How do you handle SMS delivery notifications with Twilio API in Spring Boot?

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Configuring SMS Status Callback with Twilio in Spring Boot
  • 1. Enable Status Callbacks in Twilio API
  • 2. Create a Controller to Handle Status Callback
  • 3. Configure the Callback URL in application.properties
  • 4. Testing the Status Callback
• Practical Example: Logging Delivery Status
• Conclusion

Introduction

Handling SMS delivery notifications is crucial for ensuring that your messages reach the recipients and providing real-time feedback on the status of sent messages. Twilio provides a feature called status callbacks that allows you to track the delivery status of SMS messages. In Spring Boot, you can configure these callbacks to receive delivery notifications, which helps you manage and log SMS delivery status. This guide will walk you through how to set up and handle SMS delivery notifications using Twilio in a Spring Boot application.

Configuring SMS Status Callback with Twilio in Spring Boot

1. Enable Status Callbacks in Twilio API

Twilio allows you to configure a callback URL to receive status updates for sent messages. These status updates include various stages such as "queued," "sent," "delivered," or "failed."

To enable the status callback, you need to set the statusCallback parameter when sending an SMS message. This URL will point to a Spring Boot endpoint that will process the callback notifications.

Here's how to modify the code in the TwilioService class to include the statusCallback URL.

TwilioService.java:

2. Create a Controller to Handle Status Callback

Next, you need to create an endpoint in your Spring Boot application to handle incoming SMS delivery notifications. This endpoint will receive HTTP POST requests from Twilio with the delivery status updates.

SmsStatusController.java:

In this controller:

• MessageSid: A unique identifier for the sent message.
• MessageStatus: The current status of the message (e.g., sent, delivered, failed).
• To: The phone number to which the SMS was sent.

Twilio will send HTTP POST requests to this endpoint with parameters containing the delivery status of the message.

3. Configure the Callback URL in application.properties

Ensure that the callback URL for status notifications is correctly configured in your application.properties file.

application.properties:

You can change the URL to a production URL once the system is deployed.

4. Testing the Status Callback

Once your Spring Boot application is running, you can test the status callback functionality by sending an SMS and checking if the status updates are being received at your callback endpoint.

You can use Postman or a similar tool to simulate an SMS sent through Twilio and verify that the callback returns the correct status updates.

Example POST request:

This will simulate a "delivered" status notification for the message.

Practical Example: Logging Delivery Status

You can log the delivery status to a database or perform additional actions based on the status. For instance, you might want to notify the user if their SMS fails to deliver.

SmsStatusController.java (with logging to a database):

In this example, a repository (SmsStatusRepository) is used to save the status of the SMS messages in a database.

Conclusion

Handling SMS delivery notifications with Twilio in Spring Boot allows you to track the status of sent messages and take appropriate actions based on the delivery result. By configuring a status callback URL in your Spring Boot application, you can receive updates from Twilio about whether a message was successfully delivered or failed. You can use this information to log statuses, notify users, or perform other actions as needed, making your SMS communication more reliable and responsive.