Checklist for setting up Twilio Flex
When you begin using Twilio Flex, it's important to plan ahead so you can build an instance that meets your organization's needs and takes full advantage of what Flex has to offer. This checklist helps ensure that you've covered everything you'll need to do before, during, and after setting up Flex.
As an IT professional, network admin, or developer, you can use the following checklist to plan, build, test, and launch your contact center from start to finish. Since the checklist is extensive, you'll likely need to work with others in your organization to gain access to certain platforms and complete all steps.
Flex relies on a variety of Twilio products to deliver its functionality. When you set up Flex, you're not only configuring Flex, but other key services and features, too. These include:
- Channels: Configure channels for customer communication, like voice or webchat.
- Studio: Build automated routing, IVRs, and customized responses for calls and conversations.
- TaskRouter: Route tasks to the right agents based on agent skills.
- Flex Plugin library: Install pre-built Flex plugins to add functionality.
- Flex Insights: Enable Insights to track, measure, and analyze performance in Flex.
This list summarizes the steps you'll take to set up Flex. We recommend completing each category in the order shown.
- Plan your Flex instance
- Meet hardware, software, and network requirements
- Engage developers to help you build
- Create your Flex accounts
- Set up your environments
- Configure communication channels
- Customize your IVR flows
- Set up rules for routing tasks to agents
- Onboard agents and supervisors
- Set up analytics and reporting
- Integrate your tools with Flex
- Customize the agent and supervisor Flex UI experience
- Scale
- Test and QA
- Prepare training and documentation
- Prepare to go live
- Launch and maintain your Flex instance
| Task | Details |
|---|---|
| Choose your channels | Confirm with stakeholders which Conversations channels to use with Flex:
|
| Learn about agents | Find out the number of agents, their roles, and any specific requirements depending on their tier levels and expertise. You can modify agent roles and Studio flows later on in the process. |
| Identify tools to integrate | Find out if there are any existing CRMs, databases, or tools that you need to integrate with Flex. |
| Review compliance and security | Review any compliance requirements for your industry, such as GDP and HIPAA, and make sure the system meets security standards. To see the sub-processors we use, see Twilio Sub-Processors. |
| Task | Details | Tips |
|---|---|---|
| Get agent workstations ready | Hardware: Ensure each agent's computer meets the minimum hardware requirements. For example, make sure each agent has a modern processor, sufficient RAM, and a quality headset with a microphone. | Flex doesn't require a specific headset, but make sure to use one that your browser supports. If agents work in the same room, noise canceling headphones and headsets with directional microphones can be helpful. |
| Software: Confirm that all workstations have updated operating systems and necessary software, such as supported web browsers and plugins. | If you want to run Flex using virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), Twilio supports Citrix and Azure (Beta). | |
| Check internet connectivity | Bandwidth: Verify that all agents have an internet connection with sufficient bandwidth to handle voice, video, and data traffic simultaneously. | Optionally, you can run a Twilio Network Test and record the results. For advanced testing, use the Voice Diagnostics SDK. |
| Latency and stability: Test network latency and stability to make sure you have a reliable connection, especially for real-time interactions like voice calls. | ||
| Redundancy: Decide whether you need a backup internet connection to ensure high availability and minimize downtime. | ||
| Configure your network | Firewall settings: Make sure your firewall rules allow traffic to and from Twilio's IP addresses and services. The firewall and network requirements depend on Flex and the other Twilio products you use. Using the document links in this row, add domains that Flex uses to your allowlist for VPNs and proxies. Make sure your firewall supports DNS rules. | Without DNS rules, you can still use Twilio, but you'll need to allow more traffic. You can do so by allowing all the outgoing traffic towards Twilio subnets and allowing related traffic back in. You can decide how to allow the traffic based on the supported features of your firewall devices. You can use these tools to check for compatibility:
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| Quality of Service (QoS): To maintain call quality, configure QoS settings to prioritize voice and video traffic over other types of network traffic. | ||
| Learn about Interconnect | Decide whether your contact center should use Twilio Interconnect in production. | Interconnect lets you connect to the Twilio network directly instead of over the Internet. This improves latency and speed. Interconnect may also be helpful for your business if you need a higher level of security and reliability. |
| Task | Details |
|---|---|
| Identify developer resources | Assign a developer or development team to handle Flex customizations, integrations, and API configurations. The number of developers you need depends on how you plan to build and customize Flex. |
| Skill assessment | Make sure that developers are familiar with Twilio APIs, JavaScript, and any other relevant technologies for Flex customization. |
| Development planning | Work with developers to plan the customizations you need, including workflow modifications, integrations, and any other custom features. Before deciding on a custom feature, check if there's a pre-built Twilio plugin that meets your needs. |
| Review Twilio partners | If you need help with development, consider working with a Twilio partner. You can find a list of partners on the Twilio Partner Network. |
We recommend the following environments:
- Development: Use this environment to write code and create customizations.
- Staging: When planned development is complete (or reaches another milestone you identify), use your staging environment to test, perform quality assurance, and create bug fixes. Flex should behave as it would in production.
- Production: This is your live contact center with SLAs or SLOs in place for your customers. Aim for high stability and performance with security in place.
Depending on your development practices, you may choose to have additional environments like test or user acceptance testing (UAT) environments.
For each environment, you'll need to set up an account. Note that account pricing costs depend on usage. For staging, we recommend using an Active User Hour billing model, since this environment isn't used regularly post-launch. The same goes for test or UAT environments, if you use them. With Active User Hour pricing, you only pay for time spent using an environment.
| Task | Details |
|---|---|
| Create your Twilio Flex accounts | Set up a Twilio account for each of your environments (development, testing, and production). Make sure to choose Flex during account setup. |
| Set up billing | Set up the appropriate billing and payment methods for each account. |
| Invite other admins | Designate system administrators who will have access to configure and manage Flex. Send them invites via Twilio Console. |
When setting up a staging environment, keep in mind that your future production setup should closely mirror what you have in staging. While you can set up your environments to suit your business needs and processes, this checklist and the remainder of the document is geared towards staging, and you should test with staging before rolling out to production.
| Task | Details |
|---|---|
| Provision a staging environment | Set up a separate staging environment for testing and development purposes. |
| Configure environment | Configure the staging environment with the same channels, integrations, and workflows you will use for production. |
| Add test data | Populate the staging environment with test data to simulate real-world scenarios during development and testing. |
| Implement version control | Implement version control for any custom code and configurations to ensure changes can be tracked and rolled back if necessary. |
| Task | Details | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Purchase phone numbers | Purchase phone numbers for voice, SMS, and WhatsApp services. Or, find out about porting your existing numbers. | ||
| Twilio numbers have geo-permissions and may have different regulations depending on the country. Make sure to enable channels with appropriate phone numbers, IDs, and |