Enlivy texts your customers from your own SMS provider account. You choose the sender and the countries each connection texts, and your provider bills you for each message.
Twilio is the first provider you can connect. Enlivy does not send SMS for an organization from its own account.
You need a role that manages the organization’s integrations, and a Twilio account.
What SMS is used for
- Contract signing. The invitation to sign, and the code that confirms the signer’s phone.
- Invoice payment reminders. A text that follows each email reminder, when you turn it on.
Connect Twilio
Open Integrations → SMS and connect Twilio. A connection has:
- Account SID and Auth Token, from your Twilio console. Enlivy checks them with Twilio before saving. It sends nothing while checking.
- Sender, what your customer sees as the origin of the text.
- Countries, the countries this connection texts. Leave it empty to text every country.
The Account SID cannot be changed after the account is connected. To use another Twilio account, add it as a second connection.
The sender
The sender can be:
| Sender | What it is |
|---|---|
| Phone number | A number from your Twilio account, with its country code. |
| Sender name | 3 to 11 letters and digits, at least one letter, no spaces. |
| Short code | A short number of 3 to 8 digits. |
| Messaging Service | A Twilio Messaging Service SID, which starts with MG. Twilio picks the number from the service for each country. |
To text several countries from different numbers of one Twilio account, use a Messaging Service, or add one connection per number.
Which connection texts a country
- A connection that lists the recipient’s country texts it.
- A connection with no countries texts every country that no other connection lists.
- When several connections list the same country, the one connected first is tried first.
- When no connection texts a country, Enlivy refuses the message and says which country is missing.
When a connection fails
Enlivy moves to the next connection for the country only when the provider refuses the message before accepting it. For example, when the sender is not allowed in that country, or the provider does not answer.
Once the provider accepts a message, it is never sent again through another connection, even if it is not delivered later. A signer therefore never receives two codes.
A wrong phone number, or a recipient who asked not to receive texts from that sender, is not retried through another connection.
Send a test
Each connection has a test send. It texts your own phone number, and only yours, so your own phone number must be verified first.
You can send up to 5 tests an hour.
Country rules for senders
Carriers set their own rules for senders, and they differ by country. For example:
- The United States and Canada do not accept sender names. Use a phone number for them.
- Some countries accept a sender name only after it is registered, such as Spain.
- In Romania, carriers replace a sender name that is not registered with them.
- Carriers filter sender names that contain words such as OTP, Verify, Alert or Bank.
Registration is done with your provider. Check your provider’s guidelines for each country you text.
Payment reminders by SMS
Open the Payment reminders settings and turn on Text the reminders too. The setting appears once SMS is connected.
Each reminder stage that is emailed is also texted to the customer’s phone. SMS follows the email schedule:
- SMS never sends a reminder that email did not send.
- A text that fails never stops or repeats the email.
- Texted reminders do not count toward your reminder limits.
Sent texts
Logs → Sent messages lists every attempt to send a text, newest first. Each entry shows what it was for, the recipient, the sender used and its delivery status, which Twilio reports back by itself. When a connection failed and the next one tried, each attempt has its own entry.
The text of a message is not kept, because it can hold a signing code or a signing link.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Sent | Twilio sent it. No delivery report has come back yet. |
| Delivered | It reached the recipient’s phone. |
| Not delivered | Twilio tried, and it did not reach the phone. The entry says why. |
| Failed | It could not be sent. The entry says why. |
| Unknown | Twilio never confirmed it took the message, so Enlivy does not send it again. |
| Held back | Not sent, because the number is on your stopped list or the text came from a sandbox. |
Stopped numbers
When a recipient replies STOP to your Twilio number, Enlivy stops texting that number for your organization. It appears under Logs → Stopped recipients. Remove it there once the person asks to receive texts again.
Sandboxes
A sandbox texts through the SMS connections of the organization it mirrors, and only to that organization’s own people. It has no connections of its own. A text to anyone else is not sent, and the log shows it as Held back.
Romanian texts
Romanian texts are written without diacritics. Letters such as ș, ț or ă switch a message to a longer encoding, and a short text would then be sent and billed as several parts. Without them, each text stays one part.