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Twilio Cookbook: Second Edition
Twilio Cookbook: Second Edition

Twilio Cookbook: Second Edition: Over 70 easy-to-follow recipes, from exploring the key features of Twilio to building advanced telephony apps

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Profile Icon Roger Stringer
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Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 1 (1 Ratings)
Paperback Mar 2014 334 pages Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Roger Stringer
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Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 1 (1 Ratings)
Paperback Mar 2014 334 pages Edition
eBook
$22.99 $32.99
Paperback
$54.99
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Free Trial
Renews at $19.99p/m
eBook
$22.99 $32.99
Paperback
$54.99
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Twilio Cookbook: Second Edition

Chapter 2. Now We're Cooking

In this chapter we will cover the following:

  • Tracking account usage

  • Screening calls

  • Buying a phone number

  • Setting up a voicemail system

  • Building an emergency calling system

Introduction


In Chapter 1, Into the Frying Pan, we brought to you some handy recipes for Twilio; we're going to continue that in this chapter.

First, we'll show you how to generate usage records that come in handy for tracking usage across your Twilio account, especially when you have a web app that has customers using it daily.

Call screening lets you check calls that are actually answered by a person; if a machine answers, we move on to the next phone number.

Buying a phone number is also handy when you have multiple users and want to let them purchase a phone number to use for their own account.

A voicemail system lets you give callers a voice mailbox to store messages in and then sends you an e-mail with the transcribed message.

Finally, the emergency calling system will try a list of phone numbers when you find yourself in an emergency situation, to find someone who answers.

Tracking account usage


Tracking your call usage is important if you handle a lot of calls or if you have a site that has multiple users.

My website, theinterviewr.com, looks through hundreds of calls being made each week; this call usage tracking helps me know which users are making which calls so that I can see who's heavily using the network and who is not.

This also helps me analyze things and make sure I'm actually charging users reasonably per call.

Getting ready

The complete source code for this recipe can be found in the Chapter2/Recipe1 folder in the code bundle available at www.packtpub.com/support.

How to do it...

We're going to build a usage tracking system now to let us look at how our Twilio account is being used. Perform the following steps to do so:

  1. Download the Twilio Helper Library from https://github.com/twilio/twilio-php/zipball/master and unzip it.

  2. Upload the Services/ folder to your website.

  3. Upload config.php to your website and make sure the following variables are set:

    <...

Screening calls


Call screening is a useful ability to have on your calling systems. For example, let's say you have three people on call in your support department and you want to call the first available agent.

This recipe will try and connect to each phone number available in a given array and check to see if a person answers or not; if a person does, it connects the call.

Getting ready

The complete source code for this recipe can be found in the Chapter2/Recipe2 folder.

How to do it...

We're going to build a call-handling system that will forward calls to our list of agents; the first agent who accepts the call by pushing a button will get the call.

  1. Download the Twilio Helper Library from https://github.com/twilio/twilio-php/zipball/master and unzip it.

  2. Upload the Services/ folder to your website.

  3. Upload config.php to your website and make sure the following variables are set:

    <?php
      $accountsid = '';  //  YOUR TWILIO ACCOUNT SID
      $authtoken = '';  //	YOUR TWILIO AUTH TOKEN
      $fromNumber...

Buying a phone number


Buying a phone number is an integral part of the Twilio system. If you have multiple users, you can assign each user their own phone number.

Twilio gives you options to pass on numbers to your users, so you can actually search for phone numbers.

You can search by postal code; patterns, such as STRINGER; or for phone numbers near your location.

I've found this ability handy for systems with multiple users or for setting up business numbers for various purposes, such as sales, support, or unique phone numbers for campaigns that are being run at the time.

Getting ready

The complete source code for this recipe can be found in the Chapter2/Recipe3 folder.

How to do it...

Are you ready to learn how to buy a phone number? This recipe will take you step by step through the process.

  1. Download the Twilio Helper Library from https://github.com/twilio/twilio-php/zipball/master and unzip it.

  2. Upload the Services/ folder to your website.

  3. Upload config.php to your website and make sure the following...

Setting up a voicemail system


All companies need a voicemail system, from a small one-person company to a big 100-person company.

