Rapid Response Kit: Building Conferencing and Broadcasting with Twilio. Level: Intermediate. Powered by Twilio - Spark

We are currently in the process of updating this sample template. If you are encountering any issues with the sample, please open an issue at github.com/twilio-labs/code-exchange/issues and we'll try to help you.

About

An example application implementing an disaster response kit that allows an organizer to instantly communicate with volunteers.

Read the full tutorial here!

Implementations in other languages:

PHP	.NET	Python	Ruby	Node
Done	Done	TBD	Done	TDB

Set up

Requirements

• Java Development Kit version 11 or later.
• ngrok
• A Twilio account - sign up

Twilio Account Settings

This application should give you a ready-made starting point for writing your own appointment reminder application. Before we begin, we need to collect all the config values we need to run the application:

Config Value	Description
Account Sid	Your primary Twilio account identifier - find this in the Console.
Auth Token	Used to authenticate - just like the above, you'll find this here.
Phone number	A Twilio phone number in E.164 format - you can get one here

Local development

After the above requirements have been met:

1. Clone this repository and cd into it

   git clone git@github.com:TwilioDevEd/conference-broadcast-spark.git
   cd conference-broadcast-spark

2. Set your environment variables

   cp .env.example .env

   See Twilio Account Settings to locate the necessary environment variables.

   If you are using a UNIX operating system, load the environment variables before the application starts.

   source .env

   If you are using a different operating system, make sure that all the variables from the .env file are loaded into your environment.

3. Run the application

   make serve

   NOTE: If you are using a dedicated Java IDE like Eclipse or IntelliJ, you can start the application within the IDE and it will start in development mode, which means any changes on a source file will be automatically reloaded.

4. Navigate to http://localhost:8080

That's it!

Docker

If you have Docker already installed on your machine, you can use our docker-compose.yml to setup your project.

1. Make sure you have the project cloned.
2. Setup the environmental variables in the docker-compose.yml file, see the Twilio Account Settings.
3. Run docker-compose --env-file /dev/null up.
4. Follow the steps in Configure Twilio section on how to expose your port to Twilio using a tool like ngrok and configure the remaining parts of your application.

Configure Twilio

Configure Twilio to call your webhooks. You will also need to configure Twilio to call your application when calls are received.

You will need to provision at least one Twilio number with voice capabilities so the application's users can join conference calls. You can buy a number right here. Once you have a number you need to configure your number to work with your application. Open the number management page and open a number's configuration by clicking on it.

Remember that the number where you change the voice webhooks must be the same one you set on the TWILIO_RR_NUMBER environment variable.

Expose the application to the wider Internet. We recommend using ngrok to solve this problem.

ngrok http 8080 -host-header="localhost:8080"

Once you have started ngrok, update your Twilio's number voice URL setting to use your ngrok hostname, so it will look something like this:

http://<your-ngrok-subdomain>.ngrok.io/conference

Tests

You can run the tests locally by typing:

./gradlew check

Configure Twilio

You will need to configure Twilio to send requests to your application when SMS are received.

You will need to provision at least one Twilio number with sms capabilities so the application's users can make property reservations. You can buy a number here. Once you have a number, you need to configure it to work with your application. Open the number management page and open a number's configuration by clicking on it.

To let our Twilio Phone number use the callback endpoint we exposed our development server will need to be publicly accessible. We recommend using ngrok to solve this problem.

Remember that the number you change the SMS webhook for must be the same one you set on the TwilioPhoneNumber setting.

To start using ngrok in our project you'll have to execute the following line in the command prompt.

ngrok http 8080 -host-header="localhost:8080"

Keep in mind that our endpoint is:

http://<your-ngrok-subdomain>.ngrok.io/reservation-confirmation

Cloud deployment

Additionally to trying out this application locally, you can deploy it to a variety of host services. Here is a small selection of them.

Please be aware that some of these might charge you for the usage or might make the source code for this application visible to the public. When in doubt research the respective hosting service first.

Service
Heroku

Some notes:

• For Heroku, please check this to properly configure the project for deployment.
• You can also follow this guide to deploy the application to several other cloud services including Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, etc.

Resources

• The CodeExchange repository can be found here.

Contributing

This template is open source and welcomes contributions. All contributions are subject to our Code of Conduct.

License

MIT

Disclaimer

No warranty expressed or implied. Software is as is.