Setting Two-Way SMS Directly from the Customer Portal in EmailToVoice.Net

Setting Two-Way SMS Directly from the Customer Portal in EmailToVoice.Net

by | Jul 17, 2025 | How To, SMS

We are announcing a powerful new feature that simplifies the setup of Two-Way SMS directly from your Customer Portal / My Details. This significant update addresses a common challenge for many of our valued customers who previously relied solely on embedding specific tags within email content to enable this crucial functionality.

At EmailToVoice.Net, we are constantly enhancing our services to provide more flexibility and efficiency for your critical business communications.

The Challenge with In-Email Tags for Two-Way Communications

Prior to this update, enabling a Two-Way SMS message required inserting the <TwoWay> tag anywhere in the email you sent through EmailToVoice.Net. While effective, this method could sometimes pose a challenge, especially for business applications, monitoring software, CRM, or ERP systems that generate alerts or communications automatically. In scenarios where these applications have rigid templates or limited capabilities for dynamically inserting specific tags into the email body, setting up Two-Way SMS functionality became more complex or even impractical for the user [query]. The goal of Two-Way SMS is to allow recipients to reply to messages, and for these replies to be captured, often to trigger further workflow actions. When a system couldn’t easily add the <TwoWay> tag, this crucial two-way interaction was harder to implement.

Introducing Seamless Two-Way SMS Configuration in Your Customer Portal

We understand that efficiency and ease of integration are paramount for our business users. To make setting up two-way interactions more accessible, you can now configure the Two-Way SMS feature as a default setting directly within your Customer Portal / My Details. This new capability means that you no longer need to include the <TwoWay> tag in every email message if you want all outgoing SMS communications from your account to be two-way [query].

By setting a default email address for SMS replies in your Customer Portal, any recipient replying to your SMS messages will have their reply sent to this designated email address. This eliminates the need for manual tag insertion in individual emails, offering a more streamlined and robust solution for business applications and monitoring software that send critical alerts and require responses.

Unlocking Powerful Workflows with Two-Way SMS Replies

The ability to receive SMS replies is incredibly valuable for a multitude of business processes. When a recipient replies to an SMS, the content of their message is sent back to a designated email address of your choosing and is also available through the Customer Portal. This opens up significant possibilities for automating workflows without requiring complex coding:

  • Automated Reply Handling: Because replies are collected in a designated email mailbox, powerful no-code solutions like Microsoft Power Automate (Flow) can be used to evaluate these replies and act upon them accordingly.
  • Workflow Integration: Microsoft Power Automate or an AI Agent can seamlessly interact with emails sent from EmailToVoice.Net, including two-way SMS replies. When Power Automate or an AI Agent detects an arriving email reply, it can trigger various actions, such as updating a database, sending another email through EmailToVoice.Net, or even generating a phone call or SMS to other recipients. This transforms simple SMS communication into a dynamic component of your enterprise business flows.
  • Enhanced Communication: This ensures that you can confirm message receipt or trigger subsequent actions based on recipient feedback, which is critical for mission-critical business processes, customer support, and process efficiency.

For Two-Way SMS, EmailToVoice.Net assigns a Sender ID from a pool of long-code numbers to track replies. You also have the option to purchase a dedicated LongCode for a nominal monthly fee, ensuring your Sender ID is unique to your organization.

EmailToVoice.Net also supports sending rich communications via SMS by converting email content into a hosted web page link that is automatically inserted into the SMS, allowing large amounts of formatted data to be viewed with a simple tap. This is especially useful for conveying detailed information that exceeds the traditional SMS character limit, requires HTML formatting, or requires advanced security such as password protection.

Clarification on Voice Call Two-Way Functionality

While this new portal feature specifically enhances the setup of Two-Way SMS, it’s important to clarify how it relates to voice calls.

