I get a lot of email. I don’t read it all. Especially if its automated. Sometimes LCS deployment notifications fall in that category. Partially given the deployments usually happen while I’m sleeping.

An easy fix for this is to receive a text message notification should a deployment fail. Using Flow + Twilio, we can achieve this.

Twilio is a cloud communications platform, offering API’s for SMS, voice services etc. The SMS service is integrated with Flow. Sign up here for a free trial, https://www.twilio.com/try-twilio. Trial accounts get a few dollars’ credit and after the trial it should only be a few dollars per month ($1 per month for a phone number and $0.0075 per outbound text message).

Once you have an account, obtain a phone number – https://www.twilio.com/console/phone-numbers/incoming

Then, note your account SID & auth token from the console –

Next we create our Flow. We’ll use three actions. The first is the Office 365 ‘ When a new email arrives’, from the LCS notification account.

The second action is conditional. We’re checking the email body for the word ‘failed’ (I’m only interested in additional notifications when things go wrong, which fortunately, is not often).

And the third action is Twilio, to send the SMS if the email body contains the word ‘failed’. The ‘From number’ is the number we obtained from our Twilio account earlier, the ‘To number’ is mine, and the subject is taken from the email message so we know what environment the alert applies to.

And lastly, as we will always send notifications from the same number, I add that to my breakthrough list on my phone, as I turn all notifications off overnight.