App Sheet or Twilio error? bad phone number stops workflow

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
1

I am having a problem with group SMS through Twilio. It appears that I had a bad number in the list so when Appsheet sent the data over to Twilio, the logs in Twilio show that the message stopped after a certain phone number. It was marked as a blacklist rule violation. Everything before this number was sent, but none of the phone numbers after this bad number ever made it to Twilio. Is this an App Sheet error or a Twilio problem. Please help!!! I deleted the numbers before and after the bad number in the list for privacy concerns…
“To”: “…+17753428853,…”,

Here is the Appsheet log. You can see in the log that “The message From/To pair violates a blacklist rule.” This is a huge problem if Twilio stops working just because it comes across a bad number. It shouldn’t break down… it should just skip that number and continue with everything else in the list. But when I look at the Twilio logs, this is the last number in the list. What should I do? Is there a setting that will fix this?

Thanks for your help!!

Email Details
Properties:
{
“AppTemplateVersion”: “1.000864”,
“RuleName”: “Send Emergency SMS with File”,
“EventType”: “Change”,
“InvokedBy”: “Add”,
“ServerName”: “INSTANCE-US-WES”,
“ServerRegion”: “us-west1-gcp-prod”,
“IgnoreSecurityFilters”: false,
“TableName”: “Emergency Broadcast System”,
“RuleTableName”: “Emergency Broadcast System”,
“OperationUpdateMode”: “ADDS_ONLY”,
“EventMatch”: “Workflow event successfully matched”,
“Condition”: “=ISNOTBLANK([File])”,
“MatchesCondition”: “True”,
“ActionResults”: “Created 1 ActionResults”,
“Action Type”: “SMS”,
“Action Name”: “Send Group SMS”,
“Errors”: “Error: SMS send request to +17753428853 failed with exception <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>\n21610The message From/To pair violates a blacklist rule.https://www.twilio.com/docs/errors/21610400”,
“From”: “+16264164526”,
“To”: “…+17753428853,…”,
“Body”: “KYL Messenger:\n\nhttps://tinyurl.com/y4rrukdv\nWingate Winter Wonderland\n\nCome say hi to your coaches, see Santa and experience some wonderful Christmas music and decorations all from the safety and comfort of your car! Feel free to get in the spirit and decorate those cars! We are also collecting Socks for Santa donations to help those in need at this time of year.\n\nUnfortunately we have to scale back our Wingate event just a bit and won’t be able to have the cool Drive In Movie Theater. Santa wants his friend the Grinch to stay socially distant and to keep all of our families safe. We hope to have a Drive In experience at a later date, but for now we will still enjoy the amazing Christmas inflatables, lights, snow machines and of course a photo with Santa himself! Merry Christmas Everyone!!! May the Joy of the Christmas season bless your family!”,
“MediaUrl”: “https://www.appsheet.com/get/?i=YXBwTmFtZT1OZXdBcHAzLTE1MjcyMjQmdGFibGVOYW1lPUVtZXJnZW5jeSUyMEJyb2FkY2FzdCUyMFN5c3RlbSZmaWxlTmFtZT1FbWVyZ2VuY3klMjBCcm9hZGNhc3QlMjBTeXN0ZW1fSW1hZ2VzJTJGMTItMTAtMjAyMCUyMDIwLTQ1LTQ5LkltYWdlLjA0NDgxMi5qcGcmYXBwVmVyc2lvbj0xLjAwMDg2NCZzaWduYXR1cmU9MTc2ZTMwMTJkYjYwOTRkNTUzNGJiZGMxZTYwYTBlZTA5ODg1MTc4OTJkOTQxNTM5MTVlZGFhZjQwNzQzMmYzMzM1NGQ2MjE1MjEyZTg0ZWRmYTExOGE3YjhjYmVmZGY1&w=600”,
“AccountSID”: “ACd10d92d20cbb9010396b3e25ffe3fae8”,
“AppTemplateName”: “927cbf68-262f-4ff8-966d-628e213942c2”,
“Operation”: “Workflow action”,
“Result”: “Failure”
}

1 Like
2

Did you follow the link the error included? What did it tell you?

3

Yes I did follow the link (error 21610) and yes I understand why it is not sending text messages to that phone number. It appears they have opted out of receiving messages by submitting a STOP to the carrier. That’s fine, but why does Twilio stop sending messages to everyone else in the list after it comes across this phone number. It should just skip the number and move on to the remaining numbers in the list.

I’m assuming Twilio is set to do that. So I’m guessing Appsheet stops the workflow when it comes to an error such as this. But that doesn’t work for a messaging app. I need it to send to the rest of the numbers in the list.

2 Likes
4

I have no idea how Twilio API would work, I m sorry. Better to examine Twilio API document instead of Appsheet doc for this case.

2 Likes
5

I just came across the same problem in my app. It’s a big problem, which completely undermines the point of the SMS feature of AppSheet.

I know people can opt-out by replying “Stop”, but I figured that would just make it that their number would not receive texts, not that the entire mailing list would freeze!

The only work around I can think of is to add an additional column to your table to record whether a user wants to receive texts, and then in the Recipients field use an expression like:

Select(Members[Phone Number],AND([ReceiveSMS]=True,LEN[Phone Number)>9) )

This will filter out your mailing list to only include valid phone numbers who want to receive texts. The downside is that you will need to enter when a user opts out.

I really think that AppSheet should fix this, so that it will continue sending to the rest of the list while ignoring the blacklisted number.

6

It’s a Twilio problem, not an AppSheet one.

1 Like