Set up your Flex account
In this section of the onboarding guide, you create your Flex account and learn about different user roles in Flex.
- Sign in to Twilio Console. If you don't already have a Twilio account, you can create a free trial account. You need an existing Twilio account to create a new Flex account.
- Navigate to the Flex Overview page. There are two ways to add Flex:
- To create a new Flex account, create a new Flex account here. Select Flex as what you'll use this account for. When you create a new Flex account, we'll automatically provision a new phone number for you that can accept voice calls and SMS.
- Public beta: If you want Flex to have access to the existing phone numbers and other resources on your account, review the terms and select the box to agree, then click Add Flex.
- Note: This method of adding Flex to your account is in public beta. This means that some features are not yet implemented and others may be changed before the product is declared as generally available. Public beta products are not covered by a SLA.
- Give your account a name. This name can be anything you want to identify your Flex account.
Once you have completed these steps, your Flex account is created and ready to use.
Warning
If you are sending SMS to the U.S. or Canada, please be aware of updated restrictions on the use of Toll-Free numbers for messaging purposes. These restrictions do not apply to Voice, or to other non-SMS uses of Twilio phone numbers. But if you obtain a Toll-Free Number for non-SMS purposes and then wish to use it as well for Messaging, please read this first.
You can see the Flex UI at flex.twilio.com. The next section of this guide walks through the different views in the Flex UI.
Flex UI vs. Twilio Console
In this Onboarding Guide and while you are working with Flex, you will often see the terms "Flex UI" and "Flex Console" and will need to perform actions in both places.
The Flex UI is the interface that you can see at flex.twilio.com. The Flex UI has four different built-in Views, which you will learn about in the next section of this guide. The Flex UI is where your Agents will handle interactions with customers, where Supervisors can see an overview of their teams and what Agents are working on, and where Administrators can customize certain aspects of the Flex instance. (Learn about these different user roles in the User Roles section below.)
The Flex section of the Twilio Console is located at www.twilio.com/console/flex. The Twilio Console will be used for actions like adding new Administrators to your Flex account and interacting with TaskRouter, the system you will use for routing call center tasks to the appropriate queues and Agents.
Info
When you open the Flex UI for the first time, you might see a popup in your browser asking you to accept notifications from the web application. You should accept this so that the browser can send you notifications for incoming calls and texts.
Keep in mind the following about your new Flex account:
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Your Flex account starts out in trial mode. Learn about the limitations of trial accounts here. You can upgrade your trial account to remove these limitations.
- Your new Flex account that you just created starts in trial mode even if the Twilio account you used to create this new Flex account was not in trial mode. If you are an invoiced customer, you can contact your Sales representative to discuss combining the invoices for your other Twilio accounts and this new Flex account.
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Your trial account is automatically assigned a US 10-digit phone number, which you can find in the Flex UI Admin View or in the Twilio Console. You can use this phone number to receive calls and SMS messages.
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When you create a new Flex account, you are the Account Owner and an Administrator for that account. You have access to every part of your Flex instance, and can assign different permission levels to other users you add to your account.
When you create your Flex account, you are the first user in the account and have Administrator privileges. In addition to Administrators, there are two other built-in roles you can assign to users: Supervisor, and Agent.
- Administrators have access to all pages in the Flex UI and can configure all aspects of your contact center, including users, billing, versioning, communication workflows, and routing.
- Supervisors can monitor the interactions between agents and customers. They can manage teams of agents and have access to the Agent Desktop, Teams, and Queue Stats. They cannot modify the Flex UI instance.
- Agents handle interactions with customers using the Flex Agent Desktop. Agents are assigned tasks based on their capacity and status. Agents have the lowest level of access in the Flex UI.
You can create new Administrator and Supervisor users in the Twilio Console or via Single Sign On (SSO). You can only add Agents via SSO.
Learn more about roles and adding or deleting Flex users here.