Using SMS to to talk to your bot
Interested in communicating with your users over SMS? SMS is the most universal of current messaging platforms. While it may be one of the most basic interfaces, no buttons, lists, or other complex interactions these can be overcome usually with some creative conversation design.
Alana currently recommends Twilio for sending & receiving SMS messages. They have a very generous trial period that you can use to test your bot.
Twilio only supports text & image messages for both sending & receiving
Getting started with twilio
We’ll need 3 pieces of information from Twilio to integrate with alana
- Phone number that bot should send & receive from
- Account SID
- Authentication token
Getting the SID & Token
Navigate to twilio.com and log-in or sign-up. Then go to your dashboard and you’ll be able to grab your SID and token from the page. If your token is hidden, click the eye to reveal it.
Getting your phone number
Navigate to the “Phone Number” section and open the phone number you would like to use. You’ll need to the number in E.164 format, Twilio already formats it in this format if you grab it from the “Phone Number” section of your configuration page.
Your bot is hosted on alana.cloud
Setting up alana.cloud
Log into alana.cloud and open your bot. Then go to the platforms page and click the add button on the lower right of the page. Fill in the 3 pieces of information from above and click “Add Twilio”.
Setting up Twilio
After alana.cloud is done setting up your web hook, grab its address.
Navigate to the “Phone Numbers” section of the Twilio dashboard and open the phone number you want to use. Under the messaging section change the following fields:
- Configure with should be Webhooks/TwiML
- A message comes in should be the webhook you were assigned by alana.cloud simiar to https://twilio.alana.cloud/adj-adj-animal
- Make sure you are using HTTP POST
Click “Save”
All done! Make sure your bot is deployed and text your assigned number to interact with you bot!
