SMS Prepend +1 (Auto E164 Compliance)

[NickTrace]

Hello!

This is a continuation of the thread here: https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/prepend-1-for-sms-mms.115405/
However, I would love the ability for 3cx to "auto prepend" +1 to outbound sms prior to it hitting the trunk providers infrastructure. The issue is, if our users don't initiate a text thread using the that includes the +1 full e164 format, then the message still sends but when the person replies, 3CX sees it as a new inbound message and starts a new chat. Thus making it incredibly infuriating to hold a conversation, and not natural for our users to have to do.

I think this is specifically related to using queues. I imagine this to be an easy fix, similar to how 3CX handles calls with outbound rules, a similar thing for SMS, SMS outbound rules where you could determine if the number length is (for example) 10; i.e. xxx-xxx-xxxx then prepend +1; +1xxx-xxx-xxxx then 3CX knows how to route this SMS when a reply is recieved.

Thanks in advance!

 

[YiannisH_3CX]

Hi @NickTrace

There are no outbound rules for SMS to be able to prepend certain digits so we went a different route to solve this issue.
We have added an option under the SMS settings of each trunk that allows you to set an amount of digits for the PBX to try to match on replies.


So even if the user does not use +1 to send an SMS, when the reply is received from the PBX the matching will be done with the last 6 digits (in the example above) so a new conversation will not be created.
This is per trunk so you can have different trunks with different number length matching.
Coming in Update 5 which is about to be released.

Note: Providers that only work with E164 will still require messages to be sent in the E164 number format.

 

[NickTrace]

Amazing, Thank you so much! I installed the update and believe that is exactly what we were looking for thank you!