Using Twilio with Access to send & receive text & voice messages

[isladogs]

1. Ok I'm just posting to say that I used your function and it worked out of the box. That's brilliant!

2. Sooo....how do you pick up the call log? is it the same GET as to the SMS but to the /Calls URL?

3. I see that Twilio has faxing as well. Have you seen code that can fax an Access report?

1. Excellent!!!

2. Its very similar. Easy enough to modify the SMS version for use with calls
BUT the standard call log only gives the details of number, date/time/duration.
To get the details of the message, you either need to get a transcription or a recording. Neither s difficult to do if you read the API examples but there are additional costs involved. Best to discourage voice messages if possible

3. Faxing!!!! I thought we were moving forward not reverting to old technology! Why on earth would you want to fax a report? Save as PDF and email as an attachment

I see that you are using Twimlets. Does that require the user to set it up on the Twilio account or is that just the URL that you hit with the POST message?

I'm not trying to be awkward but I coded all of this over a year ago. I really can't remember
Once again, the answers must be somewhere in the API documentation

 

[shadow9449]

3. Faxing!!!! I thought we were moving forward not reverting to old technology! Why on earth would you want to fax a report? Save as PDF and email as an attachment

I couldn't agree more but there are MANY offices, especially in the medical industry, who are stuck in the 80s and use faxing far more than email.

I'm not trying to be awkward but I coded all of this over a year ago. I really can't remember
Once again, the answers must be somewhere in the API documentation

No problem. The answer is actually in the POST statement and on the blog. It's actually a simple Twimlet that converts a URL.

 

[isladogs]

I couldn't agree more but there are MANY offices, especially in the medical industry, who are stuck in the 80s and use faxing far more than email.

A fax printer driver is supplied with Windows. Why not use that?
Around 20 years ago I used it regularly .... before email came along.

 

[shadow9449]

A fax printer driver is supplied with Windows. Why not use that?
Around 20 years ago I used it regularly .... before email came along.

Do you need a specific type of phone line or modem or does it just use the internet to send faxes? I don't know a lot about the topic.

 

[isladogs]

Do you need a specific type of phone line or modem or does it just use the internet to send faxes? I don't know a lot about the topic.

See here for more info
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Install-the-Windows-Fax-driver-or-service-to-use-Internet-Fax-in-Office-BC394947-DF2D-4A40-A249-7E891858BCE8

 

[shadow9449]

To anyone using this solution, I just want to point out one small thing:

I have a real user beta testing and she found that if she includes an ampersand in the message, anything after the & does not send as the POST command sees the & as a parameter marker. My solution is to make this simple change on the OK button (using the example from the blog post):

    Dim msg As String
    msg = Replace(Me.txtMessage.Value, "&", "%26")

That was the & is encoded properly before it's sent.

 

[isladogs]

I can see why that would happen though I've never had anyone report back a similar issue with my original code.
Possibly just luck or the fact that I use functions to build the strings??

 

[shadow9449]

I can see why that would happen though I've never had anyone report back a similar issue with my original code.
Possibly just luck or the fact that I use functions to build the strings??

1) Ampersand is not a common character. It HAPPENS to be that the company beta testing the SMS screens has an & in the company's name.

2) As far as the functions you used, if you used a URLencode function then it will convert the & and any other special characters so you might have gotten around the problem that way.

 

[isladogs]

Actually I think '&' is a common character.
At some point I'll check my code ... just in case
Thanks for the 'heads up'