Twilio’s Messaging Services Copilot provide a number of advanced messaging features, that can be used in our software. Twilio’s Messaging Services allow you to create a pool of numbers from which you can send your messages.

The features of Messaging Services include:

• • Scaler (Number Pool) Scaler distributes your outbound messaging traffic evenly across the phone numbers in your Messaging Service to help you handle higher messaging volume. When a message is sent from your Messaging Service, the From number is selected from among the phone numbers not currently being used to send a message. Creating a number pool can mitigate against your messages being filtered by the mobile phone networks as spam, as the messages are spread across the numbers in the pool. See Twilio’s guide to carrier filtering.
  • Sticky Sender Sticky Sender makes sure the same From phone number is selected when messaging a particular recipient. This allows your application to consistently send messages to your user from a single recognisable phone number.
  • Alpha Sender ID For branded one-way messaging, many countries allow an alphanumeric string as the sender ID. Alpha Sender ID allows you to add your company name or brand to your Messaging Service. Note Alpha Sender IDs are not supported by Twilio in the USA.
  • Geomatch Geomatch automatically selects the Twilio phone number in your Messaging Service to match the country of your recipient’s phone number.

A great benefit of using a Messaging Service with our software, is that the messages are sent asychronously, meaning that our software doesn’t wait for a reply from Twilio, before sending the next message, meaning the messages are processed on the Messages tab much quicker. However a point to note is that, since our software isn’t waiting for a reply from Twilio, all of the messages processed through the Message tab, are shown as being successfully sent. To see the final status of the message, look at our software’s Message History tab.

To use Messaging Services Copilot with our software following the instructions below.

Create your Messaging Service

Log into your Twilio account and select “Programmable SMS-Messaging Services” and click the red plus sign to create a new Messaging Service. Enter a name for your messaging service into the pop-up form.

Configure your Messaging Service

Clicking on your new messaging service will open the “Configure” tab. Under the “Friendly Name” field, you’ll see the Messaging Service SID, you’ll need to copy this into the  Settings screens in later step.

In the “Inbound Settings” section, enter www.your_website.com?inbound into the “Request URL” field. This will route any SMS messages (inbound messages) send to your Twilio number, to the sms plugin.

In the lower half of the “Configure” tab, check that all of the Messaging Services Copilot features you want to use, are enabled.

NOTE:the use of Alpha Sender IDs is not supported by Twilio in the USA.

Press the “Save” button.

 

Add numbers to your Messaging Service

Click on the “Numbers” tab to create a Number Pool. Twilio will intelligently distribute messages across the numbers in your pool. Click on the “Add a Number” button to add your numbers. Then press “Save”.

 

Add Messaging Service SID to our software

Go into the Settings page and select the “Twilio Settings” sub-page.

Enter your Messaging Service SID and tick the “Use Messaging Service” check box. This will tell our software to use the numbers in your number pool, when it sends out messages.

 

When you send messages from our software’s Message tab, you’ll see a field indicating whether Messaging Services have been enabled or not.

When a message is sent, the from number on the “Message History” tab will initially be shown as “Number Pool”, indicating that the message has been sent from one of the number in your Twilio Number Pool.

However, once the message is delivered, then the correct number used to send the message can be seen by refreshing Message History tab.