Documentation Campaign Campaign Standard Documentation

Configuring SMS channel

Last update: January 10, 2024

Topics:
Instance Settings

CREATED FOR:

Experienced
Admin

To send SMS messages, one or several external accounts must be configured by an administrator under the Administration > Channels > SMS > SMS accounts menu.

The steps for creating and modifying an external account are detailed in the External accounts section. You will find below the parameters specific to external accounts for sending SMS messages.

Defining an SMS Routing

IMPORTANT

Using the same account and password for multiple external SMS accounts can result in conflicts and overlap between the accounts. Refer to the SMS troubleshooting page.

The external account SMS routing via SMPP is provided by default, but it can be useful to add other accounts.

If you want to use the SMPP protocol, you can also create a new external account. For more information on SMS protocol and settings, refer to this technical note.

Create a new external account from Administration > Application settings > External accounts.
Define the account type as Routing, the channel as Mobile (SMS) and the delivery mode as Bulk delivery.
Define the connection settings.

To enter the connection settings specific to sending SMS messages, please contact your SMS service provider who will explain to you how to complete the different external account fields.

The Enable TLS over SMPP option allows you to encrypt SMPP traffic.

Enable verbose SMPP traces in the log file allows you to dump all SMPP traffic in log files. This option must be enabled to troubleshoot the connector and to compare with the traffic seen by the provider.
Contact Adobe who will give you the value to enter into the SMS-C implementation name field, depending on the provider chosen.
Define the SMPP channel settings. You can learn more in the SMS encoding and formats section.

Enable the Store incoming MO in the database if you want all incoming SMS to be stored in the inSMS table. For more information on how to retrieve your incoming SMS, refer to this section.

The Enable Real-time KPI updates during SR processing option allows the Delivered or Bounces + Errors KPIs to be updated in real time after sending your delivery. These KPIs can be found in the Deployment window and are directly recalculated from the SR (Status Report) received from the provider.
Define the Throughput and timeouts parameters.

You can specify the maximum throughput of outbound messages (“MT”, Mobile Terminated) in MT per second. If you enter “0” in the corresponding field, the throughput will be unlimited.

The values of all of the fields corresponding to durations must be completed in seconds.
Define the SMS-C specific parameters in case you must define a specific encoding mapping. For more information, refer to the SMSC specifics section.

Enable the Send full phone number (send characters other than digits) option if you don’t want to respect the SMPP protocol and transfer the + prefix to the server of the SMS provider (SMS-C).

However, given that certain providers require the use of the + prefix, it is advised that you check with your provider and they will suggest that you enable this option if necessary.
If needed, define automatic replies to trigger actions based on the content of a reply. For more on this, refer to this section.
Save the configuration of the SMS routing external account.

You can now use your new routing to send SMS messages with Adobe Campaign.

SMS encoding and formats

SMS encoding, length and transliteration

By default, the number of characters in an SMS meets the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standards.

SMS messages using GSM encoding are limited to 160 characters, or 153 characters per SMS for messages sent in multiple parts.

NOTE

Certain characters count as two (braces, square brackets, the euro symbol, etc.). The list of available GSM characters is presented in the Table of characters - GSM Standard section.

If you like, you can authorize character transliteration by checking the corresponding box.

Transliteration consists of replacing one character of an SMS by another when that character is not taken into account by the GSM standard.

If transliteration is authorized, each character that is not taken into account is replaced by a GSM character when the message is sent. For example, the letter “ë” is replaced by “e”. The message is therefore slightly altered, but the character limit will remain the same.
When transliteration is not authorized, each message that contains characters that are not taken into account is sent in binary format (Unicode): all of the characters are therefore sent as they are. However, the SMS messages using Unicode are limited to 70 characters (or 67 characters per SMS for messages sent in multiple parts). If the maximum number of characters is exceeded, several messages will then be sent, which may create additional costs.

IMPORTANT

Inserting personalization fields into the content of your SMS message may introduce characters that are not taken into account by the GSM encoding. A content example is offered in the Personalizing SMS messages section.

By default, character transliteration is disabled. If you would like all of the characters in your SMS messages to be kept as they are, to not alter proper names for example, we recommend that you do not enable this option.

