TextSupport

##Objective Build a back-end that serves as a go-between between a Tech Support chat and SMS messaging via Twilio.

###The Twilio Node Library twilio-node is a nicely packaged code library that interacts with the Twilio REST API. Rather than using a library like request and making HTTP calls, the makers of twilio-node have abstracted much of the HTTP work out of the equation. You'll find a similar pattern with many other REST APIs.

###Firebase We'll use Firebase for syncing our back-end. After the Database portion of class, you'll be able to construct your own back-end. For now, Firebase will be a good go-between.

##Step 1: Prepare the Back-end Make sure you have a Twilio account set up and that you have your account ID and AuthToken ready.

Install twilio as a dependency
Install firebase as a dependency
Create a server.js file that uses express and serves static files out of a /public directory. Create a simple index.html file in your public directory and test your server.js file to make sure static files are being served.
Make sure you have express and body-parser installed as dependencies and are using bodyParser.json() as middleware
Create an account with Zapier.
Create a new project in Firebase for TextSupport.

##Step 2: Make Twilio -> Zapier -> Firebase trigger We'll use Firebase and a service called Zapier to detect new requests to our TextSupport system.

Require the firebase library.
Create a new Firebase reference to your projet in Node. (One of the cool things about Firebase is that they have the exact same APIs for Javascript, whether front-end or back.) The url should be:

https://<my-app-name>.firebaseio.com/numbers

Create a new "zap" on Zapier that triggers when a SMS is sent to your Twilio number. Have the trigger cause a new Firebase child to be added to /numbers.

When matching up the Twilio SMS with the Firebase child record, you can use something like this:

You can either have the entire Twilio SMS object sent, or just save the fields you need, like From, Date Sent and Body

Test your server.js file and your Zap using the "Test this Zap" section of the Zap editor. If all goes well, you should be able to see your message data added to Firebase when the Zap is tested.

##Step 3: Start Front-end

Create an Angular project in your /public directory. Let's start with a few ngRoutes:

####/ This will be a static template that will display the Twilio phone number and instructions on how to contact TextSupport. It could look something like this:

Let's have the otherwise catch-all point to this route as well.

####/support This will be the route that will show all numbers and their conversations. When you're finished, it should look something like this:

Set up a controller and a template for this route.
In the controller, point a scope variable to a $firebase-wrapped object for the /numbers url in your Firebase Forge. (Don't forget to include AngularFire in your index.html and inject the dependencies in app.js and your controller).
In the template, ng-repeat over numbers to show all the conversations for a number. Then ng-repeat over each message for that number.

Remember, Firebase is storing all of this information as objects, not arrays. So it will be much more helpful for you to use the object syntax for ng-repeat:

ng-repeat="(key, val) in object"

This will help you retrieve the phone number.

##Step 4: Add "reply" ability Now we'll make it so that messages sent from our dashboard will be saved in Firebase and sent to the user.

Let's start by creating an API endpoint in our server.js:

####POST /support/messages/ Using the twilio-node API, make it so that any POST sent to the above endpoint with will send a text to the originating number. You should probably pass the "to" number in the POST JSON data.

Once the text has been sent successfully, add the record to the Firebase collection. You might consider marking support messages differently than user messages in Firebase. That way your interface could make it a little easier to distinguish outgoing from incoming messages. Maybe like this:

Now, add in front-end necessary (including a service) for a support agent to reply to the conversation.

##Step 5: Add resources endpoint For our final step, we'll make some resources that will be easy to send to our customers who are needing support. We'll start by making a server-side endpoint:

####GET /support/resources/:resource_name

This endpoint will take a resource_name and return a support resource. If the resource_name matches one of the resources we've created, we'll return the file. If it doesn't match, we'll return a 404 (not found) page.

Use this list as your resource list
- terms-and-conditions (download here)
- cease-and-desist (download here)
- helpful-infographic (download here)

Download these files into your /public directory.

When serving these files based on an endpoint, use the sendFile method found on the Express response object. Here's a SO answer that can help: http://stackoverflow.com/a/11569297/1160485

For the 404 page, make a clever 404 page and serve it up if the resource_name doesn't match one of those found above.

Contributions

If you see a problem or a typo, please fork, make the necessary changes, and create a pull request so we can review your changes and merge them into the master repo and branch.

Copyright

© DevMountain LLC, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from DevMountain, LLC is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to DevMountain with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

hanthom/TextSupport

TextSupport

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