What is an Action?
An automation action is a step that performs a task, activity, event, or change. Think of a action as:
When Something happens (the Trigger) and These Conditions are true, then This Event (the Action) occurs.
SmartSuite's Send SMS Message action for Twilio allow you to automatically generate a message in Twilio when conditions of your trigger are met. If you haven't already, we also recommend that you check our our articles on creating an automation and managing automations for more information about setting up new workflows.
Setup
Prerequisites
To use Twilio you will need to have an existing Twilio account. Twilio actions are part of SmartSuite's automations system, which all account types have access to. Simply click the Automations option in the Solution drop-down menu (see image below).
Note
This action requires Solution Manager permissions or the Administrator role. To learn more, please see our article on roles and permissions.
Accessing the Automations configuration interface:
Create a New Automation
Once the Solution Automations dialog is displayed, click Add Automation to begin creating an automation that will interact with Twilio.
Choose a Trigger
You will need to set up a trigger to tell the Automation when to run and which record to use as the source of data for your Twilio actions.
For example, you might be tracking user-submitted help requests in SmartSuite. If you wanted to create a new Twilio SMS message when a bug is created, you would select a When a Record is Created trigger to initiate the automation when the SmartSuite record is added.
Select the Send Message Action
After creating your automation and selecting your Trigger, you can select Twilio from the Integrations section of the Add Actions list, then click the Send SMS Message action to start configuring your message.
How to Send a Twilio SMS Message
Whenever your automation trigger fires and the conditions are met, the Twilio Send Message action will send an SMS message. Configuring it just requires a few clicks.
You will be prompted to select or connect your Twilio account. Once your account is connected, you will be able to configure your Twilio notification.
Connections to Twilio require two pieces of information:
Account ID. You can find your account ID by going to Twilio > Settings > General > API Credentials > ACCOUNT ID
Auth Token. You can find your token by going to Twilio > Settings > General > API Credentials > Auth Token
When your account is connected, you will be returned to the action configuration screen.
You can now specify the details for the SMS message you want to create. Customizable fields include:
From Phone. The number you want to send from. This is a drop-down list of numbers you have configured in the attached Twilio account.
Phone Number. The number(s) you want to send SMS messages to.
SMS Message. The message body you want to send.
When you're done, click Save Automation at the bottom-right corner of the screen to save the automation and its configuration.
Note
You will be prompted to switch the automation on. If you click Yes, switch it on the automation will be active and will trigger when its criteria are met. You can also choose to keep it off if you're not yet ready to start sending Twilio SMS messages.