📥 In-voi-tations!📥

A MERN stack app that allows you to manage and send invites by email and text message (SMS) to your friends!

Instructions

1. Make sure Node.js and npm is installed.
2. Set up a MongoDB database and obtain a connection string.
3. Obtain an API key for SendGrid and Abstract API's email validation API (Make sure to setup a verfied sender email for SendGrid).
4. Sign up for Twilio SMS API and note down your account SID and Auth token.
5. Obtain a Twilio phone number and note it down (including country code).
6. In the project directory, run npm install to install project dependencies.
7. In the project's server directory, run npm install again for server dependencies.
8. In the same directory, create a file for the app environment named .env with the following contents:

INVITATIONS_DB_URI=[Insert MongoDB connection string here]
SENDGRID_API_KEY=[Insert SendGrid API key here]
SENDGRID_VERIFIED_SENDER=[Insert SendGrid verified sender here]
ABSTRACT_API_KEY=[Insert Abstract API email validation API key here]
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=[Insert Twilio Account SID here]
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN=[Insert Twilio Auth Token here]
TWILIO_NUMBER=[Insert Twilio Number here]
PORT=5000
USER=[Insert your name here]

8. In the project directory, run npm start to start the application.
9. In the project's server directory, run nodemon index to start the back-end.
10. Visit http://localhost:3000 in your browser and follow the in-app instructions to send invitations to your friends!

Technologies Used 💻

Frameworks: React, Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Bootstrap
APIs: Twilio SendGrid API ✉️, Abstract API email validation API ✉️, Twilio SMS API 📟

Roadmap 🚘

• Add feature to send invites by SMS. 📟
• Add feature to accept voice input for sending invitations to an event using only the event name and names of friends. 🎤