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Integrates the Twilio SMS API and provides a Marketing Automation action to send messages to your customers.

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Stack Overflow Kentico.Xperience.Libraries 13.0.73 Nuget

Twilio SMS Kentico Xperience 13 integration

This integration contains custom Marketing automation actions which allow you to send SMS messages to your Xperience contacts easily, without the need for coding! It also exposes some Twilio API methods in an easy-to-use asynchronous service, available in both the CMS and front-end application, allowing your developers to implement more advanced scenarios.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

  • This integration requires a Kentico Xperience 13 installation on version 13.0.73 or higher.
  • You will need a Twilio account, which you can sign up for free here: https://www.twilio.com/try-twilio. Once you are registered, sign in to the Twilio Console, click Account > API keys & tokens, and note the Account SID and Auth token values in the "Live credentials" section.
  • You must create one or more Messaging Services to send SMS messages via the Marketing automation action.
  • To send SMS messages with Twilio, your contact phone numbers must be in the E.164 format. See the Formatting contact phone numbers section for more information.

Administration project installation

  1. Install the Kentico.Xperience.Twilio.SMS NuGet package in the CMS administration project.
  2. In your administration project's web.config files's appSettings section, add your API keys noted in the Prerequisites section:
<add key="TwilioAuthToken" value="<Auth token>"/>
<add key="TwilioAccountSID" value="<Account SID>"/>
  1. Download the Kentico.Xperience.Twilio.SMS ZIP package by locating the latest Release.
  2. In the Xperience administration, open the Sites application.
  3. Import the downloaded package.
    • Make sure the Import files and Import code files settings are enabled.
  4. Perform the necessary steps to include the following imported folder in your project:
    • /CMSModules/Kentico.Xperience.Twilio.SMS

Live-site project installation (optional)

Installation of the integration on the live-site is not required to use the custom Marketing automation actions included. However, if you would like to use the API on the live-site, you can install it by following these instructions:

  1. Install the Kentico.Xperience.Twilio.SMS NuGet package in the live-site project.
  2. In the live-site project's appsettings.json, add the following section with your API keys noted in the Prerequisites section:
"xperience.twilio.sms": {
  "accountSid": "<Account SID>",
  "authToken": "<Auth token>"
}
  1. In Startup.cs, register the integration in the ConfigureServices() method:
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddTwilioSms(Configuration);
}

Marketing automation

This integration includes a new Marketing automation action which can be added to your processes. The Send Twilio SMS Marketing automation action will send an SMS to the contact using the provided phone number and text. To begin using this action, you must select a Messaging Service to use for sending- see Prerequisites for more information on creating a Messaging Service. To select the Messaging Service, open the Xperience administration and go to the Settings application. In the Integration > Twilio SMS section, you will find a new setting called Messaging service. Use the drop-down list to select the default Messaging Service, and select Save.

After adding the "Send Twilio SMS" action to an automation process, select the contact's phone number and enter the SMS text to send. You can click the black arrow next to the "Text" property to enter macros, such as {%Contact.ContactFirstName%}.

Send SMS message

When the action executes, the SMS will be sent to the contact using the Messaging Service selected in the Settings application.

Formatting contact phone numbers

Twilio requires recipient phone numbers in the E.164 format, for example "+12223334444." If you have been storing contact phone numbers in your Kentico Xperience website, you are most likely using the built-in "Private phone" or "Business phone" fields, which are plain text fields with no formatting. To ensure that your SMS messages can be sent to contacts, you can use the ValidatePhoneNumberAsync() method from the API format the contact's phone number into E.164.

For example, you can create an object event handler to format phone numbers whenever a contact is updated:

[assembly: RegisterModule(typeof(MySite.CustomModule))]
namespace MySite
{
    public class CustomModule : Module
    {
        private ITwilioSmsClient twilioSmsClient;
        private readonly Regex phoneNumberRegex = new Regex("^\\+[1-9]\\d{1,14}$");
        
        // Adds any contact fields you'd like to validate here
        private readonly string[] phoneNumberColumns = new string[]
        {
            nameof(ContactInfo.ContactBusinessPhone),
            nameof(ContactInfo.ContactMobilePhone),
            "CustomPhoneColumn"
        };

        public CustomModule() : base("MyCustomModule")
        {
        }

        protected override void OnInit()
        {
            base.OnInit();

            twilioSmsClient = Service.Resolve<ITwilioSmsClient>();
            ContactInfo.TYPEINFO.Events.Insert.After += UpdateContactNumbers;
            ContactInfo.TYPEINFO.Events.Update.After += UpdateContactNumbers;
        }

        private void UpdateContactNumbers(object sender, ObjectEventArgs e)
        {
            var contact = e.Object as ContactInfo;
            var countryId = ValidationHelper.GetInteger(contact.ContactCountryID, 0);
            string countryCode = null;
            if (countryId > 0)
            {
                var contactCountry = CountryInfo.Provider.Get(countryId);
                if (contactCountry != null)
                {
                    countryCode = contactCountry.CountryTwoLetterCode;
                }
            }

            foreach (var column in phoneNumberColumns)
            {
                Task.Run(() => UpdateNumber(column, contact, countryCode));
            }
        }

        private async Task UpdateNumber(string column, ContactInfo contact, string countryCode)
        {
            var phoneNumber = contact.GetStringValue(column, String.Empty);
            if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(phoneNumber) || phoneNumberRegex.IsMatch(phoneNumber))
            {
                return;
            }

            try 
            {
                var validationResponse = await twilioSmsClient.ValidatePhoneNumberAsync(phoneNumber, countryCode);
                if (validationResponse.Valid ?? false && validationResult.PhoneNumber != null)
                {
                    contact.SetValue(column, validationResponse.PhoneNumber.ToString());
                    contact.Update();
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                // Log error...
            }
        }
    }
}

