box.

Thanks,
Manoj
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FV-01121256-0 8 on at

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I double checked my xml and I believe setting these 3 things to true were the problem correct? since the messageformid should be blank since I should only be referencing to the default by leaving this space blank unless I create my own message form. and as for the accountexternalidentity they should also be blank since I set the supportsaccount to 0 here so therefore they should also be blank.

I also included a new channelmessagepart since I would also like people to add images, that would be dope:

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ManoVerse 1,164 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Yes ,you are correct.
msdyn_messageformid: Leave it blank unless you built a custom editor form. If blank, CI‑Journeys uses the generic editor; setting it when you don’t have a custom form can cause the endless spinner.
Account‑level fields (msdyn_channeldefinitionaccountexternalentity / accountexternalformid): since msdyn_supportsaccount = 0, both must be blank (account config is not supported/needed for non‑SMS custom channels).
New image message part: Good call , for a custom channel you can add another part with msdyn_type = 192350004 (image) (or 192350003 media) in addition to the required text (192350000) part. Make sure all parts reference the same msdyn_channeldefinitionid

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