This voicemail system will be set up as one big mailbox that people can call into and leave a message. The message is then e-mailed to you along with a transcription of the message.

Getting ready

The complete source code for this recipe can be found in the Chapter2/Recipe4 folder.

How to do it...

Let's build a simple voicemail system that can serve as a mailbox for your company.

  1. Download the Twilio Helper Library from https://github.com/twilio/twilio-php/zipball/master and unzip it.

  2. Upload the Services/ folder to your website.

  3. Upload config.php to your website and make sure the following variables are set:

    <?php
      $accountsid = '';  //  YOUR TWILIO ACCOUNT SID
      $authtoken = '';  //	  YOUR TWILIO AUTH TOKEN
      $fromNumber = '';  //  PHONE NUMBER CALLS WILL COME FROM
    ?>
  4. Create a file on your website called voicemail.php, with the following code:

    <?php
    include 'Services...

Building an emergency calling system


I'm a type-2, insulin-dependent diabetic. I also drive two hours every day—to my office and back. So, after I spent a week in the hospital last year, I decided to set up an In Case Of Emergency (ICE) system so that I could call one number and have it try multiple numbers at once.

Getting ready

The complete source code for this recipe can be found in the Chapter2/Recipe4 folder.

How to do it...

This emergency calling system will try a group of numbers at the same time; the first number to answer will get connected.

  1. Download the Twilio Helper Library from https://github.com/twilio/twilio-php/zipball/master and unzip it.

  2. Upload the Services/ folder to your website.

  3. Upload config.php to your website and make sure the following variables are set:

    <?php
      $accountsid = '';  //  YOUR TWILIO ACCOUNT SID
      $authtoken = '';  //	  YOUR TWILIO AUTH TOKEN
      $fromNumber = '';  //  PHONE NUMBER CALLS WILL COME FROM
    ?>
  4. Create a file on your website called ice.php, with...

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Publication date : Mar 26, 2014
Length: 334 pages
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783550654
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Length: 334 pages
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783550654
Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

13 Chapters
Into the Frying Pan Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Now We're Cooking Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Conducting Surveys via SMS Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building a Conference Calling System Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Combining Twilio with Other APIs Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Sending and Receiving SMS Messages Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building a Reminder System Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building an IVR System Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building Your Own PBX Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Digging into OpenVBX Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Sending and Receiving Picture Messages Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Call Queuing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Twilio Client Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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1 star 100%
kewlking Oct 28, 2014
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So, got started this cookbook with excitement and high hopes since I needed to get ramped up on Twilio as quickly as possible for a project and come on, you are programming with phone calls and texts - so direct, so much fun!Unfortunately, it takes so long to work around the inaccuracies that it is much much faster to work through the online documentation and quickstarts on the Twilio site - which btw, is beyond awesome!Case in point re: the absurdity of this book, the VERY FIRST SAMPLE will not work. The author sends in a plain text greeting that needs to be played on a call whereas the service expects a URL pointing to a well-formed greeting. You will only realize that after combing through the documentation on the Twilio site.After that rather auspicious start, you will move on to the second recipe where the goal is to do the same thing as before, but do it using SMS instead. Again, you will be stymied with the same errors as earlier, except here, you will realize that in the code downloads, the author simply copied the earlier folder into this one without changing any of the code to shift the functionality from voice to SMS.After a start like this, I gave up trying to grind through the rest of the book and am following the online quickstarts on the Twilio site instead. Now, I don't know if there is a school of thought that believes that stumbling around and groping for answers is the best way to learn, but if you are on a tight schedule and need something focused and *ACCURATE*, then, this is definitely not the book for you.Before you purchase it, try and use the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon to read the first few pages on chapter 1 and you will quickly realize that neither the author nor the publisher has put in any thought around making the content user-friendly. Huge code-sections followed by a 2 line commentary - which would not be the end of the world if it would at least run as intended. And oh btw, needless to say after all the above experiences, don't even bother looking for an errata on the publishers' site - it simply doesn't exist.
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