By 
The mobile penetration rate in the world is currently estimated at 4.68 billion mobile phone users and according to a report by Statista, the number is projected to increase even further in 2020. This increase coupled with other factors, such as the advancement of Artificial intelligence, particularly Machine learning, and the underlying technologies such as natural language processing, has made chatbots become very popular and necessary.
What is a chatbot and why is it important?
A chatbot is a software or program that is designed to simulate conversation or chat with human users through text messages, virtual platforms integrated into websites, applications, and instant messengers.
Chatbots help to streamline and automate customer support by getting rid of tedious tasks, thereby enhancing customer experience. They also give companies room to implement new marketing ideas that can improve customer conversion rates.
In this tutorial, we are going to learn first hand …
For the longest time, the ideal way to keep track of subscribers was by creating an email list of all subscribers. However, due to the tremendous increase in the number of people using smartphones, and the introduction of Whatsapp and Whatsapp business, the tides have turned.
Whatsapp, with over 1.5 billion active users in over 180 countries has revolutionized the way people communicate and consume information. Nowadays, users prefer real-time communications that are easy to consume which WhatsApp has achieved spectacularly. Most businesses have seen the potential and are now asking their users for phone numbers instead of email addresses. According to an article from Techcrunch, by mid-2018, 3 million companies were already using the WhatsApp Business app.
In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to send a daily reminder to Whatsapp subscribers. This will be achieved by creating a Reminder app using Laravel, creating a REST …
In a business environment, audio transcripts allow for easier collaboration as transcripts are easy to distribute and store. It also helps businesses to better understand their customers, which leads to improved customer experience. Lastly, it increases accessibility, particularly to people who are hearing-impaired and non-native speakers.
At a personal level, transcripts can help one to quickly discover actionable insights and improve accuracy as there is a written record that can be referenced.
Transcribing doesn’t have to be tedious. Using automated software and tools can expedite the process, thus saving you time to focus on other important things. One tool to expedite transcribing is Twilio’s Voice API.
In this tutorial, we are going to discuss how to transcribe voicemail and send the transcript to a Slack channel using Twilio.
Getting Started
To complete this tutorial, you will need the following:
- Twilio Account
- Slack Account
- Ngrok
- PHP version 7+
- Composer …
Networking is a skill that everyone needs, especially if you are an entrepreneur or plan on being one. A strong professional connection can help take your business to the next level. Those connections can provide solutions to the complex problems you’re facing, expand your customer base, and much more. Even if you’re not an entrepreneur, networking is a proven method to career and economic advancement.
The easiest way to create this connection is by attending local events in your city and interacting with people physically. I can’t count the number of times I have googled the keywords “events near me” only to see a lot of irrelevant results, not to mention the noise of ads. The events that are relevant are either in a faraway city or in another country altogether.
In this tutorial, we are going to implement a simple app that sends daily SMS notifications of events happening …
Ever had one of those mornings when you woke up unmotivated, but read a quote and the energy returned? That is the power of positive and motivational quotes.
Motivational quotes have a way of making people feel inspired and energized. This phenomenon can be attributed to a combination of factors such as motivational psychology, wordsmithing, and self-selection.
In this tutorial, I am going to teach you how to create an app that automatically sends you motivational quotes every morning. Before we start, here is a motivational quote to uplift you as you follow along.
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers, you cannot be successful or happy.” – Norman Vincent Peale
Getting Started
To complete this tutorial, you will need the following:
Create a New …
According to Domain Name Industry Brief a report by VeriSign,a global leader in domain names and Internet security, there were approximately 342.4 million domain name registrations across all top-level domains (TLDs) by the third quarter of 2018, an increase of approximately 2.6 million compared to the second quarter of 2018. This means approximately 28000 domain names were registered per day, and recent projections show the numbers are expected to rise even further in 2019. The stakeholders in this sector, therefore, have to implement a number of systems to manage and automate the huge number of tasks and business processes involved. Domain name sellers, resellers, domain name managers and even individual users need to get domain name related notifications in a timely and reliable manner to efficiently manage their domains.
In this tutorial, we are going to discuss how to send domain name renewal and expiry notifications in Vanilla PHP using …
There are a number of ways to record calls with Twilio. Whichever method you decide to use, it is very important to keep the storage space used below the chargeable limit to prevent added cost. To achieve this, you need to backup up and delete your voice recording occasionally. Storage over 10,000 minutes per project is billed by the minute, once a month.
In this tutorial, we are going to discuss how to automate recordings management with recording status callback, download recordings programmatically via the REST API, save the recordings in Dropbox and finally delete the recordings programmatically via the REST API.
Prerequisites
You will need the following technologies and tools:
- Twilio Account
- Dropbox account
- Composer globally installed
- Ngrok
- PHP development environment Laravel
To follow along, you should have a basic understanding of PHP. Knowledge of the Laravel framework is not required. You can choose to use any other …
Having a task manager is very crucial for any company or team. It ensures that tasks are kept in one place with priority given to the most important tasks while also improving team collaboration. Asana is one of the best online task managers in the market due to its ease of use in managing teams, projects, and daily tasks online.
However, with our “on-the-go” lives, it’s possible for a situation to arise that requires us to create tasks without access to either the Asana web or mobile app. In this tutorial, we will discuss how to create tasks in Asana using Twilio SMS and Laravel when an internet connection isn’t available.
Prerequisites
To complete this tutorial, you will need:
- A Twilio account
- Asana account
- Composer globally installed
- Ngrok
- PHP development environment
Set Up PHP Development Environment
If you don't have one already, you’ll need to install a fresh Laravel application. …
Introduction
Currently, the only way to get Asana project notifications is either by email or from within their app. With limited push notification support, your team members are likely to get overrun by email alerts sent and miss important project updates. Any developer or project manager knows that missed notifications can result in missed deadlines which turns into broken confidence of clients. Therefore, it is important to figure out alternative ways of sending out important notifications.
In this tutorial, we are going to discuss how to send SMS notifications to project members when an Asana task is created, completed or comment on.
Requirements
- Twilio account
- Asana account
- Automate.io account
- Composer globally installed
- Ngrok
- PHP development environment with Laravel
Set Up Laravel Project
If you don't have one already installed, you’ll need to install a fresh Laravel application. A guide on how to set up Laravel can be found in …
Introduction
As a business entity, you will always get SMS from customers seeking support, giving you feedback, filing complaints or even sending compliments. Because notifications can become overwhelming, it helps to consolidate all the SMS in one central place for easier reference.
In this tutorial, we will automatically forward SMS sent to a Twilio number to a slack channel using a webhook implemented in Laravel.
Requirements
- PHP environment
- Twilio account
- Slack account
- Ngrok
- Composer globally installed
Set Up a New Laravel Project
If you don't have one already set up, we’ll need to install a fresh Laravel application. A guide on how to set up Laravel can be found in the official Laravel documentation.
We also need to install the Twilio SDK for PHP in our project. In your terminal, navigate to the project directory and run the following command:
$ composer require twilio/sdk