The Twilio cloud platform offers a number of useful communications solutions, but is mainly focused on developers. Due to this nature, many third party (non-Twilio) companies have built applications to streamline the experience for end users. In this article, you'll find helpful tips and policies for supporting third party applications and services.
What Does "Third Party" Mean?
We use the term "third party" to describe any application or service that utilized Twilio's services, but was built by another non-Twilio company. These products may be used to facilitate communications like phone calls, sending SMS/MMS messages, video calling, live chat, and more. Here are some common examples:
- CRMs like Agile, Zoho, vTiger CRM, Hubspot, etc.
- Automation and integration services like Zapier, Microsoft Flow, IFTTT, etc.
- Digital marketing services like ClickFunnels
- Photo Booth software like Social Booth, dslrBooth, Sparkbooth, etc.
- PBX and SBC hardware/software for SIP trunking like Asterisk, 3CX, Free PBX, etc.
- Cisco WiFi
- And more
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. If you had to download and/or purchase non-Twilio software, or are required to pay another non-Twilio service provider, then chances are you're using a third party product.
What do third party applications commonly need to work with Twilio?
In order to use these applications and services, you will likely need the following three pieces of Twilio-supplied information:
- A Twilio Account SID and Auth Token: The Account SID and project Auth Token serve as your API access credentials; you get these automatically when signing up for a Twilio account. Find them under "Project Info" in the Twilio Console.
- A Twilio phone number: Free with a trial account, but needs to be picked out. For help getting a number, see our article here.
Please note that Elastic SIP Trunks require some addition configuration. For more information, please see our Elastic SIP Trunking setup guide.
General Troubleshooting
If you are using a third party application and you are experience problems like call quality issues, dropped calls, undelivered SMS messages, dropped video calls, etc., you may be able to troubleshoot some of these issues yourself.
If you have your own Twilio account, you can login to Console, and check a number of locations for possible issues:
- Check the Console Dashboard to make sure your account is active and has a positive balance.
- Check Console Settings to verify you're using the correct live account Account SID and Auth Token credentials.
- Check the Phone Numbers page, and make sure you're using a valid phone number on your account, with the correct formatting, and that you have valid webhooks for receiving calls and SMS messages.
- Check the Debugger to look for recent issues and errors on your account.
- Check the Call logs and/or SMS logs to verify your requests were received and processed.
- Check Twilio's Status page to make sure there are no issues our outages affecting your service.
If you do not manage your own Twilio account, we recommend that you start by contacting the support team of the third party application. They will then be able to contact Twilio support directly with information about their software that is not available to end users, which will aid in our diagnosis and resolution of the problem.
Further Support
Outside of your Twilio account status and service troubleshooting, our help is likely to be limited. We are unable to provide support for any third party applications or products for issues like account status, and instructions on how to use or configure these products. Since you're a Twilio customer, and we want you to be successful, we must refer you to the application or service vendor to help answer these questions. They are in the best position to provide you timely and accurate information about the use and configuration of their application.