Text messages (SMS)

Connect a Twilio phone number, and text messages customers send to it arrive in Conversations. Your team replies from there, and the replies go out as SMS from the same number.

Before you start

• Who can do it: owners and administrators of the company.
• Plan: available when your plan includes Conversations inbox and Text message channel. The number of connected channels is a plan limit.
• A pipeline: new contacts get a deal in the stage you choose. See Deals and pipelines.
• A Twilio account with a phone number that can send and receive SMS in your customers' countries. Messages are paid to Twilio, not through Rutba CRM.

Step 1: get three values from Twilio

1. Sign in to the Twilio Console.
2. On the account's home page, copy the Account SID (it starts with AC) and the Auth token.
3. Under Phone Numbers → Manage → Active numbers, note the number in international form.

Step 2: add the channel

1. In the sidebar open Conversations, then click Channels.
2. Open Connect Text messages and fill in:

3. Click Add channel. The card shows a Webhook address.

Step 3: tell Twilio where to deliver

1. In the Twilio Console open Phone Numbers → Manage → Active numbers and click your number.
2. In the messaging configuration, for A message comes in, choose Webhook.
3. Paste the Webhook address exactly as shown, choose HTTP POST, and save.

Twilio signs each delivery with your Auth token and the exact address. Any change to the address, even an added parameter, makes the signature fail.

Step 4: test it

1. From your mobile phone, send a text to the Twilio number.
2. In Conversations, the conversation appears. If a contact already has your phone number, the conversation joins that contact; otherwise a new contact and a deal are created.
3. Reply from the conversation. The SMS arrives on your phone.

Good to know

• Matching by phone: like WhatsApp, a text is matched to an existing contact by phone number, so a customer who writes on both channels stays one contact.
• No reply window: you can reply at any time.
• Text only: files cannot be sent on this channel, and pictures sent to the number are not received.
• Calls: the Call button on a contact opens your phone's dialler. There is no calling or call recording inside Rutba CRM.
• Changing the Auth token in Twilio stops the channel, because the token cannot be changed in an existing channel and deliveries are checked against it. Plan token changes with the platform's support.

Troubleshooting