Get Started with Python Using the Django Framework

When you sign up with Plivo, we give you a free trial account and free credits to experiment with and learn about our services. You can add a number to your account to start testing the full range of our voice and SMS service features. Follow these steps to get a free trial account:

Sign up with your work email address.
Check your inbox for an activation email message from Plivo. Click on the link in the message to activate your account.
Enter your mobile number to complete the phone verification step.

If you have any issues creating a Plivo account, please contact our support team for assistance. To get started, try sending an SMS message either by using our API and XML documents, or via , our visual design tool, which allows you to create message flows using an intuitive canvas and deploy them with few clicks.

Using API

Install Python, Django, and the Plivo Python SDK

You must set up and install Python, Django, and Plivo’s Python SDK before you send your first SMS message.

Install Python

Download and install Python from its official site.

Install Django and the Plivo Python SDK

Create a project directory and change into it.

$ mkdir mydjangoapp
$ cd mydjangoapp

Install Django and the Plivo Python SDK using pip.

$ pip install django plivo

We recommend that you use virtualenv to manage and segregate your Python environments, instead of using sudo with your commands and overwriting dependencies.

Send your first outbound SMS/MMS message

You must have a Plivo phone number to send messages to the US or Canada; you can rent a Plivo number from Phone Numbers > Buy Numbers on the Plivo console or via the Numbers API.

Create a Django project

Use django-admin to auto-generate code for a Django project.

$ django-admin startproject SMSProj

Create a Django app

Change to the project directory and create a Django app for outbound calls.

$ python manage.py startapp sendsms

Edit sendsms/views.py and paste into it this code.

from django.conf import settings                                                                                                                                                      
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt
import plivo

@csrf_exempt
def sendsms_response(request):

   client = plivo.RestClient(settings.<auth_id>, settings.<auth_token>)
   response = client.messages.create(
      src='<sender_id>',
      dst='<destination_number>', 
      text='Hello, from Django!')
   return HttpResponse(response)

from django.conf import settings                                                                                                                                                      
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt
import plivo

@csrf_exempt
def sendmms_response(request):

   client = plivo.RestClient(settings.PLIVO_AUTH_ID, settings.PLIVO_AUTH_TOKEN)
   response = client.messages.create(
       src='<sender_id>',
       dst='<destination_number>',
       media_ids=['801c2056-33ab-499c-80ef-58b574a462a2'],
       text='Hello, MMS from Django!',
       media_urls=['https://media.giphy.com/media/26gscSULUcfKU7dHq/source.gif'],
       type_='mms')
   return HttpResponse(response)

Replace the auth placeholders with your authentication credentials from the Plivo console. Replace the phone number placeholders with actual phone numbers in E.164 format (for example, +12025551234). In countries other than the US and Canada you can use a sender ID for the message source.

Note: We recommend that you store your credentials in the auth_id and auth_token environment variables to avoid the possibility of accidentally committing them to source control. If you do this, you can initialize the client with no arguments and Plivo will automatically fetch the values from the environment variables. You can use os.environ to store environment variables and fetch them when initializing the client.

Add a route

Create a file sendsms/urls.py and paste into it this code.

from django.conf.urls import url
from . import views
urlpatterns = [
   url(r'^$', views.sendsms_response, name='sendsms'),
]

Add a route for the sendsms app into the urls.py of your SMSProj project. Edit SMSProj/urls.py and paste into it this code.

from django.conf.urls import include, url
from django.contrib import admin

urlpatterns = [
   url(r'^sendsms/', include('sendsms.urls')),
   url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
   ]

Test

Run your code.

$ python3 manage.py runserver

Receive your first inbound SMS/MMS message

To receive incoming messages, you must have a Plivo phone number that supports SMS; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console or by using the Numbers API.

Create a Django app

Change to the project directory and create a Django app to handle incoming calls.

$ python3 manage.py startapp receivesms

Edit receivesms/views.py file and paste into it this code.

from django.conf import settings
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt
from plivo import plivoxml


@csrf_exempt
def receivesms_response(request):

    from_number = form.cleaned_data['From']
    to_number = form.cleaned_data['To']
    text = form.cleaned_data['Text']
    print 'Message received - From: %s, To: %s, Text: %s'% (from_number, to_number, text)
    return HttpResponse('Message Received')

from django.conf import settings
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt
from plivo import plivoxml


@csrf_exempt
def receivesms_response(request):

    from_number = form.cleaned_data['From']
    to_number = form.cleaned_data['To']
    text = form.cleaned_data['Text']
    media_url = form.cleaned_data['Media0']
    print 'Message received - From: %s, To: %s, Text: %s, Media: %s' % (from_number, to_number, text, media_url)
    return HttpResponse('Message Received')

Add a route

Create a file receivesms/urls.py and paste into it this code.

from django.conf.urls import url
from . import views
urlpatterns = [
   url(r'^$', views.receivesms_response, name='receivesms'),
]

Add a route for the receivesms app into the urls.py of your SMSProj project. Edit SMSProj/urls.py and paste into it this code.

from django.conf.urls import include, url
from django.contrib import admin

urlpatterns = [
   url(r'^outboundsms/', include('outboundsms.urls')),
   url(r'^receivesms/', include('receivesms.urls')),
   url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
   ]

Run your code.

