Bot Framework Twilio With Multiple Numbers

Question

I have a bot that I've built that's running on the Azure Bot Service with a Twilio Channel. I'm sending Proactive activities via my Twilio channel. Everything is working fine. I just got a request that a customer wants to have their own phone number. I would like to just have 1 bot service running but have multiple Twilio phone numbers go into this.

My thought was that I could setup an API service which would then be the incoming message call back / webhook from Twilio which then would use the Directline API to the Bot Framework. It would essentially just replace the https://sms.botframework.com/api/sms service. The problem is that I'm not sure I could still have the proactive messages working - it seems like the Directline 3.0 API works only when a conversation is started first with it.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this if this would work or have any other ideas?

Thanks

ranusharao ranusharao · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-21T20:51:27

Yes, the approach which you mentioned above would be ideal. Each Web App Bot/Bot Channels Registration can only be associated with one Twilio number. I will elaborate on the steps which you mentioned above:

Create a server running the Twilio SMS API code which forwards the messages to the bot via the DirectLine API. The user sends a message to this server.
For every activity sent to the bot, make sure to include the number: Activity.ChannelData = new { fromNumber: <123-456-7890> }. The Server forwards the message to the bot.
You will need to re-attach the fromNumber to the bot's outgoing activity so that your Twilio API server knows where to send the outgoing message to. The Bot sends the reply to the server.
The Twilio API server sends Activity.Text to the user. The Server forwards message from bot to user.

For the proactive messages part, you can add a conversation property to the address param, and set the id to the user's phone number.

Example:

bot.beginDialog(
  {
    user: { id: '+1234567890' },
    bot: { id: '+9876543210' },
    conversation: { id: '+1234567890' },
    channelId: 'sms',
    serviceUrl: 'https://sms.botframework.com'
  },
);

Hope this helps.

Bot Framework Twilio With Multiple Numbers

1 Answers