CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jstwilio
user2133623
user2133623

Reputation:

Twilio Functions - post data from multiple sms messages?

I have a function that posts the content from an incoming sms message to a third party api. So, a customer sends us a message and Twilio posts the message to the api. But, I want to add an extra step. So, when a user sends us a message, I want Twilio to reply asking for an email then post the message along with the email from the second message to the api. Unless we get that second message, nothing should be posted to the api. Any ideas on how to do something like that?

I was looking through the docs and saw something about the Message instance resource but I'm not sure if that will do it.

const https = require('https');

exports.handler = function(context, event, callback) {
    let twiml = new Twilio.twiml.MessagingResponse();
    twiml.message("Your message has been recieved.");

    let postData = JSON.stringify({
        ....
    });

    let postOptions = {
        ...
    };

    let req = https.request(postOptions, function(res) {
        res.setEncoding('utf8');
        res.on('data', function(chunk) {
            console.log(chunk);
            callback(null, twiml);
        });
    });

    req.write(postData);
    req.end();
};

Upvotes: 0

Views: 265

Answers (1)

philnash
philnash

Reputation: 73055

Twilio developer evangelist here.

In order to take two steps like that, you'd need to save the message from the first message somewhere while you wait for the second message. Since the second message will come in via a new HTTP request, you can't save this within a function anywhere, you'd want to use some sort of third party store. Then you'd write your function to check for the existence of the first message in that store, if it exists, then send both messages to the API, if it doesn't then store the first message and respond to the user with your second question.

Alternatively, you could use the Twilio API to look up all the previous messages that the user has sent to you. If there are no previous messages, then this is definitely the first message they have sent. If there is a previous message then you need to determine whether it was an initiating message for this conversation, possibly by how long ago it was or a heuristic on the content, and then decide whether to send both the messages on to your API or ask for the next response.

Let me know if that helps at all.

Upvotes: 1

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