Link Twilio to Back On Stage (Enable SMS Text Messages for Your Company)

Integrating your Back On Stage company with your Twilio account will enable your company to send SMS (text message) notification to your team members, including members (musicians, crew, etc.) and admins.

To get started, you will need to:

1. Create a Twilio account
2. Obtain a Twilio account SID, Auth Token and Twilio Phone Number
3. Obtain your Twilio API Key and API Secret Key
4. Take your Twilio account out of "Trial" mode
5. Configure which notifications to send via SMS inside Notification Control Center
6. Have your company members verify their phone numbers inside BOS

See below for detailed instructions for each step.

Twilio is a messaging service provider that handles integrations with the world's mobile telephone carriers. Back On Stage can send notifications to your Twilio account and Twilio will send them via SMS to your recipients. 

Now you can send gig offers to your bandmates, message your team on gig day, get notified of new leads or client payments, and so much more, all through blazingly fast and super-convenient SMS messages.

Your Twilio account will be a separate service from your Back On Stage account, and there are fees associated with sending SMS messages through Twilio. You will need to verify your Twilio account and provide a payment method to "preload" your account with enough credits to be able to send SMS messages.

Pricing depends on your country, but usually starts around USD $0.0079/msg. Twilio offers convenient "Recharge" options so that your messages will never fail to send due to your account balance running out.

See below for instructions on setting up your Twilio account.

To enable SMS notifications within any company that you own inside Back On Stage, you must first have the "Text Message Notifications" add-on feature enabled on your account. Then, you'll need to follow the instructions below to link your BOS company to Twilio.

Go to twilio.com to create your free trial account.

In this process, you'll need to verify your email, and our phone number. Then, you'll be asked what you plan to use Twilio for. You can answer like this:

When you created your Twilio account, you will have started your free trial by default. In trial mode, you can only send SMS messages to verified numbers inside your Twilio account. By default, this means only your own phone number, since you verified this with Twilio while setting up your account.

Before you can send messages to all your company admins and members, you need to upgrade your Twilio account to a paid account and enter your billing information.

In your Twilio account, click the "Upgrade" link at the top-left:

Next, follow the steps to add your address and tax information.

Now, fund your account and choose if you'd like to automatically "Recharge" your balance when it runs low.

We recommend automatically recharging your balance so that you never miss important texts from your BOS account.

You're done!

You should see a "Congratulations" screen informing you that your payment was successful and your account is ready.

From your account console, click “Phone Numbers” on the sidebar, then “Buy A Number”. Search for a phone number based on your desired area code, and click “Buy”.

NOTE: These numbers are charged per month. 

For a more detailed tutorial on buying a number, please visit this Twilio tutorial page.

Once your purchase is successful, there will be a popup that says, “Number Purchased” which confirms your order.

Next, click on “Regulatory Compliance”, then “A2P 10DLC Overview”, then “Continue Registration” within the “You have an unfinished A2P 10DLC registration” section. 

Clicking this will lead you to a form. Fill them in as so:

• Brand name → Your company name
• Vertical → Entertainment
• Mobile phone number → Your personal phone number

For more details on filling out this section, please visit this Twilio tutorial from the sub-heading “Provide campaign details” to “Finalize your campaign registration”. 

When you continue, Twilio will prompt you to reply to their text message for verification.

Click “Continue” until you reach “Campaign Registration”. 

Fill the form as so: 

• Available A2P Campaign use cases → Sole Proprietor
• Messaging Service → Create new Messaging Service
• Campaign description: Notifications send to company members for work-related events.
• Sample message #1: Reuben Avery assigned a task to you: Follow up on invoice and contract again. View it in Back n Stage: https://backonstage.app/usermgmt/bookings/booking-page?123123
• Sample message #2: GIG OFFER: Reuben, Reuben would like to book you for 31-Mar-2023. For details and to respond: https://backonstage.app/4TjrqguoVfw.. Offer expiry: 02d 23h 59m.
• Message Contents → Messages will include embedded links.
• How do end users consent to receive messages?: They opt-in through a phone number verification process inside Back On Stage app. 

  
  

In case you are asked to provide any more details about the opt-in/opt-out process, here are the steps a user goes through to opt-in to SMS messages inside Back On Stage:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Now, back to your Twilio setup...

Once finished, you will reach a page that shows a summary of the information you provided. Click "Register Phone Numbers" on the sidebar, choose the number you purchased, and click “Register”.

Scroll down on your Console to find your Account SID and Auth Token.

Inside your Back On Stage account, navigate to Company Settings > Details > Twilio Settings. 

Copy and paste the corresponding values from your Twilio account into their matching fields inside Back On Stage.

Note: You will need to input these details inside any/all companies you own inside Back On Stage if you wish to use SMS notifications inside that company.

Return to Twilio and navigate to Account > API Keys & Tokens

Next, click "Create API Key"

And give your key a nickname. Something like "Back On Stage App" will do just fine.

On the next screen, you'll be shown your SID and Secret. Your SID is your "Api Key" inside Back On Stage, and your Secret is your "Api Secret Key". Copy and paste these values into your Back On Stage company Twilio settings.

Hit "Save & Close" to save the Twilio settings in Back On Stage. Now you're ready to send SMS notifications!

Now you can freely send SMS messages from within your BOS account. But before your admins and members can receive them, there's one more step...

Before your company can send SMS messages to your team members and admins, each recipient must verify their phone number inside their Back On Stage account. This step is required so that we can ensure the integrity of our notifications platform and so that you don't mistakenly send gig offers and other important company information to unintended recipients. 

The phone number verification process is easy. Anyone who signed up to Back On Stage after March 13, 2023 will likely already be verified since verification after that date became part of our sign up process.

For anyone who joined Back On Stage prior to March 13 2023, they can visit their profile page by clicking on the profile icon in the top-right, and selecting "Manage Profile". 

Inside their personal profile, they must click on "Verify My Phone Number" and follow the prompts.

NOTE: Even company admins must complete phone number verification before they can receive any SMS notifications. 

You can control which notifications are sent via SMS within your Back On Stage account. Just go to Company Settings > Notification Control Center.

There, you will find a complete list of all the system-generated notification messages. You can customize each one to your liking, and you can select if particular notifications should be sent via email, SMS, neither or both.

SMS costs from Twilio will depend on your country and the number of SMS messages you send. 

You can monitor the messages being sent inside your Twilio account by navigating to your account console and clicking on Messaging > Overview. 

You can monitor the costs of those messages by navigating to your Twilio Billing > Usage Summary: