In Twilio via the Rest API, I have
Generated a conversation fine
Added in a 'user' with a projected address of a Twilio phone number
Added in myself as a participant with the address being my phone number
Finally, I went to add one more participant with the address being a mobile phone number
The 4th step throws the following error:
Group MMS is not enabled for this Account.
https://www.twilio.com/docs/errors/50452
I understand Group MMS is deprecated at this point (no new sign-on). However, I also believe Conversations supports having multiple users (some on mobile, some via "user" chat, some on WhatsApp, etc.) so I am not sure why it is automatically trying to convert it over to a 'Group MMS'. Is there a setting on the Conversation I can toggle to prevent it from trying and yet still support multiple participants on mobile? Or even on the participant level?
I have found my issue.
When adding the user I gave it a "MessagingBinding.ProjectedAddress" which set it up for Group MMS
When adding the SMS participants, I did not provide them a "MessagingBinding.ProxyAddress" (i.e. a Phone Number purchased from Twilio).
The combination of these two had Twilio thinking I wanted to use Group MMS the minute I added in a third participant. Instead, the following works:
Generate a conversation
Add in a 'user' with just an "Identity"
Added in myself as a participant with the address being my phone number and the proxyAddress being a Twilio phone number
Add in another participant with the address being a mobile phone number and the proxyAddress being a Twilio phone number (can be same proxyAddress as used in step 3)
The only extra note here is that the proxyAddress used must be distinct for that participant mobile phone number across all active conversations. As far as I can tell, Twilio does not have the concept of "sticky sender" that can be used for conversations so I am planning on tracking my own users phone number assignments.
Related
Twilio claims they support group MMS conversations: https://www.twilio.com/blog/group-mms-texting-for-businesses
However, the documentation links they provide goes to a 404 page: https://www.twilio.com/docs/conversations/group-texting
I'm trying to figure out of Twilio can support a group MMS conversation among several people on their mobile phones having a conversation with a Twilio number in a group conversation.
If you're on your mobile phone's texting app, and you send a text to multiple people at once, it's converted to MMS and is a group conversation among multiple people. It is not sending separate SMS messages to each person, but rather an actual group conversation.
I've been looking at Twilio's API docs for their Conversations (https://www.twilio.com/docs/conversations), but it doesn't look like they actually support group MMS, or at least I cannot get it working.
The closest I could get was creating a Twilio number participant with 3 other participants, but on each person's mobile texting app, they saw the messages from everyone else come across as just the Twilio number. Effectively it was a "2-way" conversation with the person and Twilio's number, but multiple people could be the Twilio number behind the scenes.
Bandwidth texting service provides actual group MMS, where I can send a message to an array of phone numbers via the to and it works just as expected. The issue is they are expensive with minimum monthly costs I was hoping to reduce.
It's a little frustrating, because Twilio announced in 2021 they supported group MMS, but none of their docs or examples seem to actually implement this.
Am I missing the docs somewhere or need to configure some setting for group MMS?
Group MMS has been put on hold. The ecosystem migration to 10DLC routes introduced compatibility issues at the carrier level, so this issue impacts all CPaaS providers, when using Group MMS over 10DLC routes (which is a requirement for A2P traffic).
Limitation to Group MMS
https://www.twilio.com/changelog/limitation-to-group-mms
A workaround is to use Twilio Conversations which will allow a one:many distribution of messages. The only difference is the parties that art part of that conversation won't appear in the mobile devices message client address bar.
If you have activated group texting before march 2022, you can still use twilio's group APIs as they are kind of deprecated only for newer uesrs.
Try using the twilio docs after signing in, if you are older user you'll not get 404.
We want Caller ID to display our company name on outbound calls.
According to Twilio, numbers purchased from them cannot have Caller ID/CNAM added.
If we transfer numbers from another service that can add the numbers, will the CallerID/CNAM be maintained.
Should we Port the Number or have Twilio host the number? What is the difference?
Tried to purchase numbers on Twilio and have CNAM added.
Have purchased numbers from another vendor and they were able to add CallerID
Based on my experience recently migrating several numbers to Twilio:
If we transfer numbers from another service that can add the numbers, will the CallerID/CNAM be maintained?
Supposedly yes, mine did not. I had three Spectrum landlines, with working outbound caller ID. At some point after porting them to Twilio, the caller ID disappeared. What's worse is that some cellphones will try and "guess," and show random people's names instead of my business name (or at least, nothing).
