Telerivet’s new Developer Platform is here! We’re excited to launch our new and improved APIs and developer tools, which make it easier than ever for developers to build custom mobile messaging services and automate their SMS communication anywhere in the world.
Over the past two years, thousands of organizations and developers have already built amazing messaging services with Telerivet’s platform — from e-commerce marketplaces communicating with buyers and sellers, to microfinance institutions communicating with borrowers and lenders, to logistics companies communicating with GPS tracking devices, to radio stations collecting opinions from their listeners.
Now we’re ready to take mobile messaging APIs to a whole new level.
New Cloud Script API
Telerivet’s Cloud Script API is a complete rethinking of the way mobile messaging services can be built.
When using a traditional SMS gateway API, you need to run code on your own servers. In order to run your own servers, you’ll need to get a domain name, configure DNS servers, get a hosting provider, install web servers, databases, and other tools, and set up a local development environment. Many businesses and organizations that want to create a mobile messaging service don’t have the technical expertise to do all this. The barriers to entry are too high. Even expert developers can be bogged down by setting up and managing servers.
That’s why we created Telerivet’s Cloud Script API. It’s a development platform that lets you create mobile messaging services simply by writing a few lines of JavaScript in your web browser — and it’s designed to be easy to use by novice programmers, while still being powerful and flexible for expert developers.
The code runs entirely on Telerivet’s cloud servers, so developers don’t need to set up any servers or development environments — eliminating the technical overhead that prevents many people from creating their own solutions.
The types of services developers can build with the Cloud Script API are endless. For example, in just a few lines of JavaScript, you can build SMS services to:
- Look up the current price of Bitcoin
- Submit structured data for election monitoring
- Register contact information
- Get a weather forecast
- Search your contacts database
To learn more and to try out the new Cloud Script API, visit https://telerivet.com/api/script
Updates to REST API and Webhook API
Don’t worry, even with the new Cloud Script API, we’re not neglecting those of you who prefer to run code on your own servers.
Telerivet has always had a REST API for sending messages from your own application or website, and a Webhook API to notify your server when new messages are received.
But we’ve talked to many developers who want to do more than just send and receive SMS — and everyone wants to do something different.
Some want to add signup forms on their website that let people subscribe to their SMS campaigns. Others want to build custom dashboards to display their poll statistics. Some want to monitor their Android phones from their own application. Others want to use Telerivet as their application’s primary data store.
Thanks to all your feature requests and ideas, we’ve made hundreds of improvements to the REST API and Webhook API:
New API documentation
You should really check it out. Everything is documented in precise detail with code examples in several programming languages. We also have new Quick-Start Tutorials so you can get to the good stuff without having to read the entire reference.
Dozens of new API methods and data fields
Send messages to groups. Update contact information. Insert variables into SMS messages. Store custom data. Send SMS polls and calculate statistics. Get the current status of your Android phone. Export M-PESA receipts (hello, Kenya!). And lots more.
Client libraries for PHP, Python, Ruby, Node.js, and Java
No need to write all the code yourself — we’ve already done it for you.
To learn more about the updated APIs, visit the REST API and Webhook API documentation.
New 3rd-Party Integrations
Thanks to Telerivet’s new integrations with popular third-party software, even non-developers can take advantage of Telerivet’s APIs.
By using Telerivet with Zapier, anyone can connect Telerivet to hundreds of other web apps, including Google Docs, Dropbox, Facebook Pages, Twitter, RSS feeds, Salesforce, WordPress, Stripe, incoming and outgoing email, and more.
For example, you can use Zapier to:
- send an SMS to a group whenever an RSS feed changes
- trigger an SMS whenever someone sends an email to a particular address
- post incoming SMS messages to your Facebook Page or WordPress site
In addition, Telerivet also has some new API integrations with software specialized for developing countries:
- By using Telerivet with CommCareHQ, frontline health workers can use SMS to help gather and distribute information in developing countries.
- By using Telerivet with Cyclos, local banks and microfinance institutions can easily set up SMS banking systems that use Telerivet to send and receive SMS.
Try it out!
Check out our new Developer Portal at https://telerivet.com/api, try out the new APIs, and let us know what you think! We’re constantly adding new features and improvements to the APIs, so feel free to keep sending us suggestions for new features that would be useful.