Understanding Twilio

Getting a Twilio Phone Number (to enable text messaging/voice calls:

REDCap's Twilio module enables your project to make and receive voice calls and SMS text messages, both from and to survey respondents. This module uses a third-party web service named Twilio .

Please contact REDCap admin to request a Twilio phone number: Project_REDCap@kp.org

  • 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). In this way, you can invite a participant to take a survey by sending them an SMS message or by calling them on their phone, in which the data will be collected in REDCap directly from their phone without having to use a webpage.
  • To use this feature, you must 1) set up your own Twilio account at www.twilio.com. Once your Twilio account has been created, you must 2) fund your account with some money (using the Billing page in Twilio) and then 3) purchase a phone number to be used for your REDCap project (see the Numbers page in Twilio).
  • Once a phone number has been purchased for the account, obtain the Account SID and Auth Token for your account (see the API Credentials section on the main Account Settings page). Only a REDCap administrator can enable Twilio services for your project. The administrator will need the Account SID, the Auth Token, and the phone number to enable Twilio for your project.
  • Once your REDCap project is connected to your Twilio account, you can then configure how you want to use Twilio in your project. In general, not much is different between administering a survey normally in REDCap and using Twilio SMS/voice calls, except that you additionally choose how your survey invitations are delivered. The following choices are available: 1) Initiate survey as voice call, 2) Initiate survey as SMS conversation, 3) Send survey invitation with survey link via SMS, 4) Send survey invitation via SMS to take survey as voice call (respondent makes call), and 5) Send survey invitation via SMS to take survey as voice call (respondent receives call when replying via SMS). Any or all of these invitation delivery methods can be utilized within a single project. The choice of delivery method completely depends upon how you want to collect data from your participants.