Set Up Proactive SMS

Prior to setting up proactive SMS, your business unit must be enabled for Personal Connection (PC) and you must have at least one SMS registration available from which to send SMS (text) messages. Talk to your account manager if you have questions.

Create an SMS Message Template

Required permissions: Message Templates Create

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to OutboundMessage Templates.

  3. Click Create New.
  4. Set the Type to SMS and enter a Name.
  5. Enter the message you want to send to your contacts in the Message Body field. To add variables to the message body, type the exact named of a mapped field in the calling list and enclose it in curly brackets. For example, {FirstName} would inject the contact's first name into the text message.
  6. Select the Direction you want.

  7. Click Create.

Create a Campaign

Required permissionsCampaigns Create

If you've already created a campaignClosed A grouping of skills used to run reports. that you plan to use, you can skip this step. For example, you may have a campaign that you intend to use across several channels.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.
  2. Go to Contact SettingsCampaigns.
  3. Click Create New.
  4. Enter a value in the Campaign Name field.
  5. Click Create Campaign.

Create a Proactive SMS Skill

Required permissions: Skills Create and Skills Edit

The name of a skill should be meaningful. It's helpful to be consistent when naming skills. Decide on a standard format for skill names that works for your organization.

A skill name must have a minimum of 2 characters and a maximum of 30. Skill names may only contain letters, numbers, and these special characters:

  • Hyphens (-)
  • Underscores (_)
  • Periods (.)
  • Colons (:)
  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to Contact SettingsACD Skills.

  3. Click Create New > Single Skill.

  4. Set the Media Type to SMSInbound/Outbound to Outbound, and Outbound Strategy to Personal Connection.
  5. Enter a Skill Name.
  6. Select the Campaign you want the skill to be part of.
  7. Select an SMS Transport Code from the drop-down.
  8. Select a Message Template from the drop-down.
  9. Configure the remaining optional fields in the Skill Information section as needed.

  10. If you want to use screen popsClosed A configurable pop-up window with information about the contact. It appears on an agent's screen after a certain event, usually when the agent connects to a contact. for this skill, select the Use Screen Pops checkbox. Modify the optional settings in the Screen Pops section if you want to customize your screen pops. This capability is only supported for CXone Agent suite. You can also do this later.
  11. If you want to test how contacts in this skill change in priority over time compared to other skills, use the Priority Comparison tool. You can also do this later.
    1. In the Skills to Compare section, click +.

    2. Add Available skills until all skills you want to compare are in the Selected list. You don't need to add the skill you are currently editing; it appears in the graph automatically.

    3. Click Done.
    4. Use the Elapsed Time and Time Interval fields to define the period of time you want the graph to cover and the time intervalClosed A period between points, limits, or events, such as dates or times you want to mark a new point on the graph.

    5. Click Compare.

  12. Click Create. Complete additional configurations to customize or manage your skills.

Create Custom Data Definitions

Custom data definitions are custom fields you create to map to your calling lists. Because they can be used for a wide variety of purposes, they're covered on another page.

To use Proactive SMS, you must define a specific field in your calling lists (and a corresponding data definition) for the phone number used for SMS messages (referred to as the SMS Phone field). This section provides those specific instructions. You may also need to create custom fields for certain parameters of the SMS Phone field, like CallerID, Attempts, or others. Instructions for those fields can be found on the separate page mentioned previously. However, this section does provide examples of how those fields can be used with an SMS Phone field.

If you want your Proactive SMS messages to use custom values for Caller ID, Attempts, or other fields, create those fields before you perform this task.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to ListsCustom Data Definitions.

  3. Enter a Field Name.
  4. Set the Type to SMSPhone.
  5. Configure the other fields with the custom fields you previously created.
  6. If you want to, configure Constraints by clicking the timeline at the point your calling hours should begin and dragging to the point where the range should end.
  7. Click Save.

Create a Calling List

Calling lists provide the contact names and numbers for your Proactive SMS campaign. Because they can be used in multiple areas of your contact center, they're covered in their own section. Calling lists used for Proactive SMS must have a column for SMS phone numbers to be mapped to the SMSPhone custom data field you created in the previous task. If you've already uploaded one or more calling lists that meet this requirement, you can skip this task.

Calling list files can't exceed 256 MB in size or 500,000 records. Smaller calling lists result in faster upload and fresher records. Each individual record in a calling list cannot exceed a length of 512 Unicode characters. Calling list uploads support Unicode UTF-8 encoding, which includes Chinese characters and all other languages. If you're creating or editing calling lists in Microsoft Excel, take care to preserve the UTF-8 encoding format.

CXone strips the formatting from phone numbers in calling lists and stores the phone numbers in a universal format. This allows phone numbers to pass between calling lists and do not call (DNC) lists without conflict.

  1. Open a spreadsheet editor or a text editor.
  2. You can use the first row to label your columns. This helps with automatic field mapping when you upload the calling list. If you're using a text editor, decide whether to separate the values with commas or tabs.
  3. Create the columns for your list.

    For a Proactive SMS calling list, you must have a unique identifier column and an SMS phone number column.

  4. Enter the data for each record in its own row.

  5. Save the file in one of the approved formats shown in the following images.

Upload a Calling List

If you're re-uploading a calling list after making critical updates, stop the associated ACD skill. Restart the ACD skill when you're done uploading calling lists.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to ListsCalling.

  3. Click Select File.

  4. Read the compliance agreement and click Accept to continue.

  5. Enter a List Name. Select the Upload New radio button if you want to select a new list from your computer, or Select Existing if you want to modify a list you already uploaded.

    If uploading, click Choose File. If modifying, type the File Name or click Browse. Find and select the calling list you want to upload or use. Configure any optional fields as needed.

  6. Click Next.
  7. If you used the first row of your calling list to label the columns, select Use First Row as Column Names next to Header. Review the automatic mapping done by PC, map any unmapped fields, and configure time zone handling and an expiration date.
  8. If it's not already done for you, map your phone numbers and email addresses in Map Destinations. Add and remove destinations as needed.

    If you map a phone field to a specific ACD skill, it appears under the cadence options for that skill. If you don't want to include a specific phone number in the Maximum Attempts or cadence calling order, don't map those phone number to fields. Once you map the field, you can't remove it from the cadence settings.

  9.  When the file uploads, PC displays the progress and the number of records that loaded successfully and unsuccessfully. If the calling list contains invalid records, use the following steps to fix the errors.
    1. Click Download Link in the warning box that appears.

    2. Open the file to view the problems with the upload. In this example, the record in row 6 doesn't have a phone number:

    3. Fix the problem in the calling list and save it.
    4. Upload the updated file.

Start the Proactive SMS Skill

Required permissions: Outbound Strategy Manager Edit and access to campaigns

If you plan to create a schedule, you can skip this step. If you want to manually turn your PC ACD skill off and on, do the following steps after completing all configuration.

  1. Click the app selector and select ACD.

  2. Go to Contact SettingsACD Skills.

  3. Click the skillClosed Used to automate delivery of interactions based on agent skills, abilities, and knowledge you want to start.

  4. Click Start.

  5. When you are done using the skill, click Stop.