Create Tasks from Phone Calls using TwiML: Receive an Incoming Call

We've seen how to create Tasks using the TaskRouter REST API and how to accept a Task Reservation using both the REST API and Assignment Callback instructions. TaskRouter also introduces new TwiML instructions that you can use to create a Task from a Twilio phone call.

To receive an incoming phone call, we first need a Twilio phone number. In this example we'll use a US toll-free number, but you can use a Voice capable number from any country.

Before purchasing or setting up the phone number, we need to add on to our run.py to handle incoming calls:

run.py

1# -*- coding: latin-1 -*-
2
3from flask import Flask, request, Response
4from twilio.rest import Client
5from twilio.twiml.voice_response import VoiceResponse
6
7app = Flask(__name__)
8
9# Your Account Sid and Auth Token from twilio.com/user/account
10account_sid = "{{ account_sid }}"
11auth_token  = "{{ auth_token }}"
12workspace_sid = "{{ workspace_sid }}"
13workflow_sid = "{{ workflow_sid }}"
14
15client = Client(account_sid, auth_token)
16
17@app.route("/assignment_callback", methods=['GET', 'POST'])
18def assignment_callback():
19    """Respond to assignment callbacks with an acceptance and 200 response"""
20
21     ret = '{"instruction": "accept"}'
22    resp = Response(response=ret, status=200, mimetype='application/json')
23    return resp
24
25@app.route("/create_task", methods=['GET', 'POST'])
26def create_task():
27    """Creating a Task"""
28    task = client.workspaces(workspace_sid) \
29                 .tasks.create(workflow_sid=workflow_sid,
30                               attributes='{"selected_language":"es"}')
31
32    print(task.attributes)
33    resp = Response({}, status=200, mimetype='application/json')
34    return resp
35
36@app.route("/accept_reservation", methods=['GET', 'POST'])
37def accept_reservation(task_sid, reservation_sid):
38    """Accepting a Reservation"""
39    task_sid = request.args.get('task_sid')
40    reservation_sid = request.args.get('reservation_sid')
41
42    reservation = client.workspaces(workspace_sid) \
43                        .tasks(task_sid) \
44                        .reservations(reservation_sid) \
45                        .update(reservation_status='accepted')
46
47    print(reservation.reservation_status)
48    print(reservation.worker_name)
49
50    resp = Response({}, status=200, mimetype='application/json')
51    return resp
52
53@app.route("/incoming_call", methods=['GET', 'POST'])
54def incoming_call():
55    """Respond to incoming requests."""
56
57    resp = VoiceResponse()
58    with resp.gather(numDigits=1, action="/enqueue_call", method="POST", timeout=5) as g:
59        g.say("Para Español oprime el uno.", language='es')
60        g.say("For English, please hold or press two.", language='en')
61
62    return str(resp)
63
64if __name__ == "__main__":
65    app.run(debug=True)

You can use the Buy Numbers section of the Twilio Voice and Messaging web portal to purchase a new phone number, or use an existing Twilio phone number. Open the phone number details page and point the Voice Request URL at your new endpoint:

TaskRouter Quickstart showing phone number properties and request URLs for voice and messaging.

Using any phone, call the Twilio number. You will be prompted to press one for Spanish or two for English. However, when you press a digit, you'll hear an error message. That's because our <Gather> verb is pointing to another endpoint, enqueue_call, which we haven't implemented yet. In the next step we'll add the required endpoint and use it to create a new Task based on the language selected by the caller.

Next: Create a Task using Enqueue »