Send and Receive SMS

Table of Contents

• Send and Receive SMS
• Description
• Bandwidth
• Environmental Variables
• Callback URLs
  • Ngrok

Description

Using a tool capable of making POST requests (Postman), send a POST request to the app's endpoint /callbacks/outbound/messaging with a json body like:

{
  "to": "+19199994444",
  "text":"Hello World!"
}

The application will text the number +19199994444 the words Hello World!. If you text your Bandwidth number you will see your text printed out to the logs.

The other two endpoints are used for handling inbound and outbound webhooks from Bandwidth. In order to use the correct endpoints, you must check the "Use multiple callback URLs" box on the application page in Dashboard. Then in Dashboard, set the INBOUND CALLBACK to /callbacks/inbound/messaging and the STATUS CALLBACK to /callbacks/outbound/messaging/status. The same can be accomplished via the Dashboard API by setting InboundCallbackUrl and OutboundCallbackUrl respectively.

Inbound callbacks are sent notifying you of a received message on a Bandwidth number, this app prints the phone numbers involved, as well as the text received. Outbound callbacks are status updates for messages sent from a Bandwidth number, this app has a dedicated response for each type of status update.

Bandwidth

In order to use the Bandwidth API users need to set up the appropriate application at the Bandwidth Dashboard and create API tokens.

To create an application log into the Bandwidth Dashboard and navigate to the Applications tab. Fill out the New Application form selecting the service (Messaging or Voice) that the application will be used for. All Bandwidth services require publicly accessible Callback URLs, for more information on how to set one up see Callback URLs.

For more information about API credentials see here

Environmental Variables

The sample app uses the below environmental variables.

BW_ACCOUNT_ID                        # Your Bandwidth Account Id
BW_USERNAME                          # Your Bandwidth API Username
BW_PASSWORD                          # Your Bandwidth API Password
BW_MESSAGING_APPLICATION_ID          # Your Messaging Application Id created in the dashboard
BW_NUMBER                            # The Bandwidth phone number involved with this application

Callback URLs

For a detailed introduction to Bandwidth Callbacks see https://dev.bandwidth.com/guides/callbacks/callbacks.html

Below are the callback paths:

• /callbacks/messageCallback

Ngrok

A simple way to set up a local callback URL for testing is to use the free tool ngrok.
After you have downloaded and installed ngrok run the following command to open a public tunnel to your port ($LOCAL_PORT)

ngrok http $LOCAL_PORT

You can view your public URL at http://127.0.0.1:{LOCAL_PORT} after ngrok is running. You can also view the status of the tunnel and requests/responses here.