Important TRAI mandate on URL whitelisting for Indian CRM customers

Dear Customers,

We hope you're well!

If you are a CRM customer in India and have the Notification SMS feature enabled, this post is relevant to you.

Notification SMS lets you send messages to your customers as an acknowledging response to transactions. Thus far, to send SMSs, you will have to first gain approval of the message template from the DLT service of your network provider.

Lately, 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 like bitly, tinyurl, and others will be neither approved nor allowed.

The last day to complete this action is by 1st of October, 2024. Delay or failure to acquire approval for CTAs will lead to suspension of the service and other legal repercussions. (Point 10e of the directive).

How to whitelist

Each network service provider manages a DLT platform with which a business must have registered their number. Each of them has a way to validate and whitelist the CTAs in your content templates.

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

Supporting resources:

TRAI directive | TRAI press release announcing whitelist mandate | TRAI press release announcing extension

Help doc: Notification SMS in Zoho CRM

Thanks and have a good one!

Kind regards,

Saranya Balasubramanian

Zoho Desk Resources

Desk Community Learning Series
Digest
Functions
Meetups
Kbase
Resources
Glossary
Desk Marketplace
MVP Corner
Word of the Day

Topic Participants
Saranya Balasubramanian

Sticky Posts
Focus Group Webinar - Streamline Record Creation with Wizards
Hi there, With all the time your users spend on record creation, do you feel like they have the most seamless experience while doing it? For different types of records or those with a LOT of fields, do your users spend time navigating to enter data repeatedly?
Notes and Attachments visibility can now be restricted based on profiles
Dear All, We hope you're well! We are here with a quick update about Notes and Attachments profile permissions. In the past, a record's Notes and Attachments were visible by default to all users with record access. However, as notes and attachments can
Identify and prioritize profitable deals: Zoho CRM Forecasts help users focus on revenue-driving opportunities
Post moderated on: 7th November: Release update: This feature is now available for users in all DCs. Dear Customers, We hope you're well! At any given time, a sales rep handles multiple deals, each progressing at its own pace. But not all deals will succeed—some
Gain control over record sharing with portal users through our new enhancement: criteria-based data exposure
Dear Customers, We hope you're well! Portals is a self-service avenue through which your clients can access and manage their direct and related data in Zoho CRM. This empowers them to be more independent and enables them to experience a sense of transparency
Context and convenience just got better with Zia's email intelligence
Dear Customers, We hope you're well! We are in 2024, and email as a tool is only getting more powerful each day. While it enables seamless daily correspondences, we are here with a set of abilities that will enhance your user experience and save several