Notification SMS for India
Organizations registered in India can send transactional SMS messages to their customers with Indian mobile numbers directly from Zoho CRM.
Note:
- Enabling Notification SMS, managing its auto-recharge, buying credits, and setting preferences can only be done by admins and moderators of the CRM account.
Pre-requisites:
This is a consolidated list of the pre-requisites for enabling Notification SMS. Make sure you keep the following details ready before configuring the feature.
1. Sender ID Info:
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has enforced DLT regulations to send legitimate transactional SMS is sent to customers in India. The notification SMS must be sent via an Indian Sender ID, registered with the DLT. The business has to go to the DLT portal and register their business and get a sender ID and share the sender ID details with us to enable Notification SMS and send transactional SMS in India.
These details are different for different countries based on the rules and guidelines set up by the telecom provider authorities. The details required on the sender ID page will change depending on the country of registration of your company.
- Sender Name (Sender ID/Header): An unique alpha header registered with DLT under TRAI’s Regulation for sending transactional communication.
- PEID: Unique 19 digit entity ID on your registered DLT portal.
- Entity Name: Entity name as registered in DLT
- Sender Unique ID: The unique Header ID provided by DLT.
- Chain ID 1: Your Chain ID after adding ZOHO CORPORATION PRIVATE LIMITED as your Telemarketer Aggregator
- Chain ID 2: The other Chain ID after adding another similar chain entry declaring ZOHO CORPORATION PRIVATE LIMITED as a Telemarketer Aggregator
- DLT Portal: The telecom service provider with which the sender ID was registered.
2. Chain Creation in DLT Portal
Before starting to configure Notification SMS, do not miss this step of updating your telemarketer aggregator as ZOHO CORPORATION PRIVATE LIMITED in your DLT portal. This must be adhered to in order to guarantee seamless delivery for your Notification SMS messages.
What to do:
Since Zoho sends your Notification SMS messages, Zoho acts as your telemarketer. The new regulation requires you to visit your respective DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) portal and add Zoho Corp as your Telemarketer Aggregator under the Chains section. Once your chain has been submitted, the DLT will notify us. We will then approve it and send you an email confirmation.
This action is mandatory for all Indian customers who have enabled the Notification SMS feature. How to do:
- Log in to your DLT portal.
- Navigate to the Chains section, create a new chain, and name it.
- In the Telemarketer section, look for Zoho Corp using the telemarketer ID 1102631350000082951 or ZOHO CORPORATION PRIVATE LIMITED.
- Add ZOHO CORPORATION PRIVATE LIMITED as your Telemarketer Aggregator. Before submitting, please ensure that the details match the image below ("Zylker" is an example).
5. Click Submit.
6. Kindly create another similar chain entry declaring Zoho as a Telemarketer Aggregator. This is to ensure SMS delivery through our fallback mechanism if the direct route is unavailable, guaranteeing delivery even during connectivity issues.
After you have registered the Sender ID and created the chain in your DLT portal, you can configure Notification SMS In CRM.
Pricing
In order to send SMS notifications, you need to have sufficient credits in your account. Each time an SMS is sent, credits will be deducted from your account. The pricing per SMS to send transactional SMS from your DLT registered sender ID to Indian phone numbers is 0.0020 credits (1 credit = $1 USD).
Notifications SMS Configuration
You can enable the Notification SMS feature for your organization in the following steps:
- Provide basic company details.
- Provide the sender ID details for using the Notification SMS service. Once a sender ID is verified by DLT, provide the following details on this page.
- Buy credits to start sending notification SMS.
To set up SMS notifications
- Navigate to Setup -> Channels -> Notification SMS.
- Click Enable.
- In the pop-up that appears, acknowledge the content and click Continue.
- On the next screen, provide the following details:
- Click Next.
- On the sender ID Info tab, provide the required details as mentioned previously.
- Click Save.
Credit Details
To send SMS notifications, you must have credits in your account. As and when SMS are sent, credits will be deducted from here. Upon enabling the Notification SMS feature with company info and sender ID info, you will be redirected to the Credit Details tab. Here, you can view details of your credits like the available balance and the credit usage analysis, as well as buy new credits, set up auto recharge, or view your credit purchase history.
To buy credits
- Go to Setup > Channels > Notification SMS > Credit Details.
- Click Buy Credits.
SMS notifications will only be sent if you have credits available in your balance. To avoid situations of running out of credits, you can also set up auto recharge.
Remove
To set up auto recharge
- Go to Setup > Channels > Notification SMS > Credit Details.
- Click on the three dots.
- Click Manage Auto Recharge.
- Toggle the button to enable auto recharge.
- Set the minimum credit balance to be maintained.
- The balance will be automatically recharged every time the credit is less than the minimum balance.
Set the number of credits to be added once the credit balance is below the minimum.
Preference
Admins can enable the preference options to set up your preferences to send reminders to your CRM users to remind them of tasks, meetings, and calls.
Configure SMS Templates
Before configuring SMS Templates, let's look at in what conditions your template content is good to go.
Template content requirements for India
Once you've configured SMS notifications in your organization, you need to create SMS templates and get them approved by the telecom regulatory authority of your region. In India, to send SMS notifications, you need templates approved by distributed ledger technology (DLT).
