July 2019 Summaries

SIGNAL Conference is less than a week away, offering an interactive experience with demos from customers changing urban lives in the IoT Smart City. The conference also features SIGNAL Bingo, where attendees can meet sponsors and win prizes, as well as Superclass to learn about TwilioQuest 3. Before arriving at the conference, attendees can customize their "Twilio Hero" avatar using the Klik app or website. The event concludes with a $BASH experience featuring immersive environments, food, drinks, and a concert. All registrations include access to keynotes, sessions, the Community Hall, and $BASH.

This tutorial guides the reader through building a single-page application (SPA) using Symfony as the backend and React for the frontend logic. The application fetches data from APIs, including users and posts. The reader learns how to combine Symfony and React using Webpack Encore. Key points include setting up the Symfony project, configuring Webpack Encore, creating reusable components in React, and rendering these components within a navigation bar. Throughout the tutorial, the reader is encouraged to explore the source code and add more features to their application.

SIGNAL Conference is an upcoming event where attendees will learn about cutting-edge communications technology and transform their businesses. The conference features over 100 sessions, including workshops, on topics such as email marketing, IoT development, and product management. Sessions cover various use cases, including deploying a fleet of IoT-connected devices, sharpening email marketing skills, and launching a contact center. Attendees can also learn from real-life examples, such as Intuit's TurboTax phone system, which relies heavily on Twilio products to support millions of customers. The conference also explores topics like authentication best practices, anti-spam and anti-spoofing approaches, and how to overcome barriers for women in product management.

Dropbox has an API that allows developers to download and store files from publicly available URLs, making it useful for integrating fax services like Twilio. To send a fax to Dropbox, users need a fax-enabled number from Twilio, a Dropbox account, and set up a new app on the Dropbox developer platform. The process involves creating a function to receive faxes and uploading the received file to Dropbox using the API, as well as configuring a TwiML bin to handle incoming faxes and sending a test fax using the Twilio API or a library's explorer tool. Once completed, users can check their Dropbox folder for the uploaded file and use this integration to build various fax-related applications.

Oregon Humane Society has partnered with Twilio for Salesforce to improve its fundraising strategy by leveraging multichannel communication, including SMS and email. With a goal of increasing participant engagement and individual fundraising performance, the organization saw significant results, including an 84% increase in participants, a 24% increase in donations, and a 6.6% increase in total amount raised. The partnership enabled OHS to reach more donors and fundraisers through text messages, which are read within 3 minutes, and helped to energize new teams to fundraise. Now, the organization plans to use Twilio for Salesforce to expand its crisis response efforts and deploy SMS for rescue and relief operations.

Toll-Free SMS with Higher Throughput is now Generally Available in the US`, announced by Twilio, increases the capacity of SMS messages that can be sent from a Toll-Free number to US destinations. This feature allows businesses to simplify and scale interactions with mobile users while providing trust, brand consistency, and single-channel communication. With this update, customers can receive support and notifications at higher throughputs, using the same toll-free number for both voice and text messages, preserving brand identity and building trust.

SIGNAL Conference, taking place on August 6-7 in San Francisco, offers various reasons for developers to attend, including learning Twilio from its developers, using coding powers to do good, seeing the CEO live code, enjoying a unique conference party experience, and being inspired by notable guests like Mindy Kaling and Macklemore. The conference features over 50 technical talks, hands-on training sessions, and networking opportunities, making it an ideal event for developers looking to upskill their Twilio knowledge and make a positive impact in the world.

The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) has released its updated 2019 Messaging Principles and Best Practices guide, which outlines guidelines for businesses using SMS to communicate with customers. The update clarifies the difference between Consumer or Person-to-Person (P2P) and Non-Consumer or Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging and creates new guidelines around A2P messaging. Under these updated guidelines, message senders must obtain a consumer's express consent to receive messages, including obtaining written consent for marketing messages, and ensuring that consumers can revoke consent at any time. Twilio is educating its customers about these changes as it is committed to creating a healthy messaging ecosystem that serves all participants. As a result, Twilio's political messaging customers must now seek express consent from individuals before sending A2P messages, and failure to do so may lead to heavily filtered messages.