$ python3 manage.py runserver

Expose your local server to the internet

To receive incoming messages, your local server must connect with Plivo API services. For that, we recommend using ngrok, which exposes local servers running behind NATs and firewalls to the public internet over secure tunnels. Using ngrok, you can set webhooks that can talk to the Plivo server.

Note: Before starting the service, add ngrok i**hosts list in the settings.py file in your project.

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['.ngrok.io']

Run ngrok on the command line, specifying the port that hosts the application on which you want to receive messages (8000 in this case):

$ ./ngrok http 8000

This starts the ngrok server on your local server. Ngrok will display a forwarding link that you can use as a webhook to access your local server over the public network.

Now people can send messages to your Plivo number.

Create a Plivo application to receive messages

Associate the controller you created with Plivo by creating a Plivo application. Visiting Messaging > Applications and click Add New Application. You can also use Plivo’s Application API.Give your application a name — we called ours Receive SMS. Enter the server URL you want to use (for example https://<yourdomain>.com/receive_sms/) in the Message URL field and set the method to POST. Click Create Application to save your application.

Assign a Plivo number to your application

Navigate to the Numbers page and select the phone number you want to use for this application.From the Application Type drop-down, select XML Application.From the Plivo Application drop-down, select Receive SMS (the name we gave the application).Click Update Number to save.

Test

Send a text message to the Plivo number you specified using any phone.

Reply to an incoming SMS/MMS message

To receive incoming messages, you must have a Plivo phone number that supports SMS; you can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console or by using the Numbers API.

Create a Django app

Change to the project directory and create a Django app to forward incoming SMS messages.

$ python manage.py startapp replysms

Edit replysms/views.py and paste into it this code.

from django.conf import settings
from django.http import HttpResponse
from django.views.decorators.csrf import csrf_exempt
from plivo import plivoxml


@csrf_exempt
def reply_response(request):

    from_number = form.cleaned_data["From"]
    to_number = form.cleaned_data["To"]
    text = form.cleaned_data["Text"]

   # send the details to generate an XML
    response = plivoxml.ResponseElement()
    response.add(
        plivoxml.MessageElement(
            'This is an automatic response',
            src=to_number,  
            dst=from_number))
    print(response.to_string())  # Prints the XML
   return HttpResponse(response.to_string(), content_type='text/xml')

Add a route

Create a file replysms/urls.py and paste into it this code.

from django.conf.urls import url
from . import views
urlpatterns = [
   url(r'^$', views.reply_response, name='replysms'),
]

Add a route for the replysms app into the urls.py of your project, SMSProj. Edit SMSProj/urls.py and paste into it this code.

from django.conf.urls import include, url
from django.contrib import admin

urlpatterns = [
   url(r'^outboundsms/', include('outboundsms.urls')),
   url(r'^receivesms/', include('receivesms.urls')),
   url(r'^replysms/', include('replysms.urls')),
   url(r'^admin/', admin.site.urls),
   ]

If you haven’t done so already, expose your local server to the internet.

Create a Plivo application to reply to messages

Associate the controller you created with Plivo by creating a Plivo application. Visiting Messaging > Applications and click Add New Application. You can also use Plivo’s Application API.Give your application a name — we called ours Reply Incoming SMS. Enter the server URL you want to use (for example http://<yourdomain>.com/replysms/) in the Message URL field and set the method to POST. Click Create Application to save your application.

Assign a Plivo number to your application

Navigate to the Numbers page and select the phone number you want to use for this application.From the Application Type drop-down, select XML Application.From the Plivo Application drop-down, select Reply Incoming SMS (the name we gave the application).Click Update Number to save.

Test

Send a text message to the Plivo number you specified using any phone. You should receive a reply.

More use cases

We illustrate more than a dozen use cases with code for both API/XML and PHLO on our documentation pages.

Documentation Index

​Sign up for a Plivo account

​Sign up with your work email address

​Install Python, Django, and the Plivo Python SDK

​Install Python

​Install Django and the Plivo Python SDK

​Send your first outbound SMS/MMS message

​Create a Django project

​Create a Django app

​Add a route

​Test

​Receive your first inbound SMS/MMS message

​Create a Django app

​Add a route

​Expose your local server to the internet

​Create a Plivo application to receive messages

​Assign a Plivo number to your application

​Test

​Reply to an incoming SMS/MMS message

​Create a Django app

​Add a route

​Create a Plivo application to reply to messages

​Assign a Plivo number to your application

​Test

​More use cases

Sign up for a Plivo account

Sign up with your work email address

Install Python, Django, and the Plivo Python SDK

Install Python

Install Django and the Plivo Python SDK

Send your first outbound SMS/MMS message

Create a Django project

Create a Django app

Add a route

Test

Receive your first inbound SMS/MMS message

Create a Django app

Add a route

Expose your local server to the internet

Create a Plivo application to receive messages

Assign a Plivo number to your application

Test

Reply to an incoming SMS/MMS message

Create a Django app

Add a route

Create a Plivo application to reply to messages

Assign a Plivo number to your application

Test

More use cases