Twilio Service [Deprecated]

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Overview

Configuration Parameters
Service Actions
Incoming Webhooks
Configuration
Request Payload
Example Webhook Function
Configure Twilio
Create a Messaging Service
Add a Webhook to a Twilio Project

Atlas Device Sync, Atlas Edge Server, Data API, and HTTPS Endpoints are deprecated. Refer to the deprecation page for details.

Important

Third Party Services & Push Notifications Deprecation

Third party services and push notifications in App Services have been deprecated in favor of creating HTTP endpoints that use external dependencies in functions.

Webhooks have been renamed to HTTPS Endpoints with no change in behavior. You should migrate existing Webhooks.

Existing services will continue to work until September 30, 2025.

Because third party services and push notifications are now deprecated, they have been removed by default from the App Services UI. If you need to manage an existing third party service or push notification, you can add the configurations back to the UI by doing the following:

In the left navigation, under the Manage section, click App Settings.
Enable the toggle switch next to Temporarily Re-Enable 3rd Party Services, and then save your changes.

Overview

Twilio provides messaging, voice, and chat services for web and mobile apps. The Atlas App Services Twilio service supports integrating Twilio's Programmable SMS service into your application.

To send an outbound text message, use the send() action.
To handle and optionally respond to incoming text messages, create an incoming webhook and add it to a Twilio messaging service. See the incoming webhooks section on this page for an example.

Note

To use Twilio with App Services, you must have a Twilio Phone Number registered to a messaging service associated with your Twilio account. You can create a new number from the Numbers page of the Twilio dashboard, or by following Twilio's Programmable SMS Quickstart guide.

Configuration Parameters

You will need to provide values for the following parameters when you create a Twilio service interface:

<Service Name>/config.json

{
  "name": "<Service Name>",
  "type": "twilio",
  "config": {
    "sid": <Twilio Account SID>
  },
  "secret_config": {
    "auth_token": "<Secret Name>"
  }
}

Parameter	Description
Service Name config.name	The name of this Twilio service interface. This must be unique from all other service interfaces in your application.
Twilio Account SID config.sid	A unique identifier for your Twilio account. You can find this value on your Twilio account dashboard.
Twilio Authorization Token secret_config.auth_token	The name of a Secret that stores a Twilio authorization token, which proves that you are the owner of a Twilio account. You can find this value on your Twilio account dashboard.

Service Actions

The Twilio service in App Services provides the following actions which are available in functions and in the SDKs:

For instructions on using a service action, see Call a Service Action.

Action	Description
`twilio.send()`	Sends a text message to a specified phone number.

Incoming Webhooks

Note

Convert Twilio Webhooks to Endpoints

Twilio Service webhoooks are deprecated in favor of custom HTTPS endpoints. To learn how to migrate your existing Twilio webhooks to endpoints, see Convert Webhooks to HTTPS Endpoints.

Incoming webhooks for the Twilio service enable your App to handle incoming text messages. Once you've created an incoming webhook, you can add it to a Twilio messaging service to handle incoming messages for that service.

Configuration

You will need to provide values for the following parameters when you create a Twilio incoming webhook:

You will need to provide a configuration file of the following form when you create a Twilio incoming webhook:

{
  "name": <string>,
  "respond_result": <boolean>,
  "run_as_user_id": <string>,
  "run_as_user_id_script_source": <string>,
}

Configuration Value	Description
Webhook Name name	Required. The name of the webhook. Note Each incoming webhook in a Twilio service interface must have a unique name.
Respond With Result respond_result	Required. If `true`, App Services sends the return value of the webhook function to Twilio in the response body. Note Twilio will automatically send a text message containing the webhook response's body to the phone number that sent the initial message.
Run Webhook As run_as_user_id run_as_user_id_script_source	Optional. The id of the App Services user that executes the webhook function when the webhook is called. There are three ways to configure the execution user: System: The execution user is the system user, which has full access to MongoDB CRUD and Aggregation APIs and bypasses all rules and schema validation. User Id: You select a specific application user to execute the function. Script: You define a function that returns the `id` of the execution user. You can specify the user id directly in `run_as_user_id` or provide a stringified Atlas Function that accepts the webhook payload and returns the user id in `run_as_user_id_script_source`. If you do not specify a specific user id or a function that resolves to a user id, App Services executes the webhook function as the system user that has full access to MongoDB CRUD and Aggregation APIs and bypasses all rules and schema validation.

Request Payload

App Services automatically passes a payload document as the first argument to incoming webhook functions. In a Twilio Service incoming webhook the payload object represents an incoming SMS message and has the following form:

{
   "From": "<Sender's Phone Number>",
   "To":   "<Receiver's Phone Number>",
   "Body": "<SMS Body>"
}

Field	Description
`From`	A string that contains the E.164-formatted phone number that sent the incoming text message.
`To`	A string that contains the E.164-formatted phone number associated with your Twilio messaging service that the incoming text message was sent to.
`Body`	A string that contains the content of the incoming text message.

Example

A text message sent from the phone number (555)867-5309 to the Twilio phone number (805)716-6646 with the message "Hello! How are you?" would be represented by the following payload document:

{
  "From": "+15558675309",
  "To": "+18057166646",
  "Body": "Hello! How are you?"
}

Example Webhook Function

The following webhook function stores text messages sent to a Twilio phone number in a MongoDB collection and sends a text message response to the phone number that sent the text.

exports = async function(payload, response) {
  // const { To, From, Body } = payload;
  const mongodb = context.services.get("mongodb-atlas");
  const texts = mongodb.db("demo").collection("texts");
  try {
    // Save the text message body, to number, and from number
    const { insertedId } = await texts.insertOne(payload);
    // Send the user a confirmation text message
    response.setBody(`Saved your text message with _id: ${insertedId}`);
  } catch (error) {
    // Send the user an error notification text message
    response.setBody(`Failed to save your text message: ${error}`);
  }
}

Configure Twilio

Create a Messaging Service

Log in to Twilio.
Click Programmable SMS in the left navigation menu of your Twilio project.
Click SMS > Messaging Services.
Click Create new Messaging Service.
Enter a Friendly Name and Use Case
Click Create

Add a Webhook to a Twilio Project

Click Programmable SMS in the left navigation menu of your Twilio project.
Click SMS > Messaging Services.
Click the messaging service that you want to use.
On the messaging service configuration page, check the PROCESS INBOUND MESSAGES box.
Enter the incoming webhook URL in the Request URL box.
Click Save.

Your App is now integrated with Twilio's SMS messaging service. Send a message to your Twilio phone number to invoke the incoming webhook for your App.

Back

http.head()

Twilio.send()