EmailToVoice.Net excels at converting emails into voice phone calls (Text-to-Speech or TTS) and can even send both SMS and voice call alerts from a single email. The primary function resulting from a Two-Way TTS Voice Call is to record a key press such as a 1 or a 2 or a 3. This keypress is recorded in the detailed email report. The keypress can also be used as a trigger to terminate an “Escalation List”. If the message was going through an escalation list, the calls stop when one recipient acknowledges receipt by invoking a keypress. And, just like SMS, a Two-Way keypress from a phone call can now trigger a workflow process through products like Microsoft Power Automate or an AI Agent.

Get Started Today!

This new capability to set Two-Way SMS or TTS directly in your Customer Portal / My Details makes integrating two-way messaging into your business workflows easier than ever before. It allows for a more robust and hassle-free approach to managing critical alerts and communications, ensuring you can collect replies and trigger automated actions without the previous constraints of email content modification.

We are committed to providing tools that help you maximize your reach with minimal complexity. We encourage you to visit your EmailToVoice.Net Customer Portal to explore this new feature and streamline your business communications. If you have any questions or need assistance in developing complex workflow processes, please do not hesitate to contact us. We love to share our experience in industrial communications, workflow, and alerts

Author

 

Director at EmailToVoice.Net: CISSP – Solutions Architect for Industrial IoT Alerts and Business Communications. LinkedIn
EmailToVoice.Net Solution for the AT&T Discontinued Email-to-Text Service

EmailToVoice.Net Solution for the AT&T Discontinued Email-to-Text Service

by | May 4, 2025 | How To, SMS

For system administrators looking to replace AT&T’s discontinued email-to-text gateway, EmailToVoice.Net provides an immediate, compatible replacement with enhanced capabilities for your critical notification infrastructure.

Replacing AT&T’s Email-to-Text with EmailToVoice.Net

If you’re managing systems that depend on AT&T’s email-to-text service for alerts or notifications, you need a migration plan now. AT&T is terminating its email-to-text and text-to-email services on June 17, 2025, requiring immediate action for any operational systems utilizing the @txt.att.net or @mms.att.net gateways.

Technical Impact of AT&T’s Discontinuation

After June 17, 2025, these endpoints will stop functioning:

  • phonenumber@txt.att.net (SMS gateway)
  • phonenumber@mms.att.net (MMS gateway)
  • Any inbound text-to-email functionality

If your monitoring systems, alert infrastructure, or automated workflows depend on these gateways, they will fail without appropriate reconfiguration.

EmailToVoice.Net: Drop-in Replacement with Enhanced Functionality

EmailToVoice.Net provides a technically superior alternative with minimal reconfiguration required. The service maintains the email-based interface your systems already use, while adding capabilities that address common technical limitations.

Technical Advantages:

  1. Protocol Flexibility – EmailToVoice.Net handles:
    • Standard SMS messages
    • Text-to-speech voice calls (TTS)
    • HTML content delivery via secure SMS links
    • Two-way messaging provides the possibility of Agentic responses
  2. Security Implementation – Full TLS encryption between your systems and our messaging platform, with optional challenge-response authentication for message recipients.
  3. Administrative Controls – Account Settings control message delivery windows, opt-out management, distribution lists, and detailed real-time delivery logging.
  4. Integration Compatibility – Works with:
    • Nagios, viewLinc by Vaisala, and other monitoring platforms
    • Legacy and modern ERP/CRM systems
    • Industrial control systems and SCADA
    • IoT/M2M hardware
    • Any system capable of SMTP output
  5. Logging & Troubleshooting – Real-time message tracking and detailed delivery status for system administrators.
  6. Customer Portal – create escalation lists for voice calls, delivery windows, message parsing, and much more

Implementation Guide

Converting your systems from AT&T’s email-to-text gateway to EmailToVoice.Net requires minimal changes to existing configurations:

Basic Configuration:

