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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://plivo.com/docs/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

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Overview

This guide shows how to receive SMS text messages on a Plivo phone number. Typical use cases for receiving messages include opt-in and opt-out messages and other customer interactions. You can start receiving SMS messages either by using our PHLO visual workflow builder or our APIs. Follow the instructions in one of the tabs below.
Here’s how to use Plivo APIs to receive SMS text messages.

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How it works

Receive SMS

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Prerequisites

To get started, you need a Plivo account — sign up with your work email address if you don’t have one already. 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. If this is your first time using Plivo APIs, follow our instructions to set up a Ruby development environment.

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Create a Rails controller to receive messages

Change to the project directory and run this command to create a Rails controller for inbound messages.
$ rails generate controller Plivo sms
This command generates a controller named plivo_controller in the app/controllers/ directory and a respective view in app/views/plivo. We can delete the view as we don’t need it.
$ rm app/views/plivo/sms.html.erb
Edit the app/controllers/plivo_controller.rb file and paste this code into the PlivoController class.
include Plivo
include Plivo::XML
include Plivo::Exceptions

class PlivoController < ApplicationController
 def inbound
    from_number = params[:From]
      to_number = params[:To]
      text = params[:Text]
      puts "Message received - From: #{from_number}, To: #{to_number}, Text: #{text}"
    end
end

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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.
Create Application

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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.
Assign Phone Number to Receive SMS App

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Test

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