Nexmo Nexmo

This guide will take you through integrating deepstreamHub with Nexmo's SMS API. If you'd like to dive right into the code you can have a look at the GitHub repository for this tutorial here.

There are many use cases for sending SMS's in applications, from multi-factor authentication to alerts and more. We'll be showing how to create a simple sms-provider, that sends SMS's when requested. We'll be using the deepstreamHub JavaScript client SDK and the Nexmo SDK for NodeJs.

A common use case for sending SMS's is in restaurants where they send out the shifts each employee has for the week. We'll be creating a simple web form where we can send an employee their shifts for the week.

Create a free account and get your API key

Get started with Nexmo

The first thing you'll need to do after creating your deepstreamHub account is create a free account over at Nexmo. This will give you an apiKey and apiSecret that we can use to get started.

Connecting is as easy as requiring the nexmo library and creating new nexmo client.

const Nexmo = require('nexmo')

const nexmo = new Nexmo({
    apiKey: 'Your Nexmo apiKey',
    apiSecret: 'Your Nexmo apiSecret',
  }, { debug: true }
);

Sending an SMS with the library after this is as easy as calling the sendSms function.

nexmo.message.sendSms(sender, recipient, message, callback)

Integrating it with deepstreamHub

To create a nexmo-provider, all we need to do is provide an RPC method, and whenever it is invoked, send an SMS.

const client = deepstream('<Your app URL>')
client.login()

client.rpc.provide('send-sms', (data, response) => {
  // send our sms here
})

We'll first create the client side code that invokes the send-sms RPC. All we need is a simple form where we can enter for each employee, their name, number and shifts for the week.

With the following JavaScript, we get the data that has been put into the fields and invoke the send-sms function via the client.rpc.make function.

const client = deepstream('Your app URL')
client.login()

function sendSms() {
  const name = document.getElementById('name').value
  const number = document.getElementById('number').value
  const info = document.getElementById('info').value
  client.rpc.make('send-sms', { name, number, info }, (error, result) => {
    let msg
    if (error) {
      msg = `An error occurred while sending the sms ${error}`
    } else {
      msg = 'SMS sent successfully'
    }
    alert(msg)
  })
}

Now that we're sending the right data to our sms-provider, we can send the SMS as follows:

client.rpc.provide('send-sms', (data, response) => {
  const { name, number, shiftInfo } = data
  nexmo.message.sendSms(
    'Work',
    number,
    `Hi ${name}, your shifts this week are: ${shiftInfo}`,
    (err, res) => {
      if (err) {
        response.error(err)
      } else {
        response.send(null)
      }
    }
  )
})

Assuming you used your own number in the Number field, you should have received an SMS like this:

And that's it. Thanks for sticking with me. Be sure to check out the other guides and integrations we have, or check out building something more substantial with deepstreamHub via an example app.