  • Initial Setup:
    • Register for EmailToVoice.Net (free trial available)
    • Provide your sending email domain or specific email addresses. (Recipient phone numbers do not need to be preregistered)
  • SMS Configuration:
    • Replace: phonenumber@txt.att.net
    • With: phonenumber@sms.message-service.org
    • Example: 5555555555@sms.message-service.org
    • Maintain your existing email body format
  • Voice Call Configuration (New Capability):
    • Use: phonenumber@tts.message-service.org
    • Example: 5555555555@tts.message-service.org
    • Email body becomes spoken message content
  • Rich Communication SMS 
    • Use: phonenumber@linknsms.message-service.org
    • Example: 5555555555@linknsms.message-service.org
    • Email body becomes a hosted web page with the URL embedded in the SMS

Advanced Implementations:

  • Lists – Use predefined distribution lists
  • Managed Delivery – Set time windows for message transmission
  • Custom Response Handling – Configure message reply destinations to Agentic workflow processing
  • Parsing Content – Specify message start/end points for translating only relevant alert data

Technical Use Cases

EmailToVoice.Net has been implemented in critical infrastructure environments, including:

  • Server/network monitoring alert escalation
  • Industrial control system notifications
  • API failure notifications for DevOps teams
  • On-call rotation management
  • Critical infrastructure status alerting
  • AI Agentic workflow communications

Migration Timeline Recommendation

Given the June 17, 2025 cutoff, a phased implementation approach is advised:

  1. Immediate: Register and test the EmailToVoice.Net platform with sample alerts
  2. 30-60 days pre-cutoff: Switch primary alert routing to EmailToVoice.Net
  3. Post-migration: Utilize enhanced capabilities like voice calls and Rich Content password-protected SMS messages for critical alerts

Transitioning to EmailToVoice.Net now ensures system continuity while providing significant technical improvements over the legacy AT&T gateway service.

Visit EmailToVoice.net for documentation, integration examples, and implementation support.

Author

 

Director at EmailToVoice.Net: CISSP – Solutions Architect for Industrial IoT Alerts and Business Communications. LinkedIn
Introducing the New Job Recipient Report

Introducing the New Job Recipient Report

by | Apr 10, 2025 | How To, List Management

Giving You More Insight into the EmailToVoice.Net message service

At EmailToVoice.Net, we pride ourselves on listening to our customers. User requirements drive every enhancement we release, and we’re always looking for new ways to make business communication more efficient and transparent. That’s why we’re excited to announce a powerful new addition to our reporting toolkit — the Job Recipient Report, now available in the Customer Portal.

This new report feature was designed in response to requests from customers who wanted more granular visibility into the details of their submitted messages. Whether you send voice messages or SMS messages through EmailToVoice.Net, you’ll now be able to dive deeper into the details of each message sent.

What Is the Job Recipient Report?

The Job Recipient Report is a detailed view showing the recipient number and other useful information of every message within a broadcast job.

Detailed information per job is now available, such as the recipient’s phone number.

With this report, customers can:

  • Specify a Date Range to analyze messages sent during a particular time frame
  • Filter for Delivery Failures Only, making it easy to isolate problems and take corrective action
  • Include the Original Message Content to provide additional context for each communication
  • Export Data in multiple formats, including XLS-web and CSV, for seamless integration into internal systems or further analysis

This new feature adds valuable flexibility for administrators and operations teams who need accountability and transparency in their outbound communication processes.

How to Access the Job Recipient Report

To view the Job Recipient Report, simply log into your EmailToVoice.Net Customer Portal and click on Reports in the left-hand navigation menu. From there:

  1. Select the Job Recipient Report option.
  2. Choose the start and end date for your report using the convenient calendar tool.
  3. Optional: Check the boxes to filter for delivery failures or include the original message content.
  4. Click View Report to see results immediately in your browser, or download the report in your preferred format for offline analysis.

This simple interface makes it easy to drill into your data without requiring any training or technical expertise.

Why This Feature Matters

Customers across industries — from logistics and healthcare to finance and government — rely on EmailToVoice.Net to send business-critical notifications. In these industries, visibility into message delivery is crucial.

The Job Recipient Report gives you the ability to view details such as the recipient’s phone number. For example, you can view jobs that have failed and see the recipient’s phone numbers that may have an issue. This issue may be that the recipient is blocking the Caller ID of the message coming from EmailToVoice.Net. This report provides insight into issues so that the issue can be addressed and resolved.

