Overview
MessageBird is a communications platform allowing businesses to connect and engage with their customers. They offer a platform that can unify various communication channels in one place. These channels include WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Telegram. SMS, Twitter, Slack, etc.
While MessageBird has many, amazing functionalities, the integration between MessageBird and Appointedd focuses on sending SMS only.
In order to take advantage of the integration, you will need to have both a MessageBird and an Appointedd account:
If you are planning to send SMS to US numbers, you will need to get registered for A2P 10DLC with MessageBird directly once you've got your account with them sorted. You can learn more about how to register here.
How to connect
On you've got both your MessageBird and Appointedd account sorted, connect the two to start sending SMS via Appointedd.
Access Key
To make the connection, make sure you have the Access key to your MessageBird account - this acts as a password, and allows Appointedd to connect to your MessageBird account.
You can find your Access key in your MessageBird account by navigating to the Developers section on the left hand, and then selecting API access. Here you can choose the Test API Key if you wish to test - make sure you swap this to the Live API Key in Appointedd once you're ready to go live.
To connect, follow the below steps:
Within Appointedd account, navigate to the Connect tab and select Connect to an SMS provider
Here, click Connect under MessageBird
Add your Access key
Add Send-from*
Then hit Connect
*Please note, Send-from could be a phone number, or a name. This should match what you have configured in MessageBird. If you'd like to take advantage of MessageBird's shared number functionality, add the word 'inbox'.
For information on what's possible to use as your Send-from (referred to as Originator by MessageBird), check out this article.
As a best practice, we recommend that you use the same Send-from name for all your SMS communications (transactional and smart texts alike), and that in all cases you test your set up before you go live to avoid disappointment.
Make sure to also turn on appropriate automatic text messages and adjust SMS content if needed - more on this below.
Disconnect
You can only have one SMS option connected at the time. If you'd like to utilise another SMS solution (Twilio or Appointedd SMS), simply hit Disconnect.
If you do need to disconnect, simply click on Disconnect and follow the flow.
Please note, if you don't have an SMS provider connected to your Appointedd account, you won't be able to send SMS via Appointedd.
Adding and modifying SMS content
Once you have a connection sorted, head to the Email & SMS tab within your Appointedd account to manage the content of any automatic SMS you'd like Appointedd to send.
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