Install Ruby, Rails, and the Plivo Ruby SDK
You must set up and install Ruby, Rails, and Plivo’s Ruby SDK before you send your first SMS message.Install Ruby
Download and install Ruby from its official site.Install Rails
Create a Rails project
Create a Rails project to autogenerate code in the Ruby on Rails folder structure.This command creates a plivotest directory with the necessary folders and files for development.Install the Plivo gem
Edit the Gemfile and add this line.$ gem 'plivo', '~> 4.25.1'
Send your first outbound SMS/MMS message
You must have a Plivo phone number to send messages to the US or Canada; you can rent a Plivo number from Phone Numbers > Buy Numbers on the Plivo console or via the Numbers API.Create a Rails controller
Run this command in the project directory.$ rails generate controller Plivo sms
$ rm app/views/plivo/sms.html.erb
include Plivo
include Plivo::Exceptions
class PlivoController < ApplicationController
def outbound
api = RestClient.new("<auth_id>","<auth_token>")
response = api.messages.create(
src:'<sender_id>',
dst:'<destination_number>',
text:'Hello, from Rails!'
)
puts response
render json: response.to_s
end
end
include Plivo
include Plivo::Exceptions
class PlivoController < ApplicationController
def outbound
api = RestClient.new("<auth_id>","<auth_token>")
response = api.messages.create(
src:'<sender_id>',
dst:'<destination_number>',
text:'Hello, MMS from Rails!',
media_urls:['https://media.giphy.com/media/26gscSULUcfKU7dHq/source.gif'],
type: "mms",
media_ids:['801c2056-33ab-499c-80ef-58b574a462a2']
)
puts response
render json: response.to_s
end
end
Note:
We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch the values from the environment variables. You can use ENV to store environment variables and fetch them when initializing the client.
Add a route
Edit config/routes.rb and change the linetoTest
Run your code.Receive your first inbound SMS/MMS message
To receive incoming messages, you must have a Plivo phone number that supports SMS; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console or by using the Numbers API.Edit the Rails controller
Edit the app/controllers/plivo_controller.rb file generated earlier and add paste this code into the PlivoController class after the outbound function.def inbound
from_number = params[:From]
to_number = params[:To]
text = params[:Text]
puts "Message received - From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, Text: #{text}"
end
def inbound
from_number = params[:From]
to_number = params[:To]
text = params[:Text]
media_url = params[:Media0]
puts "Message received - From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, Text: #{text}, Media: #{media_url}"
end
Add a route
Edit config/routes.rb and add this line after the outbound route we added earlier.Run your code.You should see your basic server application in action at /plivo/inbound/.Expose your local server to the internet
To receive incoming messages, your local server must connect with Plivo API services. For that, we recommend using ngrok, which exposes local servers running behind NATs and firewalls to the public internet over secure tunnels. Using ngrok, you can set webhooks that can talk to the Plivo server.Note: Before starting the service, add ngrok in the config.hosts list in the config/environments/development.rb file in your project. You will see Blocked host errors if you fail to do this.
# Whitelist ngrok domain
config.hosts << /[a-z0-9]+\.ngrok\.io/
Create a Plivo application to receive messages
Associate the controller you created with Plivo by creating a Plivo application. Visiting Messaging > Applications and click Add New Application. You can also use Plivo’s Application API.Give your application a name — we called ours Receive SMS. Enter the server URL you want to use (for example https://<yourdomain>.com/receive_sms/) in the Message URL field and set the method to POST. Click Create Application to save your application.Assign a Plivo number to your application
Navigate to the Numbers page and select the phone number you want to use for this application.From the Application Type drop-down, select XML Application.From the Plivo Application drop-down, select Receive SMS (the name we gave the application).Click Update Number to save.Test
Send a text message to the Plivo number you specified using any phone.Reply to an incoming SMS/MMS message
To receive incoming messages, you must have a Plivo phone number that supports SMS; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console or by using the Numbers API.Edit the Rails controller
Edit app/controllers/plivo_controller.rb file and paste this code into the PlivoController class after the inbound function we added earlier.def forward
from_number = params[:From]
to_number = params[:To]
text = params[:Text]
# send the details to generate an XML
response = Response.new
params = {
src: to_number,
dst: from_number,
}
message_body = "This is an automatic response"
response.addMessage(message_body, params)
xml = PlivoXML.new(response)
puts xml.to_xml
render xml: xml.to_xml
end
Add a route
Edit config/routes.rb and add this line after the inbound route we added earlier.If you haven’t done so already, expose your local server to the internet.Create a Plivo application to reply to messages
Associate the controller you created with Plivo by creating a Plivo application. Visiting Messaging > Applications and click Add New Application. You can also use Plivo’s Application API.Give your application a name — we called ours Reply Incoming SMS. Enter the server URL you want to use (for example http://<yourdomain>.com/replysms/) in the Message URL field and set the method to POST. Click Create Application to save your application.Assign a Plivo number to your application
Navigate to the Numbers page and select the phone number you want to use for this application.From the Application Type drop-down, select XML Application.From the Plivo Application drop-down, select Reply Incoming SMS (the name we gave the application).Click Update Number to save.Test
Send a text message to the Plivo number you specified using any phone. You should receive a reply.More use cases
We illustrate more than a dozen use cases with code for both API/XML and PHLO on our documentation pages.