Using the API

This integration provides the ITwilioSmsClient which can be used within both the administration and live-site applications to develop advanced functionality. The client provides the following methods:

  • SendMessageAsync: Sends an SMS message to a recipient. If a "From" phone number or Messaging Service isn't provided in the parameters, the Messaging Service selected in the Settings application is used to send the SMS.
  • ValidatePhoneNumberAsync: Requests a valid E.164 phone number from Twilio's lookup service.

Sending SMS messages

The SendMessageAsync() method accepts an CreateMessageOptions object as a parameter, which should include at least the following properties:

  • To: Set in the constructor, this is the phone number of the SMS recipient.
  • Body: The text of the SMS message.

You can provide a From phone number or MessagingServiceSid to customize how the SMS is sent. If not provided, the Messaging Service chosen in Settings application > Integration > Twilio SMS is used. The returned MessageResource contains a Status property indicating whether Twilio successfully processed by Twilio. Otherwise it will be Failed.

try
{
    var options = new CreateMessageOptions(phoneNumber)
    {
        Body = "Thank you for registering. Please verify your account by clicking this link: https://yoursite.com/verify"
    };
    var result = await twilioSmsClient.SendMessageAsync(options);
    if (result.Status == MessageResource.StatusEnum.Failed)
    {
        ShowError(result.ErrorMessage);
    }
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    ShowError(ex.Message);
}

Validating phone numbers

The ValidatePhoneNumberAsync() method attempts to retrieve a valid E.164 phone number from Twilio's lookup service. The countryCode parameter should be a valid 2-letter country code such as US. If provided, a national lookup is performed. Otherwise, the international lookup is used.

The method returns a PhoneNumberResource which indicates whether the request was successful and a valid number was found. First, you should check the Valid property to see if a valid E.164 phone number was found. Then, ensure that the returned PhoneNumber is not null. The following sample code can be used to verify whether you can use the returned number:

var hasValidNumber = validationResponse.Valid ?? false && validationResponse.PhoneNumber != null;

Example: Sending multi-factor authentication passcodes via SMS

By default, if you have enabled multi-factor authentication for Kentico Xperience, your users must register a TOTP authenticator like Google Authenticator. However, it would be more convenient and faster if the passcodes were delivered straight to their phone via SMS. Fortunately, it is easy to override the authentication process by creating a custom module, as described in our documentation.

This sample code illustrates how to email the passcode to your users, so we can replace the email sending code with code from ITwilioSmsClient. To ensure the SMS is sent properly, you may want to validate the number using the ValidatePhoneNumberAsync() method, and send the passcode via email if the SMS cannot be sent:

[assembly: RegisterModule(typeof(MySite.CustomModule))]
namespace MySite
{
    public class CustomModule : Module
    {
        private ITwilioSmsClient twilioSmsClient;
        private readonly Regex phoneNumberRegex = new Regex("^\\+[1-9]\\d{1,14}$");

        public CustomModule() : base("MyCustomModule")
        {
        }

        protected override void OnInit()
        {
            base.OnInit();

            twilioSmsClient = Service.Resolve<ITwilioSmsClient>();
            SecurityEvents.MultiFactorAuthenticate.Execute += MFAuthentication_Execute;
        }

        private void MFAuthentication_Execute(object sender, AuthenticationEventArgs e)
        {
            Task.Run(() => SendPasscodeSMS(e.User, e.Passcode));
        }

        private async Task SendPasscodeSMS(UserInfo user, string passcode)
        {
            var phoneNumber = user.UserSettings.UserPhone;
            if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(phoneNumber))
            {
                // User has no phone number
                SendPasscodeEmail(user, passcode);
                return;
            }

            // Validate the phone number
            if (!phoneNumberRegex.IsMatch(phoneNumber))
            {
                try
                {
                    var validationResult = await twilioSmsClient.ValidatePhoneNumberAsync(phoneNumber);
                    if (validationResult.Valid ?? false && validationResult.PhoneNumber != null)
                    {
                        // Request found E.164 phone number, updates the user
                        phoneNumber = validationResult.PhoneNumber.ToString();
                        user.UserSettings.UserPhone = phoneNumber;
                        user.Update();
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        // Request failed or couldn't find a valid phone number
                        SendPasscodeEmail(user, passcode);
                        return;
                    }
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    SendPasscodeEmail(user, passcode);
                }
            }

            // Send the passcode
            try
            {
                var options = new CreateMessageOptions(phoneNumber)
                {
                    Body = $"Your Kentico Xperience passcode is: {passcode}"
                };
                var smsResult = await twilioSmsClient.SendMessageAsync(options);
                if (smsResult.Status == MessageResource.StatusEnum.Failed)
                {
                    // SMS send failed, fallback to email
                    SendPasscodeEmail(user, passcode);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                SendPasscodeEmail(user, passcode);
            }
        }
    }
}

Contributing

For Contributing please see CONTRIBUTING.md for more information.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.md for more information.

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