Setting up the SMS platform

View Rate Limits

When selected, a pop-up screen will display the carriers in a table with rows broken down by carrier name and the columns Max, Texts Per Hour (TPH), and Brand (see example below).

Setting Up with Twilio

Creating a Twilio account

The Forth SMS Platform is integrated with Twilio.

1. If you do not have a Twilio account, Sign Up For Free (see login page sample image below). However, to take full advantage of this feature, you must buy a full Twilio Account.
   NOTE: The login page may look a little different as Twilio is responsible for this page.
   
   

   NOTE
   The "Free Trial" includes a $15.50 credit and can be used for testing, but it is limited to sending messages to verified numbers only. During the sign up process, you'll be asked to verify an initial phone number. Additionally, any messages sent using the Trial will include a portion that says "Sent from your Twilio Trial Account -". DO NOT use this on live clients.

2. After verifying, create a project by clicking on "Products"  and then "Programmable SMS", and then giving it a name. Projects are a top-level of objects in their system. We support one set of Project API per company so that you can have one set of credentials per company within the account (this includes an option to activate credentials for all companies in the account).
   
   IMPORTANT: When setting up the account, you do not need to click "Get Started". This will take you to create a new phone number for SMS. It is not necessary to setup the first phone number this way. You can easily create the phone number from within the CRM and avoid doing anything further in the Twilio interface.
   
   
3. On the Dashboard page, scroll down the page and locate the Account SID and Auth Token from your Twilio account on the Account Info section on your Dashboard, and input these credentials into the SMS Settings page inside the Forth CRM.
   

   NOTE
   Use Account SID and Auth Token from the project. The SID and Auth Token available for phone numbers will NOT work with the integration.

   
4. Log into the CRM.
5. From the Admin tab, click Settings > click SMS. 
6. Plug in the Account SID and Auth Token where indicated.
7. Select either of the following options in the Company menu: "Individual company; or "All Companies".
   

   NOTE
   Entering credentials for an individual company will override the "All Companies" credentials.

   
   
   
8. Click the Save Settings button.

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Syncing numbers from Twilio

1. To Sync a phone number that you've already created in Twilio, click Sync Numbers.
   

   NOTE
   When clicking this button it should pull all active phone numbers from the attached Twilio account and set them as active.

2. Click the button with the ellipses next to the "Purchase a New Number" button (see the image below), and select Sync Numbers to sync the credentials from the current user's company. 
   
   

   NOTE
   If the account has credentials for All Companies in addition to credentials on the user's company; the system will only sync the numbers from the user's company, and not sync using the All Companies credentials.

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Purchasing phone numbers

The steps in this section apply if you use either Ytel SMS or Twilio.

REMINDER: A “text-viable” telephone number (or numbers) must be bought first from Ytel before the sync function will work (see the image at left). Otherwise you will not be able to sync those numbers.   As shown in the image above, click on the SMS Tab, click the ellipsis (…) found at the top right of the page, and select “Sync Numbers.”

1. From the SMS tab in the Forth CRM, select Manage Numbers from the "My Campaigns" dropdown menu on the top left of the page.
   
   
   
2. To purchase a number, click the Purchase a New Number button. (see image below). 
   
   3. On the "Purchase a New Number" pop-up screen, you can search by area code to find numbers in specific locations. Once you have entered your numbers, click the Continue button found at the bottom right corner of the pop-up screen.
   

Identifying the Provider

If you click on the SMS Tab and select “Manage Numbers” from the dropdown option at the top left of the page, you will notice that there is now a column for listing the Provider in the SMS table. This column lists the provider name assigned to the number (Twilio or Ytel).

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Editing phone numbers

When editing a phone number, you'll have the option to Activate or Deactivate phone numbers, give them a Friendly Name, Assign Company/Users access to the numbers and even Delete the phone number via a hyperlink at the bottom left of the popup window. You'll also see additional details about the phone number, such as the date it was purchased, or any SMS Campaigns that are using the phone number.

The Friendly Name allows you to name your Phone Numbers and will appear when selecting that phone number from other pages in the CRM interface.

When assigning Company/User access, you can share with individual users, entire companies, or everyone (see image below). When finished, click the Save button found the bottom right of the page.

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SMS via the Client Dashboard

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Setting SMS role permissions

The SMS platform includes several User Role permissions. Enabling or disabling these permissions allow you to customize how your agents utilize the SMS Platform. Upon activating SMS, you will need to edit user roles to provide access to the new features and module.

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Troubleshooting for Twilio

Phone Number is not syncing with Forth

1. Log into Twilio.com and go to the Console's Numbers page.
2. Click on the phone number you'd like to sync with Forth.
3. Scroll down the page to find the Messaging Configuration section.
   
4. Go to the A MESSAGE COMES IN dropdown menu, select Webhook, and paste in the following URL in the "URL" field: https://client.forthcrm.com/post/twilio.php 
5. Click the Save Configuration button at the bottom left of the page (see image above). 

Error: Unable to create Record: Permission to send an SMS has not been enabled for the region indicated by the 'To' number

1. Log into Twilio.com.
2. Click on Settings, then click Geo Permissions.
   NOTE: This page may look different than what is shown below as it is controlled by Twilio and not Forth.
   
   
3. Enable the checkbox that corresponds to the region you are trying to send SMS messages to.
   

Error: Unsupported Provider

• • • This message indicates there is a problem with the Twilio credentials. Either they are missing or invalid. The assigned company must have a valid, working Twilio account integrated for messages to work.

Error: Message could not be sent. Error: [HTTP 401] Unable to create record: Authenticate

• • • If an SMS is not sent for any reason, i.e., credentials are wrong, or there is a lack of funds, you get this error message. We cannot really differentiate what caused it. If we see that message, complete the following steps:
      1. 1. Check the AuthToken and SID.
         2. Check funds on the Twilio account.

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Additional Information

For further information, please see the following articles

• SMS: Sending and Receiving SMS Messages
• Sending & Completing a Clixsign Request
• Campaigns - SMS
• SMS Report

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