Getting ready for SMS sending

Setting up an account with Twilio

Engaging Networks uses an external provider Twilio as the channel partner for our SMS capabilities. Twilio provides the phone numbers to send & receive SMS as well as delivery & receipt of your text messaging with the mobile carrier networks. In order to use Engaging Networks SMS capabilities a Twilio account is required and they handle phone number and SMS costs & billing. 

How much text and to how many supporters you will send plays an important part to SMS sending. It’s important to choose the number type to match the number of messages that the organization is looking to send and how quickly messages need to be sent.

Please speak directly with a Twilio representative to understand the options available to you.

Once the account is set up, you can configure SMS sending in your Engaging Networks account where you will be able to customise your automated messages (unsubscribe, more information, subscribe) and set up SMS content.

Helpful links:

Create a Twilio account

Choosing a phone number to send & receive SMS

Twilio phone number and SMS costs

Configuring your Twilio account

You will need to set up a messaging service in your Twilio account and add at least one number to its sending pool, this service will be used by your Engaging Networks account to send SMS messages. Please see the guidelines on getting started with Messaging Service

Integration

You will need to configure your messaging service with webhooks used by Engaging Networks. (The messaging service set up wizard will take you through this step automatically).

Select ‘send a webhook’ for the ‘Incoming messages’ setting and specify the request and fallback URLs as below (please see the below screenshot as a reference). Use the same webhook URL for the callback URL as well.

Open

Sender Pool

You will need to add at least 1 phone number to the sending pool. We recommend that you talk to a Twilio representative about your planned sending volumes, they will be able to advise on the best number(s) to use based on your use-case.

Open

Disable Twilio Opt Out Handling

Inside Engaging Networks you can set a few properties like Subscribe, Unsubscribe and Help keywords. You can also do this inside Twilio. By default, Twilio captures these responses but does not let us know if an Unsubscribe happened.

In order for Engaging Networks to be able to handle such replies you will need to ask Twilio representative to turn off the default opt out handling in your account. 

Connecting Twilio with your Engaging Networks account

Once your Twilio account is ready, please use extensions manager to connect it with your Engaging Networks account.

Information you will need to provide:

• Twilio auth token

• Twilio account SID

• Messaging service ID

Applicable Opt in: confirm the SMS opt in question you want to use to manage subscriptions to SMS text messaging (you can change the selected Opt in question in your account directly at a later time) .

Short URL domain: Select a domain you would like to use in short links inserted in SMS messages. You will be able to choose from any domains specified in Account preferences – Allowed domains.

The messaging service SID needed by Engaging Networks should be under Messaging > Services.

Do I need to add any additional settings in my account to prepare for SMS sending?

Set up SMS Opt in

We recommend that you set up a separate Opt-in question to manage subscription to SMS messages. Click here to read more about setting up Opt-in questions in your account.

For all compliance requirements, please refer to Twilio’s guide of requirements by country.

Phone number format

Please refer to this article about how to store the phone numbers in Engaging Networks