SMS in Connect
SMS is a foundation channel, not an available one. Receiving works: inbound messages are deduplicated, attached to a person, and STOP and suppression are honoured. Sending depends entirely on the configured provider, and the carrier on the live account carries no SMS at all — the Phone screen says so rather than presenting a thread that cannot send.
What works today#
- Inbound messages are received and stored as canonical records like any other channel.
- Deduplication: a provider retry or a repeated delivery does not become a second conversation.
- Relationship attachment: the sending number resolves to a Person, and the message joins their history across every channel.
- STOP: the reserved keyword is recognised and honoured, which is the one place SMS differs from WhatsApp, where there is no reserved word.
- Suppression: a stop is recorded against the person with its origin, and refuses outbound traffic afterwards.
Those are real capabilities with a data model, a service and tests behind them. What they add up to is a channel that can listen and comply, which is genuinely useful for a STOP-handling obligation, and is not the same thing as a channel you can message customers on.
What is missing, plainly#
Outbound SMS. It depends entirely on the configured provider, and on the live account the carrier that handles voice does not carry SMS. Connect does not paper over that: readiness.messaging reports the channel's state on the Phone screen, so what you see is an honest statement that sending is not available on this configuration rather than a message box that silently fails.
This is why the channel's status is foundation and not available. The code, the model and the tests exist; the usable capability is deliberately narrower than the code, and describing it any other way would be the overclaim this manual's status vocabulary exists to prevent — the argument is set out in A four-word vocabulary for capability status.
India: DLT is a process, not a setting#
In India, commercial SMS additionally requires DLT registration with the telecom operators: entity registration, header — the sender ID — registration, and template registration. Each is an application to the operators with its own review, and none of it happens inside Connect. #/dlt holds the registration data so it is in one place rather than scattered across inboxes.
A workspace that expects to turn SMS on by choosing a provider and is then met with a registration process has usually not budgeted the time for it. DLT registration in India sets out what each stage asks for, and Preparing for DLT, end to end follows it as a flow.
Where each SMS topic lives#
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Receiving SMS | The inbound path and the canonical record |
| Duplicate SMS | Why a repeat does not become a second conversation |
| Attaching an SMS to a person | Number to identity to Person |
| STOP and opt-out | The reserved keyword and what it triggers |
| SMS suppression | Where a stop is held and what it covers |
| Sending SMS: what is available today | The outbound position, stated without hedging |
| DLT registration in India | Entity, header and template registration |
| SMS for the Owner and for a customer | One implementation, per-workspace configuration |
What to use instead#
For messaging a customer today, WhatsApp is the available channel and behaves as one — inbound, replies, follow-ups and opt-out all work, within the provider's own template and window rules. Email has the fewest platform constraints of any channel here, and Phone covers the case where a conversation is better had than typed.
Keeping SMS receiving switched on is still worth doing where customers have the number: a STOP that arrives and is honoured is a compliance obligation met, whether or not anything is ever sent back.
Everything in this section#
8 pages, each with its own status and the date it was last checked against the running system.
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Attaching an SMS to a person | How Connect turns the number that sent a text message into a Person, what it does when the number is unknown, and the near-misses that land a message on the wrong record. |
| DLT registration in India | What DLT registration means for a business sending commercial SMS in India, the three registrations involved, and why it is a process with the operators, not a setting. |
| Duplicate SMS | Why the same text message can arrive at Connect more than once, what key stops a second copy becoming a second conversation, and the one case it cannot cover. |
| Receiving SMS | How a text message reaches Connect: the provider webhook, the workspace it resolves to, the record it becomes, and what receiving alone does not give you. |
| Sending SMS: what is available today | The honest state of outbound SMS: what the provider decides, why the carrier on the live account carries none, and what the Phone screen shows instead of a thread. |
| SMS for the Owner and for a customer | Whether SMS behaves differently on the Owner account and in a customer workspace: the same code path, the same provider limit, and the one real difference. |
| SMS suppression | How a suppression entry is created on SMS, what it stops, how it differs from a do-not-contact directive, and who is allowed to clear one. |
| STOP and opt-out | The opt-out words Connect honours in a text message, what is written when one arrives, how far the refusal reaches, and how quickly it takes effect. |
Questions#
Can I send an SMS from Connect right now?
Not on the live account's carrier, which carries no SMS. On a workspace whose provider does carry SMS, sending is bounded by that provider — and in India by DLT registration. The Phone screen reports the channel's state rather than offering a send that cannot work.
Does STOP on SMS stop WhatsApp and email too?
It depends on how it was recorded. A channel suppression names its channels; a do-not-contact entry covers every channel. See STOP and opt-out.
Is DLT something Connect can do for me?
No. It is a registration with the telecom operators, made by the business. Connect holds the registration data on #/dlt so it is recorded in one place.