SMS gateway

OnSinch has active integration with SMS gateway provided by Twilio, this connection offers you easy way how to send messages to your staff as well as receive replies.

SMS gateway in OnSinch 💬

OnSinch has active integration with 3rd party provider Twilio. Through this integration you can send and receive messages right from the system so you have all communication with your staff at one place.

The setup of SMS gateway and connection is fully maintaned by us. Prices and messages option vary depending on country of your residence and are subject to the conditions set by Twilio provider. There is always a monthly fee for phone number plus price for SMS sent and received.

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Sending sms✉️

• to individual staff member from their profile in communication tab.
• Communication → SMS gateway →Write a message.
• Staff → Staff list ⇒ from here you can send sms to everyone or filter staff based on your criteria and send bulk sms to selected group (e.g. only staff with certain profession).
• Order detail page ⇒ send sms to all staff in the order.

• Job detail page ⇒ send sms only to staff in specific job (1), shift (2) or position (3).

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SMS characters limit 

SMS gateway for sending purposes is based on the worldwide GSM-7 character set encoding which has standardised 160 characters per 1 SMS. Longer messages are split into parts called segments and then they are re-assembled again to one message when received on recepients mobile phone.

This means that when your message has up to 160 standard characters it will be counted as 1 SMS. If your message is longer than 160 characters, it will be divided to more SMS segments with 153 characters each. 

For instance if your message has 170 characters, it will be split into two SMS segments - one with 153 characters and second with 17 characters, your cost will be price of 2 SMS when sending to one staff member.

Using special character (Unicodes) such as emojis 😍, diacritics or Chineese characters cause that your message needs to be split to more segments but in this case with 70 characters limit, not 153. Therefore we recommend to use only standard letters and numbers and avoid such things as emojis as it significantly increases the final total number of SMS and therefore your total cost for this service. 

We recommend not to send messages longer than 320 characters to ensure best deliverability.

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Receiving SMS 📩

If you have functional SMS gateway with receiving messages enabled, you can see SMS from your staff directly in OnSinch.

SMS are received instantly and you will see red notification bulb informing you about unread incoming messages. You can see all received SMS by filtering the filed In/Out status received. Fee for received SMS is significantly lower than for sending SMS. Receiving SMS might not be supported in certain countries.

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SMS notification🔔

There are plenty of cases when staff member can be notified by SMS - simirarly to email notifications. Check your setup in Settings → Notification settings → SMS column. Content of SMS notification is not customizable. Notification SMS counts as regular sent SMS.

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Upcoming shifts reminders 🔔

OnSinch can sent automatic SMS reminders to staff that their shift will start soon. You can set how many hours before shift start should this reminder be sent in Settings → Agency settings → Staff section. Content of SMS reminder is not customizable. Reminder SMS counts as regular sent SMS.

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Phone number verification✅

With active SMS gateway you can verify phone numbers of your staff to make sure the contacts are valid and you can rely on the data in staff member profiles. Verification SMS counts as regular sent SMS.

Go to Settings → Agency settings → User accounts section and Turn on phone number verification.

You can then allow only staff with verified phone number to sign up for shift (check and change this in Settings → Agency settings → Jobs section).

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