Twilio Sample App Template

About

Use Twilio to create automatic appointment reminders for your business's clients.

Read the full tutorial here!

Implementations in other languages:

.NET	Java	Ruby	PHP	NodeJS
Done	Done	Done	Done	Done

Set up

Requirements

• Python version >= 3.6.x.
• ChromeDriver for the Selenium tests. Ensure the chromedriver executable is on the OS path. For Linux/Mac the easiest way to do this is to install it through the OS package manager:
  • Mac:

    brew install --cask chromedriver

  • Ubuntu:

    sudo apt-get install chromium-chromedriver
    sudo ln -s /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromedriver /usr/bin/chromedriver

• Redis as its task queue.
• A Twilio account - sign up

Twilio Account Settings

This application should give you a ready-made starting point for writing your own appointment reminder application. Before we begin, we need to collect all the config values we need to run the application:

Config Value	Description
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID	Your primary Twilio account identifier - find this in the Console.
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN	Used to authenticate - just like the above, you'll find this here.
TWILIO_PHONE_NUMBER	A Twilio phone number in E.164 format - you can get one here

Local development

After the above requirements have been met:

1. Clone this repository and cd into it.

   git clone https://github.com/TwilioDevEd/appointment-reminders-django.git
   cd appointment-reminders-django

2. Create a virtual environment, activate it and install dependencies.

   make install

3. Set your environment variables.

   cp .env.example .env

   See Twilio Account Settings to locate the necessary environment variables.

4. Run migrations.

   make serve-setup

5. Configure pre-commit hooks.

   pre-commit install

6. Run the application.

   make serve

   This will start a development server on port 8000. It will reload whenever you change any files.

This project uses Dramatiq to asynchronously send SMS reminders to users. To start the Dramatiq process:

7. Start Redis.

8. Start a new terminal session and activate your virtual environment.

9. Open a new terminal session and start Dramatiq worker with the command:

   make start-dramatiq

10. Navigate to http://localhost:8000/.

That's it!

Docker

If you have Docker already installed on your machine, you can use our docker-compose.yml to setup your project.

1. Make sure you have the project cloned.
2. Setup the .env file as outlined in the Local Development steps.
3. Run docker-compose up.

Tests

NOTE: Be sure you have Google Chrome installed with the same version as the chromedriver installed earlier. Usually it's the latest version.

You can run the tests locally by typing:

python3 manage.py test

Cloud deployment

Additionally to trying out this application locally, you can deploy it to a variety of host services. Here is a small selection of them.

Please be aware that some of these might charge you for the usage or might make the source code for this application visible to the public. When in doubt research the respective hosting service first.

Service
Heroku

Some notes:

• For Heroku, please check this to properly configure the project for deployment.

Cloud deployment

Additionally to trying out this application locally, you can deploy it to a variety of host services. Here is a small selection of them.

Please be aware that some of these might charge you for the usage or might make the source code for this application visible to the public. When in doubt research the respective hosting service first.

Service
Heroku

Resources

• The CodeExchange repository can be found here.

Contributing

This template is open source and welcomes contributions. All contributions are subject to our Code of Conduct.

Visit the project on GitHub

License

MIT

Disclaimer

No warranty expressed or implied. Software is as is.