Plivo Messaging App

This application usings Plivo's messaging APIs to send and receive text messages from a host web application.

Frontend

Repo: https://github.com/gwhitlock8/plivo_app_frontend

Technologies:

Built using create-react-app: https://www.npmjs.com/package/create-react-app

• React: https://www.npmjs.com/package/react
• React DOM: https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-dom
• Boostrap React: https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-bootstrap
• ActionCable: https://www.npmjs.com/package/actioncable
• Axios: https://www.npmjs.com/package/axios
• Plivo: https://www.npmjs.com/package/plivo

Backend

Repo: https://github.com/gwhitlock8/plivo_app_backend

Technologies:

• Ruby on Rails: https://rubyonrails.org/
• Plivo: https://rubygems.org/gems/plivo
• Active Model Serializers: https://rubygems.org/gems/active_model_serializers
• Phonelib: https://rubygems.org/gems/phonelib

Note: Ruby version is 2.6.3 and Postgres version is 1.2.3

Other Technologies:

• ngrok: https://ngrok.com/

Setup Instructions

After cloning both the front and backend repos, please follow the steps listed below to get the application up and running:

1. Create Plivo trial account at https://www.plivo.com/ and follow the instructions after clicking the Get Started button.

• You will need to buy a phone, create an XML application (see step 5) and link it to the number, and then pre-register any numbers for which you wish to send text messages to

2. From the terminal, navigate to the root directory of the backend repo and run the following command:

bundle install

3. Create a .env file in the backend root directory and enter your Plivo variables, using the following format:

export PLIVO_AUTH_ID=
export PLIVO_AUTH_TOKEN=
export PLIVO_PHONE_NUMBER=

4. In the terminal, type the following command (you will need to have ngrok installed - please run brew cask install ngrok to do so):

ngrok http 3001

This will create a tunnel to your local host on port 3001. Grab the URL from the terminal (sans http://) and paste the following before the last end of your config/environments/development.rb file:

config.hosts << "[NGROK URL]"

5. Navigate to the Plivo dashboard and create a new XML application, linking it to your Plivo phone number. Within the application, paste the ngrok URL in the Message URL field, ensuring that POST is selected in the dropdown. The URL should look similar to this: http://c80bd249.ngrok.io/webhooks/plivo

6. Create and migrate the database then start your server by running the following in the root folder of the app backend:

rails db:create
rails db:migrate
rails s -p 3001

The -p flag starts the server on port 3001

7. Now navigate to the root folder of the frontend repo and run:

npm install
npm run start