How to send bulk sms from asp.net mvc application

Question

I am creating asp,net MVC application, one of the requirements is to send bulk sms from cell numbers stored in in database. I got Twilio Send SMS Messages in C# and .NET via REST API, but i have no idea how to use this in MVC, Here is the code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Twilio;
using Twilio.Rest.Api.V2010.Account;
using Twilio.Types;

namespace Quickstart
{
class SmsSender
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        const string accountSid = "ACXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX";
        const string authToken = "your_auth_token";

        TwilioClient.Init(accountSid, authToken);

        var people = new Dictionary<string, string>() {
            {"+14158675309", "Curious George"},
            {"+14158675310", "Boots"},
            {"+14158675311", "Virgil"}
        };

        // Iterate over all our friends
        foreach (var person in people)
        {
            // Send a new outgoing SMS by POSTing to the Messages resource
            MessageResource.Create(
                from: new PhoneNumber("555-555-5555"), // From number, must be an SMS-enabled Twilio number
                to: new PhoneNumber(person.Key), // To number, if using Sandbox see note above
                // Message content
                body: $"Hey {person.Value} Monkey Party at 6PM. Bring Bananas!");

            Console.WriteLine($"Sent message to {person.Value}");
        }
    }
}

}

I will appreciate your assistance.

jon.r · Answer 1 · 2017-11-01T14:46:58.687

Gather users from database so you have a collection of phone numbers associated with given users, existing user is an object that contains information about what you're texting. You can customize this to your needs.

Instead of a static dictionary like:

var people = new Dictionary<string, string>() {
            {"+14158675309", "Curious George"},
            {"+14158675310", "Boots"},
            {"+14158675311", "Virgil"}
        };

You can make a database call like this:

 SMSNotifier notifier = new SMSNotifier();
 var doctorsToNotify = db.AspNetUsers.Where(x => x.ReceiveSMS == true && x.AspNetUserRoles.Any(y => y.RoleId == "1")).ToList();

Here you loop through your 'bulk' users:

            foreach (AspNetUser dr in doctorsToNotify)
            {
                await notifier.SendWaitingPatientNotification(existingUser, dr.Phone);
            }

Notifier Class (edit 'xxxxxxx' to have the phone number Twilio provided):

 public class SMSNotifier
    {
        public SMSNotifier()
        {
            var accountSid = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TwilioSid"];
            // Your Auth Token from twilio.com/console
            var authToken = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TwilioToken"]; ;

            TwilioClient.Init(accountSid, authToken);
        }

        public async Task SendWaitingPatientNotification(AspNetUser user, string phonenumber)
        {
            var message = await MessageResource.CreateAsync(
             to: new PhoneNumber("+1" + phonenumber),
             from: new PhoneNumber("+xxxxxxxxxx"),
             body: string.Format("Patient {0} {1} has entered the waiting room at {2}. Please visit the patient queue to see patient.", user.FirstName, user.LastName, DateTime.Now.ToString()));

        }
    }

I store the API sid and token in the web config file and retrieve it using the ConfigurationManager. Let me know if you need more help.

How to send bulk sms from asp.net mvc application

1 Answers1