Integrate the Plivo Node.js SDK into your NestJS application. Create a Plivo service to encapsulate the sending logic, and use a queue like BullMQ to manage sending to large lists of subscribers, ensuring compliance with Plivo's rate limits and reliable delivery. Consider strategies for handling failed sends and implementing retries based on Plivo's error responses.

Plivo is a communications platform API that enables sending SMS messages. The Plivo Node.js SDK is integrated into a NestJS application to handle the actual sending of messages to subscribers as part of an SMS marketing campaign application.

NestJS provides a robust, modular, and scalable architecture well-suited for complex backend applications like SMS campaign management. Its TypeScript support and dependency injection features promote code maintainability and testability.

Use a message queue (like BullMQ) for sending bulk SMS, especially when dealing with many subscribers or if rate limiting is a concern. Queues provide reliable delivery and graceful handling of failures, while sequential or parallel sending can lead to rate limit issues or application crashes. This allows for robust campaign send logic, tracking, and retry mechanisms.

While technically possible with Promise.all, sending SMS in parallel with Plivo is not recommended for production due to rate limiting. Sending too many concurrent requests can overwhelm the Plivo API and cause failures. Favor a queue-based approach (e.g. using bull or bullmq) with controlled concurrency for reliability and optimal throughput.

You can install the Plivo Node.js SDK in your NestJS project using npm or yarn with the command npm install plivo-node or yarn add plivo-node. This package provides the necessary functions to interact with the Plivo API for sending SMS messages and other communication tasks.

TypeORM is an Object-Relational Mapper (ORM) that simplifies database interactions in the NestJS application. It is used to define entities (like Campaign and Subscriber), manage database connections, create migrations for schema updates, and execute queries to store and retrieve campaign and subscriber data from a PostgreSQL database.

You'll need Node.js (LTS recommended), npm or yarn, a Plivo account, access to a PostgreSQL database, and a basic understanding of TypeScript, NestJS core concepts, and REST APIs. Docker is optional but recommended for containerization and local database setup.

Subscribers are managed within the NestJS application through API endpoints that interact with a database. The application stores subscriber phone numbers (ideally in E.164 format), along with optional information like first and last names, and maintains status information such as active, inactive, or pending. Key functionality includes adding, updating, and querying subscribers, and associating them with specific campaigns.

The guide recommends PostgreSQL, a powerful and open-source object-relational database system, to store campaign and subscriber data. It integrates seamlessly with TypeORM, the ORM used in the project, allowing for efficient and type-safe database operations. TypeORM is configured to handle various database-specific properties and connection parameters.

Create a .env file in the root of your NestJS project. Store your Plivo AUTH_ID, AUTH_TOKEN, and the PLIVO_SOURCE_NUMBER (your Plivo phone number) as environment variables in this file. Never commit the .env file to version control, as it contains sensitive information. Use the @nestjs/config package to load and access these environment variables securely within your application.

Using migrations for database schema updates in a production environment ensures controlled and reversible changes to your database structure. Unlike synchronize: true, which directly modifies the schema based on entities, migrations provide a history of changes, allowing you to safely apply or revert updates without risking data loss or inconsistencies.

Follow a modular approach by creating separate modules for core features like Plivo integration (PlivoModule), campaign management (CampaignModule), database interaction (DatabaseModule), and shared utilities. This improves code organization, maintainability, and allows for independent testing of different parts of the application.

DTOs (Data Transfer Objects) are used for request validation and data transformation. They define the structure of data expected by API endpoints, along with validation rules using decorators from class-validator. DTOs improve code clarity, maintainability, and help prevent common security vulnerabilities like injection attacks by sanitizing input data.