Important
This project has been retired and archived
If there is a need of continued use / development of this project for your own needs please feel free to fork the project - which will remain here in archived form.
The Vonage SMS connector enables a Teneo bot to communicate with users by receiving and sending SMS messages. This Node.js connector acts as middleware between Vonage SMS API and a Teneo bot to implement SMS communication with persisting state and conversational position. Visit Vonage for more information.
Your bot needs to be published and you need to know the engine url.
A Vonage account with a 'Virtual Phone Number' configured in it. The steps to setup the account, configure Billing, and buying a virtual number are described ahead.
Important: Adding funds is required to buy a 'Virtual Phone Number'. €10 will suffice to purchase a number and send many SMS messages.
To run the connector locally, ngrok is preferred to make the connector available via HTTPS.
To setup communication by SMS between a Teneo bot and Vonage's SMS API follow these steps:
- Register an account here.
- Set up Billing From your new account's dashboard, open Billing and Payment. Set up a payment method and add €10 to your funds. This should be enough to purchase a virtual SMS phone number for around 2€ or €4, and send many SMS messages for a few cents each. Pricing varies per country.
- Buy a 'Virtual Phone Number'
Open the Buy Number section your Vonage dashboard.
Select your country to obtain cheaper rates, set 'Features' to
SMS
, set Type toMobile
, and click 'Search'. Choose a number from the list, clickBuy
. Note: The process of buying virtual phone numbers may vary across countries. - Ensure that the
HTTP Method
in Vonage's Default SMS Settings is set to 'POST'.
You could run the connector locally or to deploy it on a server of your choice. This is preferred if you're familiar with node.js development and want to have a closer look at the code, or implement modifications and enhancements.
The local deployment of this connector allows you to enhance and modify its functionality. To run the connector locally, follow these steps:
- Download or clone the connector source code:
git clone https://github.com/artificialsolutions/tie-api-example-vonage-sms.git && cd tie-api-example-vonage-sms
- Install dependencies by running the following command in the folder where you stored the source:
npm install
- Create a file called
.env
in thetie-api-example-Vonage-sms
folder. Replace the dummy URL with Teneo Engine URL of your bot. "API key" and "API Secret" are found in SettingsTENEO_ENGINE_URL=<your_engine_url> NEXMO_API_KEY=<your API key> NEXMO_API_SECRET=<your API Secret 1> NEXMO_NUMBER=<Virtual Phone Number in E.164 format>
- Start the connector:
node server.js
Next, we need to make the connector available via https. We'll use ngrok for this.
- Start ngrok. The connector runs on port 1337 by default, so we need to start ngrok like this:
ngrok http 1337
- Running the command above will display a public https URL. Copy it, we will use it as a
Incoming Webhook URL
in the step below. - Inside your Vonage account's dashboard, navigate to the Virtual Phone Number you purchased in the previous step, and click on
Manage
. Paste the public https URL provided by ngrok in theInbound Webhook URL
field and append it will/teneochat
. It should look something like this: https://abcd1234.ngrok.io/teneochat. - Also Update your Vonage sms settings under Build & Manage -> API Settings, change Webhook format from a
GET
to aPOST
That's it! Text your Virtual Phone Number with a mobile phone, and the Teneo bot will send an SMS reply!