Summary

REDCap has the capability to make voice calls and send SMS text messages for surveys and for alerts & notifications by using a third-party web service named Twilio (www.twilio.com). This requires a Twilio account which is a cost-based service (information about pricing can be found on Twilio's website).

How to Integrate Twilio with REDCap

Enabling Twilio in a REDCap project requires having an existing Twilio account:

1. Navigate to Twilio to set up an account and purchase a phone number. 
2. Once you have a Twilio account and phone-number, you will also receive a Twilio Account SID and Twilio Auth Token - these are both required to connect Twilio to your REDCap project. 
3. Navigate to your REDCap project's Project Set-up page
4. From the Project Setup Page, click "Enable" next to Twilio SMS and Voice Call services for surveys and alerts​​​​​​ (Note: For more information about REDCap and Twilio, click on the "?" next to this option)
   
    
5. A pop-up will appear asking you to enter the Twilio Account SID, Twilio Auth Token, and the Twilio Phone Number. This feature can be enabled or disabled from the top of this screen as well. Then save. 
   
    
6. Then the Twilio SMS and Voice Call services for surveys and alerts​​​​​​ will turn green
   
    
7. A Twilio SMS and Voice Call services box will appear where additional customizations and configurations can be set
   
    
8. The Configure Settings page shows the configuration settings that are made available throughout the project and how they control different parts of the project.
   1. Language and gender used for voice calls - users select the language and regional dialect in which the survey questions and/or alert messages are spoken
      
       
   2. Select the project features for which the telephony services will be enabled (e.g., surveys and/or alerts) - users select if Twilio will be used for surveys and/or alert messages
      
       
   3. Choose survey invitation types to use - Users select how participants are invited to take surveys as well as the medium in which they take the surveys. (Note, SMS as conversation is not recommended, especially if PII is collected in the survey as SMS is not a secure form of communication.) 
      
       
   4. Choose the default invitation preference for new survey participants - for participants created by data entry form (rather than via survey), users may select their default survey invitation preference that will get assigned to them as the record is created. 
      
       
   5. Control each participant's invitation preference using a multiple choice field - users may add a multiple choice field to the project that will help communicate to each participant based on their individual communication preference. (Note: Users must use the specific choice codes and labels listed here in the multiple choice field)
      
       
   6. Designate a phone number field for survey invitations sent via SMS or voice call (optional) - users may capture phone numbers for sending invitations to the participants by adding a field in their project. This can be used in addition to or instead of entering phone numbers directly into the participant list. (Note: The options in this drop down will change per project based on the fields within the project)
      
       
   7. Automatically append response instructions to questions? 
      
       
   8. Behavior for overlapping SMS invitations - If users will be sending out SMS invitations for multiple surveys within this project, they should choose default behavior for when a participant has received SMS invitations to multiple surveys at the same time
      
       
9. The Analyze surveys for SMS & Voice Calls page will run an analysis on all the identified surveys in the project to determine if they can be used as an SMS survey or as a Voice Call survey