What is the difference between porting and hosted numbers?
Hosted SMS provides a method for customers to use Twilio’s Programmable Messaging, Functions and Studio products to send and receive messages on voice-enabled numbers they already own as part of an established voice application.
(from https://www.twilio.com/docs/phone-numbers/hosted-numbers)
So porting is moving the number entirely to Twilio as the carrier for the number - voice, SMS, possibly fax (although Twilio's fax support is minimal). A hosted number would just enable SMS through Twilio for a non-Twilio landline number.
I have been looking for a way to get my numbers listed back in the CNAM database(s), today I tried a company called TrueCNAM (https://www.truecnam.com/) who will let you list up to five numbers for free. I went ahead and listed mine, I'll update my answer if I verify that it's working. Currently the CNAM lookup for my numbers is blank, so we'll see what happens.
Edit: I also tried verifying my number at https://listyourself.net, but I'm still not seeing the number in a couple searches I've done on it. It looks like the changes may take a while to propagate to the downstream third-party CNAM databases, based on this: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26461709-
We have a C# MVC app that sends and receives texts utilizing the Twilio API effortlessly.
We have a button that sends a text to one or multiple people FROM a certain department (HR) / Twilio phone number.
Our problem is- When a user responds to the HR text, how do we craft a conversation between the HR department workers personal phone number, and the original recipient. (So they can communicate right in the SMS chat)
We tried:
To create a 'Group MMS Chat' but that doesn't seem to be supported by Twilio (yet)
To store the senders personal number, and the Twilio registered number - to make our server act as a 'switchboard', but that wont work if two different HR workers send a text to the same person.
I have read the questions / docs here: But cookies don't feel like the proper answer.
Twilio: How to map an SMS reply to an original SMS
Send Group Message with Twilio
https://www.twilio.com/docs/sms/tutorials/employee-directory-csharp-mvc#handle-multiple-or-no-results
https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223136287-How-do-Twilio-cookies-work-
Please let me know if this is too broad / a bad question, and i'll try my best to fix it. I don't want to go to SO jail :)
Any help is greatly appreciated!
You might think about using twilio proxy service , the flow for that would look like this
Pre select which HR person number or numbers will be responsible for that communication.
provision a new twilio number (not the same one already used by the HR department) this number will be used for the duration on the conversation
Initiate a proxy session https://www.twilio.com/proxy
** This is a more expansive approach , because you will need a twilio number per each individual conversation
How does one link a single twilio number to multiple phones such that:
When new people text the twilio number, all of the phones linked to the twilio number receive the text.
When any one of the twilio phones respond to the text, it appears to the original texter that a single number is responding to them (irregardless of which of the twilio phones sends the text).
Picture texts work also in the way described in (1)-(2).
This is very similar to what Google Voice can do, except google voice sometimes doesn't work with picture texts.
You would need a backend of some sort, where you can store subscribers for a number, you can then handle in your language of choice, when you receive a sms perhaps containing the word "subscribe", you would then simply save that into your backend along with the number that the sms was received upon.
When receiving a sms that contains other text, you would then simply query your backend and find all the numbers that have subscribed to the number that you have just received the sms on, you would then simply use the Twilio api, to send the message to all the results from your backend query.
You could also allow unsubscribe functionality, where users only have to send unsubscribe to the number, and you would remove them from your backend or flag them as to not send to them again.
My Twilio number is not enabled to send sms. How can I enable my twilio number to send sms?
It is showing "Messaging is unavailable for this phone number."
Not every twilio number is capable of sending / receiving SMSs. Take a look into https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/sms/can-i-send-or-receive-text-messages-with-a-twilio-toll-free-phone-number
Also, if you follow the link they provide there, you can read the following
Mobile numbers
In most countries, mobile numbers are assigned to a particular range within the country’s telephone numbering plan so they can be easily distinguished from local numbers. They are often the only type of number in the given country that can be used for sending and receiving messages.
Note that currently all mobile numbers Twilio provides are only SMS-enabled. You can not make or receive voice calls using these numbers.
I faced the same issue with the "first one's on us" number.
Turns out, messaging capability depends on the type and country of the number.
I was automatically assigned a local number for my country, which did not allow messaging. If, however, you choose a custom number and go for one in the US, you are given SMS capability (at least I was just now).
If you already have your one free number assigned, you can release it and choose a new number for free.