How do I enable SMS messaging in epaPRO?
- Lisa Clancy
Since the release of 4.22.0 in March 2022, you have the ability to send notifications via SMS, as per the release note information.
As you will note from the warning in the release notes text, this is not enabled by default and it is necessary to log a support request for us to enable this for you.
Please log a support request here and include the following information:-
Confirmation from someone with the ability to sign off financial decisions for your company, as there is a cost involved with this service.
Estimate of monthly usage levels.
Since release 5.11.0 we have extended our Billing dashboard for Enterprise customers to include a new SMS Billing tab.
For EPAOs that have SMS enabled in their environment, this will show an annual usage breakdown. Allowing you to get an idea of quarterly or monthly usage and filtering by the communication type. The estimated costings will also be shown.
EPAOs that do not have SMS enabled will still see this tab but will have an information box shown instead.
If you would like to discuss enabling SMS messaging on your environment please open a ticket on our Support Desk.
Additional Information
Each SMS is costed at £0.05 (5p) per message ex VAT.
Please note that we will bill for each SMS sent, rather than each SMS delivered. This is due to a multitude of factors that may limit the message being delivered i.e. invalid or unreachable number. Please ensure that accurate phone numbers are assigned to users.
The default limit is 160 GSM characters, or 70 Unicode characters.
Please note that the variables within templates are converted at runtime into real values which could be of any length i.e. Standard Name or Assessment Component name. As these could be almost any length, please take this into account when designing your templates.
A monthly invoice will be raised in arrears for high volumes. For lower volumes an invoice will be raised quarterly in arrears.
Notifications - Extend to include SMS method
A new SMS notification method has been introduced. This method allows notifications to be sent via SMS, along side existing delivery formats like email & in app notifications. The new method can be configured in the same way as existing notifications.
Note that SMS is not enabled for use within epaPRO by default due to the additional costs associated with it’s use – please contact support if you wish to make use of this service.
A new dropdown has also been added to the communications management screen.
The new dropdown (“Allowed Method”) allows owner users to limit particular methods for each notification, to prevent individual users from selecting them via their own communications preferences. This is particularly useful in preventing users from selecting SMS for all notifications, though it can be used to restrict any method. If no allowed methods are defined, it is assumed that all notification methods are allowed.
Please note that SMS messaging will not work for Planning Meeting guests, as a phone number cannot be associated with these guest users at this time.
A new report has been created (Miscellaneous → SMS History) to show a history of SMS messages that have been sent via epaPRO. The report shows information such as the notification type, recipient, status & message part count (the number of SMS needed to send the message, based on it’s length).
The Email Templates screen has been renamed to Communication Templates, as this screen has now been enhanced to enable the configuration of both email & SMS contents. All of the existing variables available in email templates are also available within SMS templates.
Please note that long messages sent via SMS will span multiple messages to send, increasing costs – please refrain from including long/unknown variables in messages (such as URLs) to keep messages short.
For example, the “assessment_details” variable within the External Assessment notification can be thousands of characters long when sent to Apprentices on a ProctorU exam!
Provider & employer component attendees can now have telephone numbers associated against them when booking elements - this phone number will be used when sending SMS, if this notification method is enabled.
When the message is received, who does it say it is from?
When you receive a text message, your phone always tells you something about where the SMS comes from, this is known as the Originator, an originator is the name or number from which the message is sent.
In this instance it will state it comes from epaPRO.