How to make Ring Central watch an SMS opt in response and update Airtable..AI Asst is crazy

How To
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1

The goal is to make a Opt-in SMS message automation than then updates Airtable that they subscribed to SMS

I tried to figure this out by giving the AI Asst this Prompt: “Airtable Watch records will trigger an SMS message through Ring Central. Then I want Ring Central to watch for a response to that message and take action in Airtable based on the response” ie If Yes/No response update Airtable

However the AI is putting the Ring Central Watch SMS message module where it won’t work since the Watch SMS module is a trigger and needs to be first in line?

I want it to watch for that same message ID and look for a Yes response and take action. But I am stumped

2

Well, what can I say… don’t use the AI if it doesn’t work for you.

You can type in module names faster than typing a prompt for the AI.

samliew – request private consultation

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3

I know but the issue is not the AI, the question is how can I make it work. I first tried it manually and encountered the same issue. Just curious if you know how to transport a variable from one part of a scenario to another than that is not linked? Essentially I have 2 triggers in 1 scenario.

4

Usually, for storing variables across scenarios, we can use an external service that has a search module to fetch the item’s data, or we can use the Data Store integration.

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A.

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B.

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Following these steps will allow others to assist you here. Thanks!

samliew – request private consultation

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5

This sounds like 2 scenarios actually that work together rather than 1.

  1. Watch SMS messages

  2. Watch Airtable changes

Why would you want to put them in one scenario?

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6

Thanks for the reply. So here’s what is happening:

I want to initiate an SMS text from Airtable to Ring Central, that part is easy, but the text is a question that I need Yes/No answer to so I want to listen to that specific message for a response and then update the answer back to Airtable. The question is the SMS opt-in such as “Please confirm you want to receive text messages from us reply Yes or No”

7

Yup, 2 scenarios - one will initiate the text from Airtable based on what’s happening in Airtable.

The second one monitors Ring Central for a response with a Yes or no — it will probably have a response phone number and you can look that up in Airtable and update with the content of the message.

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8

Yes but I don’t want it listening to every possible text conversation where there could be another Random Yes or No in a conversation and updating for no reason. I want it to listen to this specific conversation with maybe a time limit or a stop when the Yes/No was received to avoid confusion when Yes’s or No’s may appear in the future of this conversation.

I can’t have it watch for a specific phone number or conversation ID unless it knows what that is, but the data is in another scenario. So how do I make sure it is watching for the right one? that is why I wanted it all part of the same scenario.

9

You cannot have 2 triggers in one scenario. You will need to process all incoming text messages through Ring Central and do a lookup by the phone number of the incoming message to “match” it to the original message that went out. How else could you match them? The message reply for opting in can come in at any time after the request to optin is sent out by Ring central from the first scenario.

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10

exactly so how do I tell it what the phone number was it is matching to from another scenario? That is the question I think.

11

Your incoming RingCentral message trigger will have that in the incoming payload I assume. You use that phone number and look up the related record in Airtable and then you update that record in another module with the info that came in from RingCentral.

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12

Thanks, interesting, other than using up too many operations (wish I could do instant but this will have to be at 10-15 minute intervals otherwise :confused:) I think what I could do is also have the first scenario update Airtable with an entry indicating it is waiting for a response so the 2nd scenario can check that before responding and updating any answer to Airtable.

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13

It all depends on the number of messages I guess. But yes you could use many operations if the volume gets gigantic. These scenarios won’t be too operations hungry. Seems like very small scenarios taking one to four operations per run.

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14

I am confused on your calculation. If I wanted it to check for messages every 5 minutes it would be 7200/mo plus the Airtable scenario every 15 mins at 2400/mo, that’s 10,200k, which exceeds my plan!!! Also I’m taking 4 hours out of each day. I have to dial back both to check every 15 mins. Am i missing something? You know Zapier does not charge for Operations only Executions

16

Hello @TheMortgageMeister,

Another option, if you’re willing to deviate a bit, is to create a simple Fillout form for this.
Each Airtable record gets its own unique link to an Airtable form capable of updating Airtable records upon submission.
When you text a person, text them their “opt-in form link” which will just contain a simple check mark, Opt-In, and a Submit button.
This wouldn’t require them to respond to a text nor would it require a separate scenario.
Fillout.com, the last I checked, is free for 1000 submissions a month.

There is another possibility that involves sending them a link to a webhook, but some phones “preview” links which would count as a click and may accidentally opt them in.

Just some things to think about!

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17

I appreciate the thoughtful response! Not a bad idea. However the standard “mo” for SMS opt in is all in the text message itself. And every time i reply to an automated text message I expect a response in a minute or 2 myself. I might concede to 12 mins using the Make in order to save Ops. I am looking into other applications that can do this with Ring Central but for now I will just concede and use Make some how.

18

Why does your post seem so snarky? I already have the Core plan bro, and they all start at 10k/mo that’s the point, and I have reasons to use Make over Zapier thank you but the fact is charging by ops is a bit crazy to me compared to Pabbly or Zapier charging by execution. Again if I wanted to respond in a timely manner I would have to check SMS every 1-2 minutes! Feel free to do that math on that.

19

I am just trying to help. I don’t understand why you need to check so often for incoming SMS messages though. Can’t you just do a RingCentral instant trigger to trigger the scenario only when inbound messages come in and check to see the phone number and the content?

20

I think the problem here is the concept of “Conversation” as it relates to SMS Messages.
How can RingCentral (or anyone) know what conversation a particular message belongs to? With SMS it’s just one everlasting conversation.

Let’s just map this out for a second here…

Send SMS to user → “Please confirm you want to receive text messages from us reply Yes or No”
User does not respond within X minutes → Assume answer is “No”
User responds “No” within X minutes → Answer is “No”
User responds “Yes” within X minutes → Answer is “Yes”
User responds “nope” within X minutes → Invalid response. Ask again?
User responds “yep” within X minutes → Invalid response. Ask again?
etc…
User responds “No” or “Yes” or anything AFTER X minutes → Answer is already “No” since they didn’t respond within the set amount of time. This “No”, “Yes” or anything else is now the beginning of a new “conversation”. → How do you respond??

All of these cases need to be handled within Make, unless you can somehow filter them in RingCentral first.

Now, you know when you send your initial message to each number, so it’s very easy to calculate whether their response is within the X minutes time window, even if you don’t check the responses for a while.
The problem is if you don’t confirm their response immediately they may keep sending it which just makes life more difficult for you.

I think you’re best bet is to set up an event on the RingCentral side that calls a Make Webhook.
Check the content of the message, check your Airtable, respond accordingly.

This is 4 Ops per incoming SMS: Make Webhook → Router (free) → Airtable (to check when your last message was sent) → Airtable (mark if they are a “Yes” or “No”) → Webhook response or RingCentral Send SMS (if you need to send back a confirmation you received or don’t understand their message).

If you constantly exceed Ops / month or year depending on which plan you’re on, you’ll need to upgrade. If you occasionally exceed your limit, then you can sign up for Extra operations auto-purchasing

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21

Thanks I appreciate that, I believe that is what I was missing. I am not an expert on all this stuff but I can learn very fast. I did some research on instant triggers and I gather are they based on a webhook. So then you are correct, it would not use up very many ops. I am going to see if I can mess with it based on the webhook. I also googled ways to script a webhook into Airtable so it can also be instant, since it is not a native feature for Airtable to be Instant in Make but Ring Central appears to be. I’ll check back after I test it out …in a while.