Adding an SMS Chat Gateway

There are two ways to add a new SMS chat gateway:

Note: Syntelate XA uses the TextMagic API for SMS chat. If you do not already have a TextMagic account, you’ll need to create one before you can complete the steps below.

For more information about TextMagic, see https://www.textmagic.com.

Add the Gateway

  1. In Studio, go to Message Gateway configuration. You see a list of universes. Each universe has an Edit Message Gateway button.

    Note: The list of universes is restricted by your Studio user ID and role. This means you can only see the universes that you have been assigned to.

  2. Choose Edit Message Gateway for your preferred universe. You see the message gateways index page, listing all the existing gateways in this universe.
  3. From the toolbar, add Add a new gateway. You see the Message Gateway settings page.

User interface showing form fields with labels and buttons.

The settings are organized into two sections: General Settings and Universe Settings. Follow the steps below to get started with editing the General Settings.

Edit the General Settings

  1. In Description, enter a description for your SMS chat gateway.

  2. From Type of message gateway, select SMS - Chat. You see additional options.
  3. In Name, enter a name for your gateway.

  4. For Enable reporting, select Yes to enable reporting for your SMS chat gateway or No to disable it.

    Note: For information about chat reporting, see Reporting.

  5. In Maximum number of SMS messages, enter the number of SMS messages that an agent can send in a single SMS chat. This should be between 1 and 6.

    Note: Using a standard GSM 03.38 character set, a single SMS message can be a maximum of 160 characters.

    A long message can be split across several SMS messages. The character limit for a concatenated text message is 153 characters. A maximum of six messages can be concatenated.

    Maximum number of SMS messages Character limit
    1 160
    2 306
    3 459
    4 612
    5 765
    6 918

    Syntelate XA will not let an agent send a message that exceeds the character count.

  6. In SMS provider username, enter your TextMagic API username.
  7. In SMS provider URL, enter the URL https://rest.textmagic.com/api/v2/messages.
  8. In SMS provider key, enter your TextMagic API key.
  9. In Destination, enter the phone number that customers should send their SMS messages to.
  10. For Route records to the same agent?, select Yes if you want a customer to be passed to the same agent who handled their previous message.
  11. Use Route to last agent window when you choose Route records to the same agent so that Syntelate XA knows which messages will be eligible for routing to the same agent. New messages will be routed to the same agent only if the new message is received by Syntelate XA within the window of time you specify here. Enter a number of minutes as a whole number, for example, 30.
  12. For Allow inbound calls?, choose Yes if you want to prioritize inbound calls over SMS chats; this will result in inbound calls being allowed to interrupt agents who are handling SMS chats.

  13. Next, edit the Universe Settings.

Next, you need to configure the gateway's Universe Settings.

Edit the Universe Settings

  1. From Universe, select the universe that this gateway should be added to.
  2. From Agent group, select the group that will handle this SMS number.
  3. From Smart text group, select the smart text a reason for ending an interaction (or an attempted interaction) with a customer group that will be available to agents handling this SMS number.
  4. From Customer Table, select the table that contains your customers’ details, specifically your customers’ cell phone numbers.

  5. From Customer table: Lookup field, select the column in your customer details table that contains customers’ cell phone numbers.

    Note: When a customer sends an SMS message, Syntelate XA matches against this field in your customer details table. If a match is found, the customer’s record is retrieved. If a match is not found, Syntelate XA creates a new record in your customer details table.

  6. From Lookup type, select Phonenumber.
  7. From Customer table: Customer ID field, select the column in your customer details table that contains unique customer IDs that Syntelate XA should use to match against the INTERACTION_X table.

  8. From Interaction table: Client table ID, select the column in the INTERACTION_X table that Syntelate XA should match against the Customer ID Field.

    Note: Your customer details table contains one record per customer. The INTERACTION_X table, on the other hand, contains one record per customer interaction (in other words, it contains one record for every SMS chat, phone call, and so on).

    Both tables must contain a column for a unique customer ID. This is the Customer ID Field in your customer details table and the Client Table ID field in the INTERACTION_X table. Syntelate XA uses this unique ID to link each customer interaction (such as an SMS chat or phone call) to one of your customers.

  9. In Timer for end chat prompt, enter a number of minutes as a whole number. If a customer hasn't sent a message by the time specified here, Syntelate XA sends the agent the NOACTIVITYMESSAGE to prompt them to end the chat. Alternatively, enter 0 to disable the message.

    Note: This message could be something like Please disposition this chat. It has been inactive for a long time. You can use whatever text you like for this message. For instructions on how to customize it, see Setting the Chat Messages. This is the NOACTIVITYMESSAGE message.

    Note: Due to the nature of SMS exchanges, a customer may well send a message after a period of inactivity. By this point, the agent may already have ended the chat. When this happens, the new message will cause a new chat to pop, possibly to a different agent.

    From the customer’s perspective, they will be continuing an existing conversation, but from an agent’s perspective, this is a new conversation. For this reason, we recommend that you design your agent desktop to make it easy for agents to see past interactions with the customer, including recent SMS chats.

    This way, the agent will be able to read the recent chat and seamlessly continue the conversation with the customer.

  10. Save your settings Save. The page refreshes. It shows you the gateway's settings that you just created. It also shows you some further configuration options.

You are now ready to explore those options. See below for further guidance.

What’s Next?

You’ve now added a basic SMS chat gateway, but there’s still more to do! See the following tasks:

Once you’re happy with how your message gateway is configured, you need to set it to active before it can be used. See Making a Message Gateway Active/Dormant.