Resources

In the context of CPaaS X, Resources are defined as anything that is required to enable end-to-end communication on an Infobip service. Specifically, they are things like Short Codes, Virtual Long Numbers (or US 10-digit long codes), Alphanumeric Senders, Email domains, ChatApp IDs, etc. These are what you purchase or register from Infobip to enable communication. 

At the moment, for SMS and MMS, 10 Digit Code Codes in the US and Canada are the only Number Resources that can be used. Email Domains are the other resources that can be used. Take a look at the Numbers API and Email API to learn more about these resources.

Resource Association

Once Resources have been obtained and Applications and/or Entities have been created, you can then associate a Resource with an Application and/or Entity if required by your use case. For example, if you want to use Sender Strategies or for Inbound traffic.

You can leverage the Application and Entity APIs or the web interface to link a resource, and/or a resource configuration to an application or entity. This is known as Resource Association. 

API

After you have obtained the resources for sending your communication and you have created the applications and/or entities, then you can link them together using the Create resource association API.

All resource associations you create can be viewed using the following API requests:

API	Information	Request
Get resource associations	Retrieves a paginated list of all resource associations	GET /provisioning/1/associations
Get resource association	Retrieves an exact resource association	GET /provisioning/1/associations/single

Web Interface

You can view all your resources (registered numbers, domains, and webRTC push configurations) in the Applications and Entities area of the Infobip web interface.

Navigate to Developer Tools → Applications and Entities and select the Resources tab in the Applications and entities area of the web interface.

Toggle through Number, Email, and WebRTC to sort by resource type and use the filters to find your resource.

Click on a resource to associate it with an application or entity.

Manage

You can make limited changes (view, get, and delete) to existing resource associations through the web interface or using the API.

Delete

You can delete a resource association at any time using API or through the web interface. Deleting a resource association will not delete the resource. You can still re-use the resource for other configurations.

API

Use the following delete resource association request using the API.

API	Information	Request
Delete resource association	Deletes a resource association. Does not delete resource.	DELETE /provisioning/1/associations

Web interface 

Navigate to the Resources tab of the Applications and Entities area and select the resource you would like to remove an association.

The resource will open to show all associations that have been made to the resource. Find the resource association that you would like to remove and click the recycle bin icon.

The resource association will be deleted.

Examples

The following examples show a high-level overview of Resources and their usage.

The first example shows a client with different environments that use different Resources.

This example shows a client with many customers that use different Resources.

Resources and Outbound Traffic

For outbound traffic, once you have purchased a Resource, you can either associate a Resource by setting the Resource in the outbound request along with the Application, Entity, or Application/Entity pair, or you can explicitly associate one or more Resources to an Application, Entity or Application/Entity pair before sending. When you do the latter, the Resource does not have to be specified in the outbound request, only the Application, Entity, or Application/Entity pair.

A use case where you explicitly associate more than one Resource to a specific Application, Entity, or Application/Entity pair is if you want to move the complexity and logic of selecting Sender Resources from your platform to the Infobip platform. In this scenario, you complete a one-time setup by associating Sender Resources to an Application, Entity, or Application/Entity pair, configure a Sender Strategy for those Sender Resources, and then let Infobip handle the rest of the work when you submit your message to our platform.

Resources and Inbound Traffic

For Inbound traffic, if you want to use Applications and/or Entities, it is necessary to explicitly associate a Resource Number configuration to a single Application, single Entity, or single Application/Entity pair to ensure correct mapping and routing for every inbound message.

We say Resource Number configuration here because a Number resource, Short Code or Virtual Long Number, is always required for SMS or MMS inbound traffic. Plus Numbers can support keywords that need to have a specific number configuration.  For example, if we have an inbound number 1201000001 we could associate its configuration with a single Application, single Entity, or single Application/Entity pair or, if you want to use keywords on that number, you could have a separate configuration for each keyword and associate each with a different Application, Entity or Application/Entity pair.

Inbound Traffic - Dedicated Number

Inbound Traffic with Keywords