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.
Get to know Twilio's products
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.
Confirm with stakeholders which Conversations channels to use with Flex:
Voice
SMS/MMS
WhatsApp
Webchat (beta)
Email
Facebook Messenger (beta)
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.
Meet hardware, software, and network requirements
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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.
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:
ngrok for webhook URLs in your development environment
Status callbacks
Twilio Functions and Twilio Studio
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.
Engage developers to help you build
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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.
Step 2: Account and environment setup
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.
Create your Twilio Flex accounts
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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.
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.
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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.
The out-of-the-box Studio flows for Flex send inbound calls and conversations directly to an agent queue. If this behavior fits your needs, you can skip this step. However, you'll likely want to build your own Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to handle customer inquiries before Flex sends them to an agent.
Decide what routing rules you need, and learn how to set them up in TaskRouter. Define skills so you can assign skills to specific agents later.
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Set up basic TaskRouter resources
Create queues to logically divide the tasks in TaskRouter. Next, define skills for your contact center. You'll add skills to individual agents in the following steps. Use these links to get information about basic TaskRouter resources:
Note Setting up worker skills and custom attributes may require work with your SSO integration.
Define routing logic with workflows
Set up routing logic to direct calls and conversations messages to the appropriate agents based on skills and availability. Work with a developer to build custom workflows for different interactions, like customer inquiries or support tickets. Use these links to get information about workflow resources:
Note When configuring timeouts for workflows, make sure they map to expected SLAs.
Manage task timeouts
To prevent prolonged customer wait times on incoming Flex calls and to avoid incurring additional PSTN inbound connectivity charges, follow the steps in Manage task timeouts for active calls.
Advanced Review the Mutation and Conflict Resolution guide
Use this feed to monitor and report on real-time agent activities.
Optional Use the TaskRouter API to get data for custom reporting
If you want to create custom reports to gather analytics based on your business needs, consume the TaskRouter API or TaskRouter events to get data to power those reports.
(Optional) Integrate with external tools
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CRM integration
Connect Twilio Flex with your company's CRM to synchronize customer data and interaction history.
Here are some ways you can integrate Flex with your CRM:
Create a custom plugin with a dedicated UI that leverages CRM functionality via API.
Implement a CRM integration like Click-to-Dial or others.
Email and calendar integration
Integrate Flex with your company's email systems and calendars.
Increase rate limits for integrations
If needed, work with third-party sales or professional services teams to increase certain rate limits for any third-party integrations you use.
For example, you may want to ask if you can cache tokens to prevent per-hour limits or increase concurrency on a third-party API endpoint you use.
Customize agent and supervisor experience in Flex UI
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Set up agent desktop
Customize the agent desktop interface to match your agents' workflow needs.
Optional Install pre-built plugins from the Plugin Library
If you want to add more Flex functionality, review the Twilio-developed plugins from the Flex Plugin Library and install any plugins that meet your needs.
Some popular prebuilt plugins include:
Supervisor barge and coach
Dual channel call recording
Call recording pause and resume
Optional Build a custom plugin
Before building a new plugin, establish a plugin architecture based on plugin resource limits.
Use the Serverless Toolkit to develop locally and deploy to Twilio Functions and Assets.
Determine which functions can rely on Twilio Serverless and what logic should be offloaded to internal servers.
Migrate Twilio Function prototypes to your internal infrastructure or servers, if needed.
Test and QA
In your staging environment (or UAT environment, if you use a separate one) perform user acceptance testing to make sure your customizations, integrations, and workflows function as expected. Have agents and stakeholders test the system to ensure it meets their needs before going live.
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Perform end-to-end testing
Test all communication channels in both staging and production environments. Validate that tasks are routed to the correct agents according to the defined logic.
Plan how you'll escalate technical issues internally and when to escalate issues to Twilio support. For example, for calls that have issues, establish how to report their call SIDs to a shift manager or team lead.
Before production, make sure you have upgraded the Twilio trial account and switched onto a paid Flex plan.
Prepare training and documentation
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Training for agents and admins
Agents: Provide training sessions for the agents to familiarize them with the Flex interface and workflows. For example, share tips for troubleshooting audio problems with your agents.
Admins: Train system administrators on managing and configuring Flex.
Developer handover
If you need to transfer knowledge to the IT team for ongoing support, make sure developers document any customizations they've made to Flex.
Create documentation
Develop user guides and reference materials for ongoing support and training. Suggested topics:
Checking agent network connectivity
Accepting a task
Making an outbound call
For examples of end-user documentation, refer to the following Flex articles:
Make sure you have backup systems in place and a contingency plan for potential issues.
As you develop solutions, it can be helpful to document processes. You can also use the Twilio API to export and save configurations. For example, to export Studio flows, see Importing and Exporting Flows.
Develop a rollout plan
Consider starting with a key set of agents first, then roll out to larger groups.
Develop a communication plan
Notify all stakeholders of the go-live date and any processes that they should know about.
Final review and approval
Conduct a final review with stakeholders to get approval to go live.
Launch Flex
Officially go live with Twilio Flex for your agents.
Maintain Flex in production
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Monitor system performance and user feedback
Closely monitor system performance and agent activity during the initial phase.
Establish a channel for issue escalation
Establish a communication channel (like a Slack or Teams channel) where agents can escalate issues with the contact center.
Gather feedback
Collect feedback from agents and stakeholders for any adjustments.
Ongoing support and optimization
Provide ongoing support, address any issues, and optimize the system as needed.
Learn how Flex updates are released
By default, accounts are set up to have minor version updates automatically applied. This makes sure Flex stays up-to-date. Read about how we release Flex to understand what automatic minor version updates mean for your account.
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