Africa's Talking Airtime API

Demo app showing how a user gets free airtime after a successful purchase. The main point is to send voice airtime to a customer after a successfull purchase.

Africa's Talking Airtime API

In your view function, add the following:

def send_airtime():
    username = app.config['AT_USERNAME']
    api_key = app.config['AFRICASTALKING_API_KEY']

    africastalking.initialize(username, api_key)

    airtime = africastalking.Airtime

    phone_number = current_user.phone # use logged in user's phone number

    currency_code = "KES" #Change this to your country's code
    amount = 5

    try:
        response = airtime.send(
            phone_number=phone_number, amount=amount, currency_code=currency_code)
        print(response)
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Encountered an error while sending airtime. More error details below\n {e}")

The API needs your application's username, gotten from creating an app on AT dashboard. You will also need an API key, gotten from the dashboard.

The parameters needed to successfully invoke the Airtime API are:

• Application's username
• Airtime api_key
• User's phone_number
• amount to be topped up (you may also want to hide this data using an environment variable)
• currency_code (depending on your country)

Above, I am sourcing the username and api_key values from environment variables, to hide that data. The airtime.send function is used to send the actual airtime top up to the user.

Note

• The live app link may not work as I may disable the airtime topup feature since it consumes my AT wallet credit.

Technologies Used

• Flask
• Africa's Talking Airtime API
• Stripe API

Testing The Application Locally

• Clone this repo:

  $ git clone git@github.com:GitauHarrison/sending-free-airtime-after-purchase.git

• Change directory into the cloned folder:

  $ cd sending-free-airtime-after-purchase

• Create and activate a virtual environment:

  $ mkvirtualenv venv # using virtualenvwrapper

• Install project dependancies:

  (venv)$ pip3 install -r requirements.txt

• Create and update a .env file to define environment variable values as seen in .env-template:

  (venv)$ cp .env-template .env

• Run the application:

  (venv)$ flask run

• Test the application in your favourite browser by pasting http://localhost:5000