I've written a summary of the text in 1 paragraph. Here it is: AutoMapper, a library for .NET, can be used to map one model to another, reducing repetition and tediousness in data mapping. The author uses AutoMapper in an internal Twilio tool but found that creating valid maps required writing tests and letting AutoMapper tell them what was needed to configure. By starting with a test project and following the code example provided, developers can use AutoMapper to create mappings between models while ignoring unmapped properties, allowing for more efficient development and reduced boilerplate code.

Mido is a Python library used to interact with MIDI data, allowing developers to read, write, and play back MIDI files. It provides an object called MidiFile that can be used to open, modify, and save MIDI files. The library also allows developers to loop through the tracks in a MIDI file and examine their properties, including the number of messages and type. By using Mido, developers can clean up duplicate tracks in MIDI files, mash up different versions of the same song, or use it as an interface for digital instruments.

Twilio's Answering Machine Detection (AMD) solution has been made generally available, providing businesses with the ability to tailor their outbound call flows according to how they are answered. The solution improves customer call experience by identifying whether a human, machine, or fax is answering the call, allowing for more effective workflow automation. With AMD enabled, Twilio will return an 'AnsweredBy' parameter in the webhook issued to the URL of the outbound call request, indicating whether a human, machine, or other type of party answered. The solution has been built on a new underlying engine that offers higher predictability than its predecessor and includes optional API tuning parameters to adjust performance for specific use cases. These parameters allow customers to fine-tune the solution to their specifications, determining performance tradeoffs right for their unique requirements. Twilio's AMD is available at $0.0075 per call where it is enabled and if the called party successfully answers, with pricing based on successful calls only.

As an IoT Button and Twilio integration to provide peace of mind for family members or loved ones who live independently, a software developer created a custom solution using Amazon's IoT Button, Twilio's Studio flow, and AWS Lambda. The system allows users to create a button that sends different text messages or makes voice calls based on the length of time the button is pressed. The developer registered a Twilio account, created a new Twilio Studio flow with a "Split Based On" widget, four "Send Message" widgets, a "Make Outgoing Call" widget, and a "Say/Play" widget to send text messages and make voice calls based on the click type. The system also uses an AWS IoT Button to connect to Wi-Fi and trigger the Twilio Studio flow when pressed. The developer configured the button using the AWS IoT Button Dev app and set up an AWS Lambda function to call the Twilio Studio flow. The solution allows users to receive different text messages or make voice calls based on the length of time they press the button, providing peace of mind for family members or loved ones who live independently.

Twilio has announced its attestation to the ISO/IEC 27017 and ISO/IEC 27018 standards, demonstrating its commitment to protecting customer data and aligning with industry-recognized best practices for cloud security. These international recognized codes of practice provide guidance on controls to address cloud-specific information security threats and risks, particularly those related to personally identifiable information (PII). Through attestation, Twilio aims to reassure customers of its continued focus on customer trust and security, while also providing precise controls to ensure the integrity of its cloud services.

Creating a virtual photo booth using Twilio, WhatsApp, and Cloudinary was achieved by setting up a Twilio Function to receive images sent via WhatsApp, accessing the image URL, uploading it to Cloudinary with desired transformations, retrieving the transformed URL, and sending it back as part of a response. The setup involves creating a Twilio Function, installing the necessary dependencies, configuring Cloudinary credentials and SDK, manipulating the image using Cloudinary's transformations, and deploying the changes. With this digital photo booth, users can send pictures to receive transformed versions with various manipulations applied, such as aspect ratio adjustment, height adjustment, and overlay application.

