Why would you use Notify? Notify enables your organization (with a Twilio account) to send notifications using text and voice messages. You can have bi-directional notifications with workflows in place to get your Notify working with incoming phone calls and text messages handled by your instance.
What can you find here? Below are two examples which helps you understand the basics of having users who communicate their preferences via SMS or phone calls. For these examples I have used two phone numbers and two workflows. |  |
When you have your Notify configured with phone numbers, they should be linked with a specific number of groups.
Since the communication is bi-directional and via text or call, you can assign a maximum of 4 workflows in each number group.
In my setup I have one workflow active for handling any incoming calls on a local phone number.
For text messages, I'm using an American number for incoming SMS because this number can also reply via SMS to numbers in multiple countries.
How did I make this happen?
I set this up in the Orchestration Workflows. There is no need to work with Twilio or add additional functionality in your instance.
With the steps below you have the basics information you need on how to get this working.
In my instance I have the US number that is being used for the incoming text messages and this number can send SMS message to my Dutch mobile.
I am using as my local number (the +31 number) to test the incoming phone calls.
Within the Number Group, I have two workflows assigned where one is for incoming calls and the other is for receiving SMS. Each one will be discussed below starting with the call flow.
1) An example workflow for incoming calls in a Service Desk call center
The main part of the workflow is the menu option which has 4 options which are leveraging the standard core activities that are part of Notify.
- The first option leads the caller to general information recording that lets the caller know when the opening hours are.
- The second option is a call forward to give the caller an option to be redirected in case they need a different service desk.
- The third option gives the caller an option to leave a voice message and have a member of the service desk call them back.
- The final option is that the caller stays in the call to be directed to a member of the service desk.
These options are tracked by the Input functionality which in my case is tracking 1 digit with a delay of 20 seconds. For each workflow condition, you can compare the input from the caller which is saved on the scratchpad.
This scratchpad is storing the input from the caller. In the first step the user is able to enter an priority level which will be stored and can be used throughout the workflow or when logging the incoming call and this case is presented back to the caller via the say functionality.
If you don't want to use the automated say functionality you can add recordings to be played during the phone call.
In the final option of the main menu I have added the functionality to have a WAV file played to the caller.
2) The incoming SMS message can be used for requests from users who have no data connection on their mobile.
In this workflow you can add your scripts to handle the information the user is texting:
for example you can have users enter an email address and have the system lookup if the user exists. This is useful in making sure that the user confirms their identify.
Tthe number from which the SMS was received is also stored you can build in the authentication that requires both email address and specific phone number or the system does will block the requests.
Let's look into what could be relevant use cases for SMS messages.
You can have your users send certain texts or codes which align with specific requests. This message is stored as the current.body.trim(); and with an if statement you can check what the request is.
You can have your users send certain texts or codes which align with specific requests.
This message is stored as the current.body.trim(); and with an if statement you can check what the request is.
You could build an "Activate Roaming" solution for users who are limited by their data plan outside their country.
Have the user send an SMS with "active roaming" and build the workflow to approve a notification or request for an additional data plan.
You could build an workflow with approvals or notifications to colleagues. "Out of office" can be used in case the user has no access to the systems and wishes to have everybody be aware of this via an out of office message. This offers multiple ways of using the text functionality to request information when there is no internet connection.
