Digital Engagement SMS Messaging Reference: General Concepts and Definitions

Messaging Terms, Concepts and Definitions

There are some general considerations that should be understood as it relates to how business text messaging differs from personal text messaging.  Business messaging must meet the compliance requirements within the countries where you plan to do business.  Each country has its own unique standards, and varying degrees of impact for non-compliance, where violation of standards can result in blocked messaging, block listing and/or significant fines.

Business messaging utilizes a higher volume of different types of messaging and conversations, where Digital Engagement effectively manages these use cases.  The volume and type of messaging will indicate a need to understand the type of number you should consider for your business.

Aside from the powerful capabilities text messaging introduces, there are also terms and concepts that will referenced throughout and can help you with your understanding of messaging considerations relevant for your business.

Please see our documentation for explanations of the different messaging terminology related to Message Types, Message Direction (Use Cases), Number Types and Other Terms.

Additional Key Concepts

Sender ID

For referencing purposes, the name or number that identifies a sender is the Sender ID (FROM address) of an SMS message, and is viewable as one of the following by the message recipient:

An international number indicating country code or local number (can be referred to as a long code)

A short code that will have varying amounts of digits depending on the country of origin (usually 4-8 digits); short codes are utilized within country of origin only 

An alphanumeric ID versus a number, used for one-way (outbound) communications (currently not supported by Digital Engagement)

Long and short codes are types of Sender IDs that have different uses in business text messaging.  

Pre-registered Sender ID

Pre-registered Sender ID is working with the carriers (country specific) to text-enable or provision the numbers (Sender ID’s) prior to messages being sent.  Messages will not route if they are not pre-registered.

This is to assure that carriers can approve the traffic being sent by or to the business.  In order to provision or pre-register numbers on behalf of our customers, Salesforce may require a signed Letter of Authorization from the customer. 

Concatenated Messages

An additional Consideration for Text Messaging is concatenated messages.  A concatenated SMS is the ability to enable multiple messages (when sent together as one, ‘long message’), render as a single SMS text message.  The long message is divided into smaller messages when sent, and then recombined on the receiving device.  The long message is still considered and will traverse as multiple messages, giving the appearance of bypassing the limit on the number of characters that can be sent in a single SMS text message.  We support a maximum division of six (6) smaller messages or segments of a long message.

Instead of a concatenated GSM-7 SMS supporting 160 characters, character count will be reduced to 152 characters per message, as the remaining 8 characters are utilized to identify and re-combine the long SMS message correctly on the recipient device.  Unicode messages will also change accordingly from 70 characters, to 67 and 3.

Not all carriers/networks support concatenated messages (e.g. CDMA), and as such, messages will traverse and render as individual SMS text messages. Salesforce supports delivery (MT) concatenation.

Delivery Reporting (DLR)

So, what is an SMS delivery report? Delivery report is a notification that a message sent was successfully delivered from a service/device.  Delivery, however, has multiple dependencies and can result in lack of notification. 

To clarify, when a text message is sent, it traverses multiple touch points along the delivery path.  

The message first hits an SMS server (service provider/carrier).  The server will retain (store) the message until it can deliver it (forward) to the next server(s) across different providers before reaching the final destination of the message.  

Each touchpoint along the delivery path of the message may/may not have delivery receipts configured, and each can be configured for different contingencies (e.g. reports only when next touchpoint acknowledges receipt).  Mobile devices also have differing capabilities, where some devices either fully support delivery receipt, have the option to enable/disable, or do not support delivery notification.

Delivery reporting from our platform is currently not yet available.

Unsolicited SMS

Unsolicited SMS is when messages are sent without prior consent from the recipient, including messages that are sent after he/she has opted out of a messaging campaign or source.  The need for prior consent is determined based on multiple variables of the messaging strategy; use case, message volume and ratio of messages.

The decisions that make up the messaging strategy will help you determine which type of phone number(s) will be necessary for you to procure for your interactive and/or automated messaging needs.  The section for selecting the Messaging Number Types provides an overview, key decision criteria and use case examples of the different types of numbers to aid in your decision-making process.

International Dial-In Codes

Country calling codes or country dial-in codes are telephone number prefixes for reaching telephone subscribers in the networks of the member countries or regions of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). 

Mobile Country Code (MCC)

The Mobile Country Code (MCC) is a unique 3-digit number to identify a country. It is used within the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) to uniquely identify mobile subscribers and within a Location Area Identification (LAI) to uniquely identify a location area within a mobile network.

<<see Digital Engagement SMS Messaging Reference