What

Pockethotline is a rails app that allows you to setup a "distributed hotline". This allows you to have a hotline number that is published and operators signup with their personal numbers. When someone calls the main number the operators will be called (depending on their on-call status) and connected to the main caller.

It was originally conceived as a business by Scott Magee and Chap Ambrose at the Austin Center for Design in the winter of 2011.

The software was open-sourced January 2014.

How much does it cost to run a hotline?

Hosting Costs

The minimum hosting costs are about $35 a month. This is because a background worker dyno is required. (Assuming you're using Heroku for hosting).

Phone Costs

Twilio phone numbers cost $1/month for local numbers and $2/month for toll-free.

Twilio charges you by minutes used, $0.03/minute for local and $0.05/minute for toll-free.

Twilio's published rates are $0.01 / $0.03 but that is only for the incoming call, you also have to add another $0.02 to each call because of the outgoing connection to the operators.

Basic Setup

1. Setup accounts on:

Twilio.com
Heroku.com (or other rails capable host)

2. Get a phone number on Twilio

Start with the free trial number or purchase another toll-free or local number.

3. Take note of your phone number and API credentials AccountSID and AuthToken

Find them under "Account Settings"

4. Clone the repository

$ git clone git@github.com:chap/pockethotline.git

5. Edit config file at `/config/initializers/hotline.rb`

You must edit values for:

config.x.hotline.name
config.x.hotline.domain
config.x.hotline.organizer
config.x.hotline.organizer_email
config.x.hotline.number

6. Save changes

$ git commit config/initializers/hotline.rb -m "updated config"

7. Create an app on heroku

$ heroku create myhotline-name

8. Enable Sendgrid add-on for sending email

$ heroku addons:add sendgrid

Any SMTP provider should work. If you don't use Sendgrid, manually update settings at config/initializers/smtp_settings.rb

9. Push application to heroku

$ git push heroku master

10. Create database tables

$ heroku run rake db:schema:load

11. Scale up worker dyno (required for background tasks)

$ heroku ps:scale worker=1

12. Add TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN ENV variable to heroku config

Use Twilio API credentials from step 3. $ heroku config:set TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

13. Add SESSION_SECRET ENV variables to heroku config

First run
$ heroku run rake secret

Copy the output and use it here:
$ heroku config:set SESSION_SECRET=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

14. Setup the on-call scheduler

$ heroku addons:add scheduler
$ heroku addons:open scheduler
Click "Add Job"
In the left-most field enter "rake oncall_scheduler"
Change frequency to "Hourly"
Set next run to "XX:00" (The XX will depend on the current time.)
Click "Save"

15. Create yourself an account (edit these values)

  $ heroku run rails console
  $ u = User.new(
    :name => 'my name', 
    :email => 'myemail@email.com', 
    :phone => '215-359-5228', 
    :password => 'setyourpasswordhere'
    )
    u.admin = true
    u.on_call = true
    u.save!

16. Login to your account

$ heroku open

17. Update Twilio with your app's domain

Click on 'Numbers' in the nav bar
Click on your phone number
Change the 'Voice Request URL' to https://myhotline-name.herokuapp.com/twilio/start
Set request method to [POST]

18. Call the hotline and see if it's working!

Don't call from the same number that you added for yourself
If you're using your free demo Twilio account you'll hear a pre-roll message. That will go away when you upgrade your account.
Your call should be connected after the greeting message is used.
If calling via Gtalk fails to connect, try a real land or cell line.

19. Yeah!

Advanced Setup of Hotline Supporters

1. Create an account on Stripe.com

2. Set Stripe publishable key in config

Uncomment (remove leading '#') and edit values in /config/hotline.rb

config.x.stripe.publishable_key

3. Add Stripe API key

$ heroku config:set STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

4. Save changes and deploy

$ git commit /config/initializers/hotline.rb -m "add stripe details" $ git push heroku

5. Visit suporters page

https://.../supporters/new

Stripe requires SSL to be enabled, if you're using your default heroku domain you will seemlessly piggy-back on the wildcard certificate at *.herokuapp.com.

If you want to use a different domain you may have to purchase and setup your own certificate.

Advanced Allow Supporters to Upload Images

1. Add your S3 bucket name to /config/hotline.rb

2. Add S3 access_key_id and secret_access_key

$ heroku config:set S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Forward unanswered calls, change recordings, Twitter integration, etc

Look at all the options in /config/hotline.rb