Content requirements:
Below is a list of the content requirements for DLT approval:
- A maximum of 4,000 characters (no Unicode characters) can be sent in a single message as a multi-part message.
All non-English characters not found in the GSM-7 character set are considered to be Unicode characters. - Multi-part messages are sent in multiple parts but received as a single message. Each part is considered to be an individual message for which a unit of cost is deducted.
- Note that once a template is approved, the number of characters allowed to be substituted in the merge field while sending a message is between 0 and 30 characters.
- As of April 22, 2021, it is mandatory to have a brand name in all message categories.
Any template requests without a brand/entity/trade name will be summarily rejected.
Causes of SMS template rejections:
The templates sent for DLT approval could be rejected for any of the following reasons:
- The template content may be an already-existing one.
- The content is in an invalid format.
- The template is too long/exceeds the character limits.
- The content has objectionable words.
- The number of variables in the template exceeds the allowed limit.
- Where it appears to the registrar that the variable character length in the content template may be more than the maximum allowed limit of 30 characters.
- The template content is misleading.
Part calculations:
- In multi-part messages (i.e., messages with a length of more than 160 characters), the maximum length of each part is determined by the type of characters present in the message content.
- If the message content contains a single Unicode character, the entire message will be considered a Unicode message.
- For Unicode messages, the maximum characters that each part can hold is 60 characters (for a single-part message). If the message contains more than 60 characters, the maximum characters that each part can hold is limited to 53 characters.
- For non-Unicode messages (i.e., messages using GSM-7 characters), the maximum number of characters that each part can hold is 160 for a single message and 153 characters for multi-part messages.
Once the Notification SMS feature is enabled and credits are bought, the next requirement is to set up SMS templates, have them verified as per the DLT guidelines, and use the templates to set up notifications.
To create Template in CRM
- Create an SMS template on CRM
- Give the template a name
- Select the module to associate the action, and provide the SMS content.
- You can use merge fields to add fields from records as your SMS content.
To configure SMS templates
- Navigate to Setup > Automation > Actions > SMS Notifications > SMS Templates.
- Click + New SMS Template.
- In the pop-up for SMS template, provide the details.
- Click Save.
- Once the template is created, copy the content for DLT approval.
- You can click the link to copy the SMS content, and paste it on the DLT platform and submit for DLT approval.
You can view the message template by clicking on the record in the list view. You can edit the Message Name and the message when clicked on edit. Button is provided along with the action buttons in the top-right corner of the message template view page.
Note:
- Upon editing an SMS template, you can't change the module.
- If the message is edited, you need to submit it again for approval. You will be provided with the option to save as a draft and submit for approval.
Get the SMS content DLT Approved
Once the SMS template is set up in CRM, you will need to get it approved from DLT before using them. You can simply copy the SMS content into your clipboard from CRM and use it for review in your DLT portal. Once approved, you can download the DLT approved File.
DLT has set up rules and guidelines for the template content and restrictions.
Get CTA Whitelisted in DLT Portal
It has been observed by the Government that the URLs in the messages are often misused and cannot be traced back. As a measure to address this, TRAI have mandated that all Call to action links in the message template to be whitelisted.
These call to action links can only be long URLs, main domain pages, WABA links (WhatsApp for Business Accounts), APK links, mobile numbers, toll-free numbers, and email addresses can be whitelisted in templates. Shortened URLs from Bitly, TinyURL, and others will be neither approved nor allowed.
Go to your DLT Portal and whitelist the URLs that your message content will contain. If you fail to do this, messages containing URLs that are not whitelisted will not be delivered.
Upload DLT approved file and map SMS content
Once the DLT approved file is downloaded, you can upload it back to CRM. In Submit DLT file, map the Zoho CRM templates with the DLT approved SMS contents available in the file. Based on the mapped contents, SMS notifications will be sent as and when workflows are triggered.
To upload DLT approved file
- Navigate to Setup > Automation > Actions > SMS Notifications > SMS Templates.
- Click Submit DLT file.
- Select the DLT file from your device.
- Click Next.
- On the CRM Template Mapping page, map the templates.
Once the SMS contents are mapped, a test message will be sent to verify whether the message template is approved by DLT. Upon successful verification, the message templates will be approved in Zoho CRM and can be used in workflows.
Setting up SMS notifications
Once you have enabled SMS notification for your org, and have DLT approved SMS templates uploaded on your CRM, you can configure SMS notifications and use them with different Workflow rules.
To set up SMS notification
- Navigate to Setup > Automation > Actions > Message Notifications.
- On the Notifications tab, click + Create Notification > SMS Notification.
- In the pop-up, provide the following details:
- Name: Provide a name for the notification for future references.
- Module: Select the module for the SMS notification.
- Recipients: Select the recipients' mobile numbers from the records of the different modules for sending the SMS.
- Message Template: Choose and associate the DLT approved SMS template.
- Click Save.
You can view the notifications by clicking on the record listed in the Notifications tab. You can edit the notification by clicking Edit.
To send transactional SMS from CRM in India, the recipient's mobile number should be of the format: +91-XXXX-XXXXXX
The module of the Notification cannot be edited.
Supporting resources
The following are help links to some of the most popular providers in the country:
Airtel: Video | Help article
Jio Trueconnect: User guide | Website
Vi Business: Vilpower website | User manual
BSNL: Video | User guide
Videocon's Smart Enterprise Solutions: User manual
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