Send & Wait For Reply

Description:

Send & Wait For Reply allows you to send an outgoing message, wait for a reply, and collect the user’s response. Use this Widget to collect replies to your messages, such as a YES to confirm an appointment or answering survey questions. You can also configure a timeout to wait for the response, after which we will assume "No Reply" and transition accordingly. You can use this to send a followup reminder message, trigger an outgoing voice call, or update your database with no response.

Required Configuration

Name	Description	Default
Message Body	The text of the message to send.
Send Message From	The “from” number -- choose one from Phone Number, MessagingServiceSid, OTT Id	Flow Default `flow.channel.address`
Stop Gathering After	The number of seconds to wait for a reply. Best practice is to limit the timeout to 4 hours or less. The entire Execution cannot live longer than 30 days due to our data retention policy.	`3600 seconds`

Optional Configuration

Name	Description	Default
Media URL	The URL of the media you wish you send out with the message (i.e. `https://demo.twilio.com/owl.png`)
Programmable Chat Service	Only applies for Flows working with Twilio Programmable Chat. A Chat service is where all the Channels, Messages, Users and other resources within a Chat deployment live. See the Chat Services REST API docs for more information.	`trigger.message.InstanceSid`
Programmable Chat Channel	Only applies for Flows working with Twilio Programmable Chat. Channels are the center of all chat activity within a Chat Service. Chat messages are sent to a particular channel. See the Chat Channels REST API docs for more information.	`trigger.message.ChannelSid`
Message Attributes	Only applies for Flows working with Twilio Programmable Chat. An optional string metadata field you can use to store any data you wish along with the sent message. The string value must contain structurally valid JSON if specified. See the Chat Messages REST API docs for more information.

Using Programmable Chat:

Messages from a user in a Programmable Chat Channel can be received by Studio and responded to using the Send & Wait for Reply widget. To enable incoming Chat messages, add the Studio Flow's webhook URL as a Chat Channel webhook.

Example:

curl -X POST https://chat.twilio.com/v2/Services/ISxxxxxxxx/Channels/CHxxxxxxxxxx/Webhooks \
--data-urlencode "Type=studio" \
--data-urlencode "Configuration.FlowSid=FWxxxxxxxxx" \
-u ACCOUNT_SID:AUTH_TOKEN

New messages posted in the Chat Channel will create a new Studio Execution, enabling the Studio Flow to interact with the Chat user.

Variables:

The following variables will be added to the Execution context (where MY_WIDGET_NAME is the name of your actual widget):

outbound [The message Studio sent to the user]:

Sid	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.outbound.Sid`
To	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.outbound.To`
From	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.outbound.From`
Body	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.outbound.Body`
Status	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.outbound.Status`
ErrorCode	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.outbound.ErrorCode`
ErrorMessage	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.outbound.ErrorMessage`

inbound [The response message the user sent back to Studio]:

Sid	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.inbound.Sid`
To	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.inbound.To`
From	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.inbound.From`
Body	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.inbound.Body`
MediaUrl{N}	`widgets.MY_WIDGET_NAME.inbound.MediaUrl0` If more than one media element is indicated by NumMedia than MediaUrl{N} will be used, where N is the zero-based index of the Media (e.g. `MediaUrl0`)

Need some help?

We all do sometimes; code is hard. Get help now from our support team, or lean on the wisdom of the crowd browsing the Twilio tag on Stack Overflow.

Thanks for rating this page!

Need some help?