Creating a user consent application using the Python SDK

Creating the application

All of the code for this user consent app is contained within the app.py file. The completed code is displayed on the right panel. Copy and paste that code into your app.py file. The composite sections of code are dicussed below.

Setting up the application

The app.py file begins with the following code:

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import sinch
from flask import Flask, request
import signal
import sys


app = Flask(__name__)

sinch_client = sinch.SinchClient(
    key_id="your_key_id",
    key_secret="your_key_secret",
    project_id="your_project_id"
    )
sinch_client.configuration.sms_region = "your_region"
group = sinch_client.sms.groups.create("Sinch Pirates")


def signal_handler(signal, frame):
    delete_group_response = sinch_client.sms.groups.delete(
        group_id=group.id
    )
    print(delete_group_response)
    sys.exit(0)


signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)

This code sets up everything your application needs to function.

It creates a Flask instance, and initializes a Sinch SDK client. This allows your application to use the functionality of the Python SDK to create groups and send messages.
It sets the sms_region to your region and creates a group.
Finally, the signal_handler function ensures that your group is deleted when you terminate your Flask app.

Note:

While we need to create and delete a group for this demonstrative tutorial, it's worth noting that in production, recipients would probably be subscribing to, or unsubscribing from, a prexisting group.

Initializing the client

The snippet above includes the code required to initialize the Sinch SDK client.

To start using the SDK, you need to initialize the main client class with your credentials from your Sinch dashboard.

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from sinch import SinchClient

sinch_client = SinchClient(key_id="key_id", key_secret="key_secret", project_id="YOUR_project_id")

Note:

For testing purposes on your local environment it's fine to use hardcoded values, but before deploying to production we strongly recommend using environment variables to store the credentials, as in the following example:

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import os
from sinch import SinchClient

sinch_client = SinchClient(
    key_id=os.getenv("KEY_ID"),
    key_secret=os.getenv("KEY_SECRET"),
    project_id=os.getenv("PROJECT_ID")
)

Receiving incoming messages

Lets review the code that gives your application the ability to receive incoming messages:

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@app.route('/', methods=['POST'])
def result():
    inbound = request.get_json()
    numbers = sinch_client.sms.groups.get_group_phone_numbers(
                                        group_id=group.id
                                    ).phone_numbers
    if all(key in inbound for key in ["body", "to", "from"]):
        from_number = inbound["from"]
        to_number = inbound["to"]
        inbound_message = inbound["body"]
        auto_reply = ""

This is similar to the code in the Receive an SMS Message guide. Its basic job is to listen for an inbound message and respond with an action.

Adding and removing users

Whereas the Receive Message application simply returned a reply containing the inbound message, this application is going to add/remove users from the group you created.

Review the following code:

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        if from_number not in numbers and inbound_message == "SUBSCRIBE":
            sinch_client.sms.groups.update(add=[from_number],
                                           group_id=group.id)
            auto_reply = ("Congratulations! You are now subscribed to "
            +group.name+". Text STOP to leave this group.")

        elif from_number in numbers and inbound_message == "STOP":
            sinch_client.sms.groups.update(remove=[from_number],
                                           group_id=group.id)
            auto_reply = ("We're sorry to see you go. You can always rejoin "
            +group.name+' by texting SUBSCRIBE to ' + str(to_number))

        else:
            auto_reply = ("Thanks for your interest."
                          " If you want to subscribe to this group,"
                          " text SUBSCRIBE  to {to_number}")

This lets your application respond intelligently to join/leave requests. The logic is designed to cover the following basic contingencies:

If a user is not already a group member and wants to join, the application looks for the SUBSCRIBE keyword. It then uses the SDK update method to add them to the group and assigns a confirmation message to the variable auto_reply.
When a user is already a group member and wants to leave, the application looks for the STOP keyword. It then uses the SDK update method to remove them from the group and assigns a confirmation message to the variable auto_reply.
If a user is not a group member but doesn't know the keyword to join, the application sends a message thanking them and telling them the right keyword.

Sending confirmation messages

The final code is for sending the confirmation messages assigned to auto_reply.

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        sinch_client.sms.batches.send(
            body=auto_reply,
            delivery_report="none",
            to=[from_number],
            from_=to_number
        )

This sends the auto_reply confirmation using the SDK send method. Again, it's pretty similar to how the Receive Message application worked.

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