However, if your SMS messages contain a lot of characters that generate Unicode messages, you can choose to enable this option to limit the costs of sending your messages.

Table of characters - GSM Standard

This section presents the characters taken into account by the GSM standard. All of the characters inserted into the message body, other than those mentioned below, convert the entire message into binary format (Unicode) and therefore limit it to 70 characters. For more on this, refer to the SMS encoding, length and transliteration section.

Basic characters

@

SP

0

¡

P

¿

P

£

_

!

1

A

Q

a

q

$

"

2

B

R

b

r

¥

#

3

C

S

c

s

è

¤

4

D

T

d

t

é

%

5

E

U

e

u

ù

&

6

F

V

f

v

ì

'

7

G

W

g

w

ò

(

8

H

X

h

x

Ç

)

9

I

Y

i

y

LF

*

:

J

Z

j

z

Ø

ESC

+

;

K

Ä

k

ä

ø

Æ

,

<

L

Ö

l

ö

CR

æ

-

=

M

Ñ

m

ñ

Å

ß

.

>

N

Ü

n

ü

å

É

/

?

O

§

o

à

SP: Space

ESC: Escape

LF: Line Feed

CR: Carriage Return

Advanced characters (counted twice)

^ { } [ ~ ] | €

SMSC specifics

NOTE

These options allow you to adapt the connector to work with non-standard SMSC (i.e. not following exactly the SMPP 3.4 specification) or specific encoding requirements and should only be configured by advanced users.

When sending an SMS message, Adobe Campaign can use one or several text encodings. Each encoding has its own specific character set and determines the number of characters that fit into an SMS message.

The DATA_CODING field allows Adobe Campaign to communicate to the SMS-C which encoding is used.

NOTE

The mapping between the data_coding value and the encoding actually used is standardized. Nevertheless, certain SMS-C have their own specific mapping: in this case, your Adobe Campaign administrator needs to declare this mapping. Check with your provider to find out more.

The Define a specific mapping of encodings functionality allows you to declare data_codings and to force the encoding if necessary: to do this, specify a single encoding in the table.

Configuration

When the Define a specific mapping of encodings functionality is not checked, the connector takes on a generic behavior:
- It will try to use GSM encoding to which it assigns the value data_coding = 0.
- If GSM encoding fails, it will use UCS2 encoding to which it assigns the value data_coding = 8.
When the Define a specific mapping of encodings functionality is checked, you can define the encodings that you would like to use as well as the linked data_coding field values. Adobe Campaign will try to use the first encoding in the list, then the following, if the first encoding proves impossible.

The order of declaration is important: it is recommended that you put the list in ascending order of cost in order to favor the encodings allowing you to fit as many characters as possible in each SMS message.

Only declare the encodings that you would like to use. If some of the encodings provided by the SMS-C should not correspond to your purpose of use, do not declare them in the list.

Automatic reply sent to the MO

When a profile replies to an SMS message which was sent via Campaign, you can configure messages which are automatically sent back to them as well as the action to perform.

For more information, refer to this section.

Configuring SMS properties

This section details the list of parameters unique to SMS in the properties screen of an SMS delivery or an SMS template.

The specific parameters for sending SMS messages are regrouped in the Send and in the Advanced parameters sections.

From the Advanced parameters section:

The Short code allows you to add a specific short-code to your delivery. Recipients who opted-out of this specific short code will be automatically excluded during the message preparation. For more information on how to configure short code, refer to this section.

NOTE
If the Short code field is left empty, the value of the Short code field set in the external account will be used.

From the Send section of an SMS template:

The Maximum number of SMS per message option allows you to define the number of SMS messages to use to send a message. If this number is exceeded, the message will not be sent.

IMPORTANT
If you have inserted personalization fields or conditional text into the content of your SMS message, the length of the message and, as a result, the number of SMS messages to send, may vary from one recipient to another. For more on this, refer to the Personalizing SMS messages section.
The Transmission mode field allows you to determine the delivery method for SMS messages:
- Saved on SIM card: the message is stored on the recipient’s telephone SIM card.
- Saved on mobile: the message is stored on the telephone’s internal memory.
- Flash: the message is displayed on the recipient’s mobile telephone as a notification, then it disappears without being saved.

recommendation-more-help