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By default, campaigns run synchronously in the web process. For large audiences (hundreds or thousands of contacts), this causes web request timeouts and a poor user experience. Enable the optional Celery integration to queue campaigns as background tasks.
Installation
The Celery integration is an optional dependency group. Install it with the celery extras:
# Install with Celery extras
pip install django-meta-whatsapp[celery]
# Or add individually
pip install django-meta-whatsapp celery django-celery-beat
[celery] extra pulls in celery>=5.0 and django-celery-beat>=2.0.
Configuration
# Enable async campaign execution
WHATSAPP_USE_CELERY = True
# Standard Celery settings
CELERY_BROKER_URL = "redis://localhost:6379/0"
CELERY_RESULT_BACKEND = "redis://localhost:6379/0"
INSTALLED_APPS = [
# ...
"django_meta_whatsapp",
"django_celery_beat", # for periodic / scheduled tasks
]
celery.py application file in your Django project root if you don’t already have one:
import os
from celery import Celery
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "myproject.settings")
app = Celery("myproject")
app.config_from_object("django.conf:settings", namespace="CELERY")
app.autodiscover_tasks()
How It Works
When WHATSAPP_USE_CELERY = True, calling run_campaign_async() queues the run_campaign_task Celery task instead of executing inline. The task is defined as a bound task with automatic retries:
django_meta_whatsapp/tasks.py
# Actual task definition from source
@shared_task(bind=True, max_retries=3, default_retry_delay=60)
def run_campaign_task(self, campaign_id: int, account_id=None):
...
max_retries=3 — the task will be retried up to 3 times on failuredefault_retry_delay=60 — 60-second delay between retry attempts- On each retry, the original exception is re-raised via
self.retry(exc=exc)
You can invoke the task directly or via run_campaign_async():
from django_meta_whatsapp.tasks import run_campaign_task
# Queue directly by campaign ID and account ID
run_campaign_task.delay(campaign_id=5, account_id=1)
Use run_campaign_async() from django_meta_whatsapp.utils in all your application code — it automatically uses Celery when available and falls back to synchronous execution when not. This makes your code environment-agnostic and easy to test locally without a broker.
Fallback Behavior
If Celery is not installed or WHATSAPP_USE_CELERY is False (or not set), run_campaign_async() falls back to synchronous execution automatically — no code changes required. The tasks.py module guards the import with a try/except ImportError so the package never hard-requires Celery:
try:
from celery import shared_task
# task defined here
except ImportError:
pass # Celery not installed; tasks unavailable
Scheduled Campaigns
Campaigns with a scheduled_at datetime set can be picked up by a periodic Celery Beat task that polls for campaigns due for execution. Add an entry to CELERY_BEAT_SCHEDULE and create a small dispatch task in your app:
from celery.schedules import crontab
CELERY_BEAT_SCHEDULE = {
"run-scheduled-campaigns": {
"task": "myapp.tasks.dispatch_scheduled_campaigns",
"schedule": crontab(minute="*/5"), # every 5 minutes
},
}
from celery import shared_task
from django.utils import timezone
from django_meta_whatsapp.models import WhatsAppCampaign
from django_meta_whatsapp.utils import run_campaign_async
@shared_task
def dispatch_scheduled_campaigns():
now = timezone.now()
due = WhatsAppCampaign.objects.filter(
status="scheduled",
scheduled_at__lte=now
)
for campaign in due:
run_campaign_async(campaign.pk, account_id=campaign.account_id)
status="scheduled" whose scheduled_at has passed, then queues each one via run_campaign_async().
Starting the Worker
After configuration, start your Celery worker and Beat scheduler:
# Worker (processes tasks)
celery -A myproject worker --loglevel=info
# Beat scheduler (enqueues periodic tasks)
celery -A myproject beat --loglevel=info --scheduler django_celery_beat.schedulers:DatabaseScheduler