Send SMS messages from Knack using TextMagic

API & Customization Show & Tell
1

I created a way to send text messages through Knack and wanted to share with the Knack Community. This method uses TextMagic and a few text formulas in Knack.

TextMagic

First you will need a TextMagic account: https://app.textmagic.com/
When creating your account they ask how you will be using it and you have a to answer a few questions like how can users can opt out of receiving messages. It took about 3 days for them to review and approve my account.
Once you have your account with TextMagic, log in and Select Services on the left menu, then select Email to SMS. Make sure the service is turned on, then add the email address for your Knack app.
Once that is done you can send text messages by emailing the phone number @ textmagic.com. Example: 9876543211@textmagic.com

Knack

Now we need to format the Accounts phone number into an email address. The default format for Phone Number contains parentheses, for example (987) 654-3211. The parentheses break the text formula in Knack, so I changed the format to have periods, giving me this output: 987.654.3211.
If you don’t want to change the default format, you could create a new field called something like Phone 2, set the format to periods, and then have a conditional rule to set the field to Phone Number.
Now we need to drop the periods from the number. Create a Text Formula field and enter this:
1left({Phone 2},3)mid({Phone 2},4,3)right({Phone 2},4)@textmagic.com

This adds a 1 at the front (1 is the country code for the US), pulls the 9 digits of the phone number, and adds @textmagic.com to the end.
Now we need another email field(I called mine Email Formatted for Text) and create a Conditional Rule to set the field to the text formula.

Now you can create a rule for any page form to send an email to Email Formatted for Text and volia! You’ve sent a text message.

There are some creative people on here who have YouTube channels, if any of you would like to take this and create a video to share please do so! I have learned a lot of this community and I hope this helps someone else.

5 Likes
2

That’s great. You know you can use Zapier or make to pick from many txt providers? On any trigger.

3

I find Make to be confusing and found it easier to just use Knack. I’m learning, but since “app developer” is only one of the hats I wear at work it’s slow going at times. I would love to see someone create a how-to or make a video on how to use text messages through Knack. While my solution works I’m always open to learning new ways to do things. Thanks!

4

Creative integration, and sounds like you have a need for your use case.

I have an integration with Twilio using Make. I use it to send mass text messages using any formatted phone number including international. It also retrieves the message status from twilio and updates the knack table.