Reference Guide

SMS

The SMS component allows you to send an SMS message from within your app. SMS messages are sent directly from the host device using the end-user’s SMS network, which may or may not incur additional fees.

Send custom SMS messages from within your app workflow

To add an SMS component to your workflow, simply drag the SMS component from the tool bar onto the Canvas, and link it up.

Creating a Message

SMS components are a lot like Emails and PDFs, in that you can type directly into them. Just double-click on the SMS component or click the Edit SMS Content button in the Properties Panel to edit its content.

Unlike PDFs and Emails, SMS messages don’t include any styling

You’ll notice a character count in the top right hand corner of the component. There is no strict limit to how many characters you can have in a text message, but you should be aware that most SMS messages are a maximum of 160 characters long.

If your message is longer than 160 characters, the message will be split into several separate SMS messages that will be glued back together automatically when they get to the recipient. It’s worth bearing this in mind, as the end-user will may be charged for each part separately when the message is sent. It’s generally best to keep SMS messages within the 160-character limit.

The SMS component is a background process, which means that the end-user will not see the message you type in the Canvas – it will be sent via text message in the background, and the workflow will continue to the next step.

Inserting Data Dynamically

You can insert dynamic data into your SMS message. What do we mean by dynamic data? Dynamic data is content that changes based on something your end-user does, or content that is stored in your Nutshell database.

User data from your workflow can be inserted dynamically into SMS messages

For example, imagine that your app sends the same text message to 20 recipients stored in your Nutshell database, and you want the messages to be personalised. It is possible to dynamically insert the name of the recipient into the text message at run-time.

Success & Failure Outcomes

You can set your app workflow to follow different routes depending on whether the SMS message was sent or not – for example, you may only want an end-user to continue using the app if the message was sent successfully.

Success and Failure outcomes are set on the links coming out of an SMS component. You can set an outgoing link to be:

• a success outcome (which will only be followed if the SMS was successful)
• a failure outcome (which is followed if it wasn’t successful)
• a normal link (which is followed regardless of the outcome).

The SMS component allows you to re-route your workflow if a message can’t be sent

To set a success or failure outcome, simply draw a link from your SMS component to the next step in your workflow. In the link’s Properties, you’ll find a section called “Link Outcome”, containing options for:

• Success
• Failure
• None

None is set by default, which means that the success or failure of the SMS will be ignored.

Sending a Message

Once you’ve created your message, the only thing left to do is specify a recipient, which is set in the Properties panel.

You can specify the recipient’s phone number in the Properties Panel

You can type a phone number in by hand, or dynamically insert one at run-time, either from a form field elsewhere in your workflow or a variable – use the lightning bolt button to specify where your phone number will be coming from.

SMS Properties

When an SMS component is selected on the Canvas, the following settings are available in the Properties panel: