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Channels
Channels are how you engage with your contacts. You can add channels to communicate over Facebook Messenger, Twitter, SMS, phone calls, and more.
Introduction to Channels
Channels allow you to send and receive messages or phone calls through your account. You can connect as many channels to your account as you want. Channel Types Available channel types include Aggregators (SMS & Voice), Android Phone (SMS), Facebook Messenger, the Nyaruka Surveyor Android apps, Telegram and Twitter.
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Setting a Contact's Preferred Channel
Default Behavior By default, we will match contacts with channels using the following criteria: If you have multiple channels of the same type connected to your account, the channel that the contact last initiated contact with will be prioritized. Contacts can be locked-in to a relationship with a specific channel (they'll only receive messages from this channel) under these
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Adding a Twilio Messaging Service
Twilio recently optimized its platform to accommodate programmatic SMS messaging at scale. This upgrade allows for the creation of a messaging service, which enables you to dedicate multiple local Twilio numbers to a single channel, and improve SMS delivery with phone number intelligence via the Programmable SMS features available
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Introduction to Telegram Channels
Telegram channels give you access to a super-fast, simple and free platform used by over 500 million people around the world through any mobile device. Telegram is a cloud-based instant messaging service - similar to WhatsApp and WeChat - with a focus on speed, openness and security. It's open source and encrypted end-to-end, meaning that all data sent and received via Telegram cannot be deciphered when intercepted by your
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Connect your Android phone
Connect your Android phone Our platform uses your Android phone to send and receive messages on your behalf. Due to restrictions Android has on applications that send SMS messages, we cannot distribute our applications through the Play Store. You will need to download the application manually and install it using the steps below. Download App On your Android device, open your browser and download the app by entering the URL: https://textit.com/android/
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Using an Android phone as a Channel
We understand that deploying SMS applications has traditionally been one of the trickiest parts when launching ICT4D projects. In fact, it's the primary reason we created our platform in the first place. It's also why we developed our Nyaruka Android applications. Click here to see how to download the app. It's simple: when your account sends a message, it notifies your Android phone. The phone will then send the message out from your local
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Integrating Using the External Channel API
Although we provide integrations with dozens of various aggregators such as Twilio, Vonage and others, you may need to integrate with other systems. Our External Channel API makes this quick and easy. Here are the steps: Go to your account page by clicking your account name in the upper right then click the drop down and select "Add Channel". On the next page, select "Ext
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Using a Bulk Sender
If you want to send more than the 330 messages/hour allotted by the Nyaruka Android applications, you can enable a bulk sender like Vonage (previously Nexmo) to send messages on your Android channel's behalf. Vonage will enable you to send bulk messages in over 200 countries while providing an intelligent routing scheme to guarantee message del
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Add a Facebook Page to Create a Messenger Channel
Facebook has updated their integration policies, so you can now easily connect a Facebook page to create a Messenger channel in just moments. If you've already integrated a bot under Facebook's old policies, then you do not need to take any further action. Your channel will continue to work as always. Add a Page Go to your Workspace Settings page and click the 'Add Channel' button.  (zh_HK) * Chinese (TAI) (zh_TW) * English (UK)
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Adding a Telegram Channel
You can add a Telegram channel just like you would any other channel: simply log-in to your account with us, navigate to the Add Channel page, and select the Telegram option at the bottom of the page: You'll be asked to enter an authentication token from your Telegram Bot, which is provided after you create it in Telegram. You will nee
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Adding a Twilio Number
To send and receive messages through a Twilio channel, you'll need to create a Twilio account and purchase a virtual number and connect it to your TextIt account. We recommend purchasing a toll-free number ($2/month) if you're deploying in the US or Canada. NOTE: Trial virtual numbers provided by Twilio are not sufficient for testing- they will not allow for sending or receiving real messages. If you'd like to test your flows prior to committing to a Twilio n
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Adding Channels
You can add a channel to your workspace by navigating to your account settings page. Simply click the name of your workspace in the top right corner then click the add channel button. Questions about channel types? Check out our Introduction to Channels article. Need to know how to add a specific type of channel? Head over t
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Removing a Channel
To remove a channel from your account: Go to your account page by clicking the link to your account page in the top right corner of your screen, then click the channel you want to remove. In the selected channel's performance page, click the ☰ menu icon and select the "Remove" option. ![](https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/f3625d750845d800
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Triggering a Flow When a Contact Initiates a Conversation
When a person starts a new conversation with your bot, you can set expectations with a get started flow to kickoff the experience. To create your conversation trigger, simply navigate to your account's Triggers page and click "Create Trigger" Then, click the 'Start a flow when a conversation is started by a contact' trigger:  by using a Split by Expression action using the @channel.name expression. In the following example, we're setting our flow to run over a Telegram channel: Here's how we set up the Split by Expression action: . Accordingly, we released a Facebook Messenger channel that will allow you to leverage our visual, comprehensive drag-and-drop interface to build and deploy your own Mess
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Restricting Sending to International Numbers
Your channel's phone number may automatically allow sending messages to international numbers, which could cause carrier or aggregator fees to add up. To avoid international messaging charges, you can choose to restrict sending. First, navigate to your account page and scroll down to the phone number you'd like to restrict: On the following page, click on the ☰ menu icon and se
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Connecting your Twitter Account
To create a Twitter bot, you'll first need to apply for access to the Twitter APIs for direct messaging. The application process is short and you will need to explain the purpose for you bot and the functionality you will provide. Note that you can apply at any level, a Sandbox account is sufficient if you only plan on having your bot work with a single account. Once you have received approval for you developer account, Twitter will sen
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Introduction to Twitter Channels
In addition to voice and SMS, we allow you to apply our unique workflow engine to Twitter direct message interactions. Twitter workflows are useful for greeting new followers or polling pre-existing ones. Moreover, they allow you to engage constituents or clients who are active on a platform that serves 320 million monthly active users, 80% of which access the platform via a mobile phone. UNICEF's U-Report program, for exampl
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Adding a Voice Enabled Vonage Number
Nexmo is now Vonage! Follow these steps to add a voice-enabled number to your workspace.
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Managing Opt-Outs on Twilio Channels
Opt-outs are common among SMS and IVR services. According to the TCPA, your contacts should have the ability to do so at any time. Use this guide to learn how to track and manage these contacts via Twilio and your Nyaruka account. How Twilio Manages Opt-outs When a contact sends STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END or QUIT to one of your Twilio numbers, Twilio will prevent them from receiving any additional messages until that contact responds START. Specifically, they'll receive the
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Twilio Supported Countries for Two-Way SMS
Twilio two-way SMS messages allow you to carry on a conversation by both sending and receiving text messages. See more about using two-way SMS via Twilio here. While not complete, the list of [Twilio's supported countries](https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223183068-Twilio-international-phone-number-availability-and-their-capabili
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Creating a Twitter Flow
Twitter Flows are created just like SMS Flows. Simply select "Messaging" from the creation dialogue, then start building. Note that Twitter direct messages are no longer limited to 140 characters, so you can ignore the Send Message character counter: 