Simple Spark API Playground implementation using Twilio API

This is a implementation of Simple Spark API Playground using Twilio to send SMS and make voice calls

Resources

Simple Spark API Playground as base project: https://github.com/benjagra/simple-spark-api-playground
How to send a SMS in Java: https://www.twilio.com/docs/sms/quickstart/java
How to make a voice call in Java: https://www.twilio.com/docs/voice/quickstart/java

Dependencies added

We added below dependencies to the base project:

    <dependency>
      <groupId>io.github.cdimascio</groupId>
      <artifactId>java-dotenv</artifactId>
      <version>5.0.0</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.twilio.sdk</groupId>
      <artifactId>twilio</artifactId>
      <version>8.25.1</version>
    </dependency>

Setup

Twilio sign up process: https://www.twilio.com/docs/usage/tutorials/how-to-use-your-free-trial-account#sign-up-for-your-free-twilio-trial
Buy a Twilio phone nomber: https://www.twilio.com/docs/usage/tutorials/how-to-use-your-free-trial-account#get-your-first-twilio-phone-number

Environment Variables

For a better usage of environment variables we are including dotenv. This will imply using dotenv.get("...") instead of Java's System.getenv(...).

To configure dotenv create a .env file in the root of your project including your Twilio details:

# formatted as key=value
ACCOUNT_SID=YOUR_ACCOUNT_SID_HERE
AUTH_TOKEN=YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN_HERE
MY_PHONE=YOUR_PHONE_HERE
TWILIO_PHONE=YOUR_TWILIO_PHONE_HERE

Accessing the properties in your code is as easy as this:

Dotenv dotenv = Dotenv.load();
dotenv.get("ACCOUNT_SID")

Make sure you are not uploading your Twilio credentials to your public repositories following this guide: https://www.twilio.com/docs/usage/secure-credentials

Implementation

Override the endpoing available in Main Class to expose your own implementation of sending a SMS and making a Voice call and modify the html page to update the endpoints URI if that has change.

Better Logging

We are including a log4j2.xml configuration file inside /src/main/resources and a Logger implementation for a cleaner logs management.

public class Main {
  private static final Logger LOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger(Main.class);

Fixing stuff

For a better understanding of any possible error calling Twilio API through the SDK we are catching any possible error.

      try {
        Twilio.init(ACCOUNT_SID, AUTH_TOKEN);
        // Twilio actions
      } catch (Exception  exception){
          LOG.error(exception.getMessage());
      }

In addition, in case of error could be helpful using Twilio's Debug tools available in the Console.

Problems with VOICE calls During the demo we found an error while trying to make voice call and looking into the logs this is the error message:

com.twilio.exception.ApiException: Account not authorized to call +34661709879. Perhaps you need to enable some international permissions: https://www.twilio.com/console/voice/calls/geo-permissions/low-risk
	at com.twilio.rest.api.v2010.account.CallCreator.create(CallCreator.java:761)
	at com.twilio.rest.api.v2010.account.CallCreator.create(CallCreator.java:26)

And this seems that some international call destinations are by default disabled and this is the our case when trying to call from our US phone to a ES phone. To enable Spain as destination we should navigate here: https://www.twilio.com/console/voice/calls/geo-permissions/low-risk. Search for Spain in the search box and make sure is enabled, if it is not the case enable it and save. See image below.

Credits

This project has been inspired by there two:

benjagm / simple-spark-api-playground-twilio