ItsThatTime

Create and schedule tasks. Add friends or family to the tasks and send them scheduled or instant reminders directly to their phones via sms.

Comment 1

Twilio limits sending text messages to verified numbers on trial subscription on the API. We have two verified numbers that could be used for testing on two different sites. 5714788202 @ https://receive-smss.com/sms/15714788202/ 7169105710 @ https://smsreceivefree.com/info/17169105710/

Inspiration

Our inspiration came after seeing the Twilio API challenge. We liked the idea of an API being able to send a text message to someones phone. We immediately though of being able to schedule and send reminders from one platform to any one in your family or even friends.

What it does

The app allows you to set up tasks, notes, lists, etc. and to attach anyone to them, being someone in your household, or a friend or distant relative. All you need is their phone number, and you can send them the task through sms and set up auto reminders to send a reminder on a given day / time.

How we built it

We created a test environment for all the pieces, then we created the main app on a local node.js server. Once complete we deployed to Heroku.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into multiple challenges along the way, from getting certain parts of the app to be populated dynamically, to linking particular reminders to their recipients in the database. Main issue we ran into is the automated tasks not executing on the heroku free dynos, as the dynos get moved around and go to sleep. We would need to purchase a always on plan or look into other possible hosting solutions but we are out of time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of everything along this journey. From having this idea, to actually receiving a text message scheduled from our app on our phones. We were not sure we would be able to pull it off in the given time frame, there is so much more we want to add to the app going forward.

What we learned

We learned new technologies, frameworks and APIs. As well as coordination and time management to get this project functional and rolled out in the given time frame.

What's next for ItsThatTime

We want to add a feature to be able to add users (like an address book) to the dashboard, add an edit feature to the reminders, set up group messaging, set up a page for the remainder that can be accessed by the recipient of the reminder, set up editing capability for the recipient, as well as a feature for the recipient to be able to add other recipients to the reminder. Those are just some of the things we have planned, we are coming up with many more.

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