SMS Notifications | Overview - Zoho Forms

SMS

Overview

If you do not want your respondents to miss out on important alerts and updates, you can choose to send SMS Notifications, as they have a greater chance of reading an SMS than an email which makes  SMS Notifications the most used mode of business communication today. SMS Notifications help in sending quick updates, such as order confirmation messages, service request updates, and status updates, to your form respondents, to yourself, or to a phone number of your choice.
SMS Received on placing order
Include the required important details in the message body, providing respondents with an easy channel to access any immediate information. You can also set up workflows to send SMS notifications when certain conditions are satisfied. 
Push Notifications - Overview

Supported SMS Gateways:
SMS Gate
  1. Twilio
  1. Clickatell
  1. SMS Magic
You can send an SMS notification using:
  1. SMS Notification templates for added or updated records
  2. Form Rules to send a message only when certain defined conditions are met

You can view the status of your message and plan your communication with the receivers effectively.

Setting up an SMS gateway connection

To send SMS notifications from Zoho Forms, you must configure an SMS gateway connection. 
Supported SMS Gateways:
SMS Gate
  1. Twilio
  1. Clickatell
  1. SMS Magic
To configure an SMS gateway connection,
  1. On the forms listing page, under Setup, click Control Panel.

    Navigate to Control Panel
  2. Click SMS Gateways under Notification Settings and click Add New Connection.
    Click SMS Gateways

  3. Choose the service you want to integrate with from the following supported SMS gateways:

Twilio

  1. Enter a  Connection Name.  This is for your reference to identify a connection if you are connecting multiple SMS gateways to Zoho Forms.
  2. Enter your Twilio Account SID and Auth Token credentials.
  3. Under Twilio Phone Number/ Sender ID, enter the phone number linked to your Twilio account. 
  4. Click Create. 



    Create New Twilio Connection

    Notes
    Note: Twilio phone number/Sender ID can be acquired from your Twilio dashboard. You can customize your phone number and Sender ID by contacting Twilio. Learn more

Clickatell

  1. Enter a Connection Name.  This is for your reference to identify a connection if you are connecting multiple SMS gateways to Zoho Forms.
  2. Enter your Clickatell API key to authenticate your connection. Learn more about Clickatell API key.
  3. Click Create. 
    Create new Clickatell connection

SMS Magic

  1. Enter a Connection Name. This is for your reference to identify a connection if you are connecting multiple SMS gateways to Zoho Forms.
  2. Select the Server Region of your SMS Magic account that you selected when you signed up for SMS Magic.
  3. Enter your SMS Magic API key and Sender ID. 
  4. Click Create.
    Create new SMS Magic connection
Notes
Note: Multiple Sender IDs can be configured and assigned to users, campaigns, and programs in SMS magic. Learn more

Setting up an SMS Template

Once you've configured an SMS gateway connection, follow the steps below to create your SMS template:
  1. In your form builder, click Settings > Email & Notifications, then click SMS. 

    Configure SMS Notification
  2. Choose whether to send an SMS notification when a new record is Added or an existing record is Updated.
  3. If you have not configured an SMS Gateway connection yet, click Configure Now and create a new connection.
  4. Once the gateway connection is configured, proceed to create a template.
  5. Choose a pre-configured connection or add a new connection. 

    Choose connection
  6. Enter recipient phone numbers with country code. You can also include a phone field from your form by clicking the icon to send the notification to the number filled by your respondent. 
  7. In the Message section, type your text message. To include values from a form submission, click the icon and choose the form fields. 

    SMS Notification template
  8. Click Save. 
Notes
Note: SMS notifications may not be delivered if a respondent enters a phone number without a country code or if the number is incorrect. 

Setting up conditional SMS workflows

Depending on your business use case, you can set conditional workflows to trigger SMS notifications. 
To set SMS workflows,
  1. Click Rules in your form builder and navigate to Form Rules.
  2. Click Configure and start defining your conditions to execute the workflow.
  3. Under Actions, choose Send SMS. 

    Form Rule configuration
  4. Configure an SMS Template for this workflow and click Save. 

    Configure SMS Template
  5. To configure more rules to trigger SMS notifications, click +Rule, and repeat from step 2.
Learn more about Form Rules.

SMS Status

An SMS notification might not get delivered to the intended respondent due to the following reasons:
  1. The respondent entered a phone number without a country code.
  1. The phone number is incorrect.
  1. Failure from the SMS service provider. 

To verify whether SMS notifications have been delivered to your respondents, 

  1. Navigate to All entries or Reports.
  2. Under the SMS Status column, you can check the status of SMS notifications. 
  3. For records where the SMS status is pending, you will see the status as  Message sent to. You can select those records and click Refresh SMS Status to check the current status. 

    All Entries - SMS Status