SMS System Settings

Text messaging is a highly effective way of reaching your clients and prospects. It provides direct and immediate message delivery and it has both a high open rate and a high conversion rate. You can send SMS text messages and receive SMS and MMS messages directly from Applied Epic, helping you provide superior customer service by notifying clients promptly of important information about their accounts.

Before enabling this functionality, you must obtain an Integrated Texting subscription from Applied Systems. Contact your Applied sales representative for subscription information. For an overview of the steps necessary to set up Integrated Texting for your organization, see Getting Started with Integrated Texting.

Two different types of SMS messaging are available in Applied Epic. The configuration options in this area allow you to enable either or both of these types of messaging system-wide:

Bulk: Use bulk SMS messaging to send templated messages automatically to contacts who have opted to receive specific categories of messages, such as account and policy servicing notifications or marketing communications.
Conversational: Use conversational SMS messaging to send more specific, personalized messages to contacts and receive their replies. In some situations, a client may prefer texting to a phone call or email exchange.

Government bodies and cellular carrier organizations enforce time-of-day restrictions to prevent text messages from being sent outside of acceptable hours. To comply with these restrictions, Applied Epic queues SMS messages when necessary so that they are sent only within acceptable hours for the recipient’s location (as determined by the country code and area code of the contact’s SMS-enabled phone number).

From the Home screen, do one of the following:

Click Configure on the navigation panel.
Click Areas > Configure on the menubar.
Click the down arrow next to Home on the options bar and select Configure.

From any other area of the program, do one of the following:

Click the down arrow to the right of the Home options bar button and select Configure.
Click Home > Configure on the menubar.

Click SMS on the navigation panel or Areas > SMS on the menubar.
Click System Settings on the navigation panel.

Enable Integrated Messaging

To enable your organization to send and receive SMS messages, select the Enable SMS Messaging checkbox to enable. To disable SMS functionality for your entire organization, deselect this checkbox.

Bulk SMS Messaging

Select the Enable bulk SMS messaging checkbox to enable your organization to send bulk text messages as part of marketing campaigns and during predefined SMS Events. If bulk SMS messaging is enabled, your organization’s assigned Bulk SMS numbers for Account Updates and Marketing display in the Bulk SMS Messaging frame for your reference. You can edit these numbers, but you can have only one number of each type (unlike conversational SMS numbers) and can replace each number only once within a 24-hour period. To disable bulk texting functionality, deselect this checkbox.

Contacts must opt in to receive bulk SMS messages. Set each contact’s bulk SMS messaging preferences in Contact Detail.

Conversational SMS Messaging

Please note that if you enable conversational SMS messaging, you must also assign registered numbers to employees and/or structures in Registered Number Configuration before employees can send and receive text messages. If you disable conversational SMS messaging (except on a temporary basis), releasing your registered numbers is recommended.

Select the Enable outbound messages checkbox to enable your organization to send conversational SMS messages. To disable all conversational SMS messaging functionality, deselect this checkbox.
The Enable inbound messages option defaults selected, meaning that your organization’s registered numbers can receive messages from clients. If you do not want to receive incoming messages, deselect this checkbox.

Deselecting Enable inbound messages automatically selects Enable inbound SMS auto-reply. This option sends an automatic reply when one of your organization’s registered numbers receives a message. Enter the Message in the text box.

Note: An individual SMS message is limited to 160 characters. If the message exceeds this length, it is split into as many separate texts as necessary (up to a maximum of ten). The character count and number of messages to be sent (based on the number of characters entered) display below the Message field.

Even if you have enabled inbound messages, you might still want to send automatic replies at certain times (for example, outside of normal business hours). To schedule the sending of automatic replies, do the following:

Select Enable inbound messages.
Select the day(s) on which you do not want to send automatic replies.
Update the times when you do not want to send automatic replies.

If your organization’s normal business hours are 08:00 to 17:00 Monday through Friday, for example, select every day of your work week and enter 08:00 to 17:00 in the time fields for those days, leaving only Saturday and Sunday deselected.

Note: Although you can select both Enable inbound messages and Enable inbound SMS auto-reply if you choose, you cannot deselect both of them. You must select at least one of these options if conversational SMS messaging is enabled.