Twilio Conversations for Salesforce

Managers at a table discussing permissions for viewing agent conversations
December 08, 2022
Written by
Reviewed by
Paul Kamp
Twilion

Twilio Conversations is the backbone of text-based communication across Twilio Frontline and Twilio Flex. While both of these products provide a user interface for managers to view agent conversations, it's valuable to extend this visibility to other employees in many cases.

Twilio’s Solution Engineering Organization has created a lightweight Salesforce Lightning Component that allows Salesforce users to view the conversations between your customers and agents – with proper security controls, of course – directly from the Salesforce Contact record.

Screenshot of Twilio Conversations inside Salesforce

In this article, we will walk you through how to install and configure this package, as well as how to customize it for your organization’s needs.

This package is currently designed to work with Twilio Frontline. Additional steps will be required in order to make it compatible with Twilio Flex or another Twilio Conversations implementation.

Getting started

Twilio Conversations for Salesforce is an open source project and an unmanaged Salesforce AppExchange app. It's ready to be used out of the box but also allows you to customize as much as you'd like.

You can find the source code to the app in this Github repository.

Prerequisites

To get started you will need:

Furthermore, this application is designed to work with Twilio Frontline out of the box. If you have not implemented Frontline, you can find tutorials and quickstarts here: Get started with Twilio Frontline

Step 1: Log in to your Salesforce Environment

Log into your Salesforce environment by visiting https://login.salesforce.com/

Copy the next line and paste it into a browser tab:

https://login.salesforce.com/packaging/installPackage.apexp?p0=04t8V000001FfO4

Step 3: Install the Package

Choose the installation option that makes sense for your use-case. Install for All Users is best for testing.

Install screen for Twilio Conversations for Salesforce

Check the Yes, grant access to these third-party web sites option and then hit Continue:

Approve third party access for Twilio Conversations

Step 4: Create a Twilio API Key

Log into the Twilio Console, then click the Account menu. Navigate to API keys & tokens.

API Keys & Tokens in the Twilio Console

On the next page, click the Create API key button and create a key by filling out the fields. Save the credentials – we’ll use them in the next step.

Step 5: Add Twilio Credentials to your Salesforce environment

Log into your Salesforce environment and create a new Twilio Account record using the API key. Go to Twilio Accounts:

Find-Twilio-Account-Object

 

You’ll want to enter a Twilio Account name, your Account SID, plus the API Key SID and secret from the key you created in the previous step.

Where to enter your Twilio credentials in Salesforce

Step 6: Add the Lightning component to the Contact Record page layout

Scroll down to the bottom of the lightning widgets then drag and drop the Conversations widget onto the page.

Add the Lightning component to see Twilio Conversations

Excellent! And with that, you’re now ready to test the integration.

Test it out

Now, let’s test to make sure everything is working properly.

Step 1: Create a test Salesforce contact with your phone number

The component references the MobilePhone field on the Contact record. Essentially, it queries Twilio Conversations for a list of every conversation associated with that phone number.

By creating a contact with your mobile phone number, we will be able to see all of the conversations you have had with a Frontline user.

Step 2: Log into Frontline

Log into your Frontline account using either the Frontline mobile app or the web user interface (https://frontline.twilio.com/login)

Step 3: Start a Conversation with the Test Contact

Navigate to the Contact List page in Frontline, select your test contact, and send a message.

Send a test message in the Salesforce integration

Step 4: Refresh the Salesforce Contact Record

Go back to the Salesforce Contact Record page, refresh the page, and you should see the conversation!

Refresh the page in Salesforce to see the Conversation

Integrating Twilio Frontline and Conversations with Salesforce

And with that, you have a Salesforce integration which lets you quickly view conversations inside Twilio Frontline. We can’t wait to see how you use it!

Phil Bredeson is a Solutions Architect at Twilio.

Al Kiramoto is a Solutions Architect at Twilio. He lives in Dallas - TX and enjoys working with customers and solving business problems - besides a good barbecue and TexMex food. He can be reached at akiramoto [at] twilio.com

Natalie Huynh is a Solutions Engineer at Twilio. She is always looking for new ways to improve the customer experience through digital communication. She can be reached at nhuynh [at] twilio.com