TwiPhone Pilot v1.2.1 added a new feature: the ability to Make a Call using your Twilio Phone Numbers.
Essentially, this gives you the ability to use your mobile phone (or any real phone that you have) to make a call that come from any of the Twilio Numbers that you have. So the person you are calling sees the number you choose! You can, for example, call someone from your Home phone number which is hosted at Twilio. Or call someone from your Work phone number (hosted somewhere else) that you have verified with Twilio. This is very useful for protecting your privacy, if you want to call a client when you are away from your office phone and DO NOT want to give out your personal mobile phone number. This can also be useful for calling one of those automated services (such as your bank) that recognizes a call from your Home phone number.
The numbers allowed to use with this feature come from two places: 1) The numbers hosted at Twilio – those are the numbers you bought from (or ported to) Twilio and pay a monthly fee for, and 2) The numbers you verified with Twilio – these are the numbers you own (that can be anywhere) and have proven to Twilio that you own by answering a call to these numbers. You can use additional numbers by going to Twilio.com under Phone Numbers->Manage->Verified Caller IDs and Click “Add a new Caller ID”. You can use this to use your office number to Make Calls – you only need to verify it one time when you are in the office beforehand.
To Make a Call consists of 3 Steps:
- Setup the Numbers to use. Each Call requires 4 numbers. You have to set 1) the Number you want to Twilio to call you at – such as your mobile phone number, 2) the Twilio-hosted Number you want Twilio to call you from (if you only have one number hosted at Twilio, this is an obvious choice, but if you have multiple numbers hosted at Twilio, you get to pick). You set both of these numbers one time in Settings->Phone Numbers and you can change them at any time. Once these are setup, the option to Make a Call will appear on the Calls tab. Then each time you want to make a Call, you provide 3) the Number you want to call in the To: field. You can enter the number in manually, select a number from your Contacts, or tap any Call from the Call History to call back or repeat a call you’ve made previously. And you select 4) the Number you want to call From in the From: field! This is a selection made from any of the Numbers you are eligible to use which is pulled automatically from Twilio, and it will be set to the appropriate Number any time you tap a Call from the Call History.
- Once all four numbers are set, the green Call button will be enabled. Tap it to start your Call!
- You will receive a Call to your number (your mobile for example) from the Twilio Number you set up. Answer that call and immediately your call will be placed and the person you are calling will see the call coming from the number you selected to call From.
That’s it! Pretty simple once you have done it once or twice. Oh, but there’s a couple more goodies with this feature:
You can Record your calls! Just slide the Record Calls toggle right above the Call button and Calls will be recorded to your Twilio account until you turn it off. (And you will see the Recording show up the the Other Recordings tab shortly after the Call is completed.) A word of caution: the laws around recording calls in the United States vary from state to state and other countries have their own laws – it is your responsibility to know those laws and ensure you are following them.
The Voicemail Call button (shown when a Voicemail is selected) now has options – you can call directly from you mobile (assuming it has calling capabilities) OR Call back from the Twilio Number that was called when the Voicemail was recorded and the call will proceed as above: you will get a Call from your Twilio number just like when you make a Call from the Calls tab. And the call will be Recorded if you have Record Calls set on the Calls tab.
If you have any problems with this feature, it is usually because you have not setup one of the Numbers correctly in the Phone Numbers Settings section. And sometimes, Twilio will refuse to make a call if the region where you are calling is restricted. You can find this out by logging in to your Twilio console and looking for errors or reviewing the call history to find out why a call was blocked.
Enjoy using your Twilio numbers in useful ways!
Oh, and by the way!
Along with the Make Call feature, there is a whole new tab for Calls and on there is the …. da-dah-da-dah: Call History. Call History shows all the calls in to or out from your Twilio phone numbers. Calls are divided into three types:
Calls into one of your Twilio-hosted numbers
Calls out from one of your Twilio numbers
Calls bridged between two other calls (this is how the Make Call feature actually works: Twilio calls you, Twilio calls the person you are calling, Twilio bridges the two calls)
You can tap on any of the Calls in your Call History to call back or make that Call again. When you tap on an Incoming Call, TwiPhone puts that call information into the Make Call area – this allows you to call back from the Twilio number the person called originally. When you tap on an Outgoing Call, it puts the information in reversed so that you can call back the Twilio number that made the call. And when you tap a Bridged Call, it sets up to make that call again, effectively repeating the call you made previously using Make Call. All calls are subject to the numbers you are allowed to use to Make Calls and the numbers you have enabled (see below).
A (semi) hidden feature
In Settings->Phone Numbers, you have the ability to choose which of your eligible Twilio Numbers you want to enable in the Make Call feature as a From Number. You can deselect one or more of the numbers and they will no longer show up when selecting the From number in the Make Call area. This can be useful if you have a second Twilio number for your own use that you are unlikely to use to make calls to another party.
TwiPhone Pilot 