How to configure SAGE ACT! to send SMS Text Messages
already has an inbuilt email function but as many businesses know, approximately 20% of emails get read. Also, if the message is urgent, when chasing payments, you want to make sure it gets there AND fast. Sending an SMS from SAGE ACT! is as simple as sending an email. In fact, it uses the email functionality of SAGE ACT! and our Email-to-SMS Gateway.
Text Marketer provide one of the lowest cost SMS Gateways so you can be sure you’re getting the best deal on SMS costs.
We’ve tested this process with a number of SAGE ACT! users and from setup through to getting the first SMS message out of SAGE ACT!, the whole process takes just minutes and then you’re integrated!
Step 1 – Open SMS account
First, you need an account with us, so that you can use our Email-to-SMS Gateway.
Open your free Text Marketer account
(Use the promo code SAGE and we’ll add 100 free text credits to your account for testing – pre-filled with link above).
Step 2 – Setting your sender email address
Go in to your MessageBox account and click on Account Settings, then click the Account Details Tab.
See “Email Gateway Settings” on that screen. First, click Active next to the “Use Domain Authentication” box to make it Active.
Then, enter the domain name your emails come from in the box. So if your emails come from sales@abcwidgets.com for example, you would enter abcwidgets.com. Then, click the Save button to save those changes.
Step 3 – Updating a contact with an Email-to-SMS address
You need to specially format an Email-to-SMS address for your contacts. Most people simply put this in as a second email address for a customer.
The format is [the-mobile-number]@textmarketer.biz, e.g. 07888999777@textmarketer.biz.
Choose a test contact in SAGE ACT! and update their secondary email address as per the above format, using their mobile number.
Step 4 – Sending your first SMS from SAGE ACT!
Let’s send your first SMS. All you’re going to do is the same process you would as if you were going to send this contact an email.
Choose your test contact. Choose the secondary Email-to-SMS address we set up earlier and then create your email message.
There is no need to put in subject in. The only difference is that you should end your message with ## … this tells our system where the end of the text message is (so it doesn’t send signatures or sign offs often automatically added to the end of emails).
For example, send “Hi, this is a test of our new SMS function in SAGE ACT!. You can reply to this text. Thanks.##“
Then send the email and your contact will receive the message as a text message.
You’ve now sent your first SMS message from SAGE ACT!!
FAQ’s
Can people reply to messages I send them?
In your account, you can set who the message comes from. This is called the Sender ID. It can be your company name for example (which people couldn’t reply to). Or, you can set it as a number to reply to. This could be an office mobile phone for example and then replies would come back to that. Or, you could rent a virtual mobile number where all replies come back in by email.
How much does each text message cost?
Our prices per text are very low. We even provide a competitor price comparison chart on our prices page.
How can I update all my contacts to have an Email-to-SMS number quickly?
You would need to contact SAGE support for this or your support person. They should be able to run an update script in your system to automatically update all contact records to have the secondary address.
I don’t want to put the ## at the end of each message. Can I change that?
Yes. Go to Account Settings then click on the Account Details Tab. In the Email Gateway Settings area, you’ll see ## in the Message Termination field. Change that to whatever you wish or remove it completely and everything in your email will be sent as an SMS. Click Save.
I’d like to be able to send from Outlook and other Email programs like this, can I?
Yes. See our Email-to-SMS gateway instructions.