Authy provides an elevated authentication solution that allows developers to protect their users with multiple channels such as SMS, voice, and email one-time passcodes, TOTP, Push notifications, and device-specific authentication. The Authy user model is based on a one-to-one correlation between a user's phone number and their Authy ID, which is used for API calls during two-factor authentication. The multi-device feature allows users to authenticate from any device they have added to their circle of trust, providing an additional layer of security when carrier access is unavailable. SMS is suitable for low-risk users, while device-specific TOTP and Push Authentication are recommended for high-net-worth individuals who require enhanced security. By implementing a multi-channel approach with escalated device identification, Authy provides a secure solution for sensitive use-cases.

This July 2019 roundup of top PHP tutorials from Twilio features seven engaging tutorials covering various topics such as building chatbots, RESTful APIs, product verification applications, domain renewal notifications, phone validators, and more. The tutorials cover a range of skills including Laravel, MySQL, Authy, and Namecheap API, and are designed to help developers build the future of communications. The featured tutorials aim to provide practical knowledge and insights into building effective communication systems using Twilio's services.

Email testing is a crucial aspect of a successful email marketing campaign, focusing on avoiding spam filters, ensuring functional links, and achieving proper rendering across different devices and browsers. The text emphasizes the importance of a pre-send checklist that includes testing for spam likelihood, verifying that email links are not broken, and checking how emails render on various platforms. SendGrid's email testing features facilitate these processes by allowing users to test their emails directly within the platform, which can help identify and rectify potential issues before sending out a campaign. The text also highlights the challenges of rendering emails correctly across all devices and browsers, noting that fixing rendering issues in one platform might cause problems in another. By incorporating these testing steps, marketers can enhance the effectiveness and reliability of their email campaigns, ensuring better engagement and delivery rates.

Twilio's Programmable Voice allows users to purchase local phone numbers in over 100 countries and forward incoming calls to international destinations. To set up this feature, users can configure a TwiML Bin to manage the call flow, including forwarding calls to specific numbers. However, users must be aware of potential issues such as "high-risk" numbers that require explicit permission to call, and SIP protocol limitations that may cause early media content to be sent before the call is fully answered. By understanding these nuances and adjusting settings accordingly, users can successfully use Twilio's Programmable Voice to solve international calling problems.

Twilio is working hard to eliminate robocalls and has partnered with Nomorobo to provide a service that can detect whether a call is from a robot or not. The solution uses Node.js, Twilio Lookup, and the Nomorobo Spam Score Add-on. A tool has been created that detects robocalls by looking up phone numbers against the Nomorobo database, which provides a score indicating the likelihood of the number being a spammer. The tool can be run as a standalone script or used in a larger application to identify whether a particular call is from a robot or not.

We've created a smart voicemail system using Twilio Functions, JavaScript, and the Google Calendar API. The system checks if the user is available or busy by sending a Freebusy query to the Google Calendar API. If the user is unavailable, it sends a message saying so and provides an option to leave a voicemail. When a voicemail is recorded, the system sends a notification to the user's personal number with a link to the voicemail audio. The system also uses TwiML to forward calls to the user's mobile number when they are available or to send a recording of the missed call as a message.

To parse an incoming Twilio SMS webhook with Node.js, you can use Express and the Twilio library. The process involves setting up an Express server to receive incoming messages, installing necessary libraries, and configuring your Twilio account. Once set up, you can access information about the incoming message, such as its body and sender number, using the `req.body` object. This information can be used to make decisions based on the content of the message or the country it was sent from. The example code provides a basic starting point for building an Express server to receive Twilio SMS messages and respond with another text message.

This article discusses how to run a PHP script on AWS Lambda using the Bref project, which enables deployment of custom runtimes and layers for Lambdas. The author creates a simple web hook that responds to SMS messages from Twilio, generates dynamic TwiML responses, and uses Bref to deploy the PHP code as a Lambda serverless function. With the help of Composer, AWS CLI, and SAM tools, the script is packaged up and deployed to AWS Lambda, where it can be triggered by HTTP requests. The article concludes that webhooks are a powerful way to respond to events from Twilio phone numbers and that Bref makes it easier to run PHP on Lambda.