Twilio Releases: Q4 2020

Verify adds supports for user verification via Push

Twilio Verify adds Push-based verification (authentication), expanding upon its existing SMS, Voice, and Email channels. With this addition, you can add a secure, cost-effective, and low-friction user verification feature into your own Android or iOS mobile app, without requiring a phone number or email from your users.

Learn more here.
 

Conversations API is now Generally Available! 

We are excited to announce that the Twilio Conversations API is now Generally Available!

Twilio Conversations is a single API for scalable, multiparty conversations across channels. Regardless of whether your clients communicate via web or in-app chat, in WhatsApp conversations, or over native group texting, the Conversations API reduces development time and helps you to deliver a superior customer experience.

In addition to meeting Twilio’s SLA standards for GA products, there’s a ton of new functionality packed into this release. You can read about all of the new features on the Twilio Blog, including dedicated Conversations SDKs for all three platforms – JS, iOS and Android – with support for Delivery Receipts.

We’re also now able to support compliant healthcare use cases for chat and SMS channels that contain protected health information (PHI) for organizations that are subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). 

Head to the updated Docs and start integrating Conversations into your communication flow. We just cannot wait to see what you build!
 

Control your Flex application DevOps with the Flex Plugins CLI 

The Flex Plugins CLI (Command Line Interface) is the new interface for developing, testing, and releasing plugins. It accelerates your plugin development by automating the key workflows you'll use while customizing Flex for your users. 

With the Flex Plugins CLI developers can:

• Build new plugins - Start with a blank slate, or build from a template. Access all of Flex’s frontend programmability to customize the UI.
• Deploy and release plugin versions - Define plugin versions to track incremental updates to your customer experience. Deploy updates for each of your plugins individually, or bundle all of your updates together in a single release.
• Manage your version and release history - All of the updates to your plugin versions are tracked as a history of releases. Use this history to quickly identify and track changes in your application, and select a prior configuration to re-release in the event of an issue with your users.

Head over to the installation guide to get started and our migration guide to adopt the Flex Plugins CLI for your existing plugins.
 

Admins can now use Plugins Dashboard to manage their Flex plugins and releases 

Admins in Flex can now manage their plugins, view the history of plugin releases, and rollback to prior deployments. This provides visibility and control of your application's version outside of a developer's command line interface.
 

To get started with the Plugins Dashboard, you must first migrate any existing plugins to use the new Flex Plugins CLI. Review our migration guide and dashboard user guide for more details.

Announcing Video WebRTC Go 

Twilio Video WebRTC Go is a new product offering that allows developers to build and operate 1:1 WebRTC based applications for free. This developer package provides the infrastructure components (signaling, TURN, logging, & diagnostics) required to run WebRTC applications in production. Participant minutes are free and the 25 GB/month of TURN server usage ensures enough relay support for roughly 100K minutes. To learn more, visit the documentation here.  

In addition, a new one-on-one UI layout has been added to the Twilio Video quick deploy apps to support the new WebRTC Go Rooms and provide developers with a clean, modern visual design. Developers can now specify the desired Room type (group, peer-to-peer, or go) when building the quick deploy video app via the Twilio CLI RTC plugin. All the source code for the apps is available here:

• Web - https://github.com/twilio/twilio-video-app-react
• iOS - https://github.com/twilio/twilio-video-app-ios
• Android - https://github.com/twilio/twilio-video-app-android

For additional information about WebRTC Go and details on the new Video troubleshooting tools visit our blog post.
 

Deletable Regulatory Objects in the Twilio web Console and Public API 

Twilio is releasing Deletable Regulatory Objects to make regulatory information management easier. This new functionality allows customers to delete unwanted Regulatory Bundles, Supporting Documents, and End-Users from the Twilio web Console and the Public API.
 

Voice Insights for Branded Calls and SHAKEN/STIR Verified Calls 

Voice Insights now contains information about Branded Calls and SHAKEN/STIR attestation, and allows for filtering and aggregation based on these values in the Dashboard.

Branded call and verified call answer rate is available as a subgraph in the Connection Rate section. This allows you to compare the answer rate for branded/verified calls against the answer rate for non-branded/non-verified calls.

Additionally, the Voice Insights Dashboard has new top-level filter options that allow you to filter results based on whether a call was branded or had a verified caller ID. 

Note that if no branded calls are placed on an account these options will not be present. At least one branded or verified call needs to have been placed in the timeframe for which the Dashboard has been filtered.

For more information, see the docs.