A Quick Recap: What Is EmailToVoice.Net?

EmailToVoice.Net is a cloud-based business communication service that allows you to send voice messages or SMS messages simply by sending an email. There’s no need to install any software, buy any hardware, or integrate APIs.

You just:

  • Use an email interface
  • Address the recipient’s phone number like 5551231234@tts.message-service.org for voice or 5551231234@sms.message-service.org for text messages.
  • Send the message like an email. Our service will convert the content of the email to a nice sounding voice, make the phone call, handle voicemail if necessary, and much more.

You can also request a customized Caller ID or use the Customer Portal to select different voices to support languages other than English, delivery time windows, message parsing, and much more.

It’s that simple — and incredibly powerful.

Committed to Constant Improvement

At EmailToVoice.Net, customer feedback is more than welcome — it’s essential. Many of our most useful features started as suggestions from customers. The Job Recipient Report is a direct result of those conversations, and we’re thrilled to be able to roll it out to all users.

We’re constantly evolving our platform to provide you with the tools you need to communicate reliably, securely, and efficiently. Whether you’re using EmailToVoice.Net for emergency notifications or business-process alerts, we’re here to support you every step of the way.

Try It Today

Log in to your Customer Portal and explore the new Job Recipient Report. If you have any questions or suggestions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team. We’re always here to help.

Thank you for being a valued part of the EmailToVoice.Net community — and stay tuned for more updates coming soon!

Send an SMS and a Voice Phone Call Alert from a Single Email Message

Send an SMS and a Voice Phone Call Alert from a Single Email Message

by | Oct 10, 2024 | Emergency Alerts, How To, Product Feature

We’re excited to announce a powerful new feature for our alert messaging service, EmailToVoice.net, that will simplify your business communications processes.

Previously, if you wanted to send both a voice phone call and an SMS alert, you had to send separate emails. Now, thanks to our latest upgrade, you can send both types of messages with just a single email—saving you time and effort, and ensuring consistent communication across channels.

How It Works

Imagine you need to send both an SMS alert and a voice phone call to a list of contacts. Instead of crafting and sending two separate emails, you can now combine both services into one single email. Simply include both destination addresses in the same email: for SMS, use phonenumber@sms.message-service.org, and for voice messages, use phonenumber@tts.message-service.org. With just one email, both an SMS alert and a voice phone call will be sent simultaneously.

This new feature is designed to make life easier for our customers who need to deliver time-sensitive information to their audiences. Whether it’s an emergency alert, an important meeting reminder, or any other notification that requires a multi-channel approach, you can now ensure both text and voice messages reach their recipients without having to perform repetitive tasks.

Why This Matters

We understand that efficiency is critical when it comes to business communication. By providing this unified messaging option, we’re giving you the power to seamlessly coordinate multiple channels of communication from one simple action—sending a single email. This means fewer chances of errors, fewer steps in the process, and an easier way to get your message out there quickly.

For instance, if you’re a customer service team sending outage alerts or a logistics company coordinating deliveries, it’s crucial to ensure your message reaches recipients in the most effective way possible. SMS messages are immediate and convenient, while voice calls add a personal touch, often catching attention even if a text is missed. Now you can make sure you cover all bases without any extra work.

How to Get Started

To start using this feature, simply include both SMS and TTS addresses in your email when composing your message. It’s that easy! There’s no additional setup required, and you can keep using the familiar email interface that makes EmailToVoice.net so convenient. If you have an existing workflow for sending SMS or voice messages, you can now extend it to include both with minimal changes.

We designed this feature with our customers’ needs in mind—to streamline processes and help you maximize your reach with minimal complexity. Communication is evolving, and we’re committed to providing tools that help you keep up effortlessly.

More on the Way

As always, we’re continually working on enhancing our service to meet your business needs. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this new feature, and if you have suggestions or specific needs, please feel free to reach out to us. Your feedback helps us ensure that EmailToVoice.net remains the best solution for your business communication.

Visit our blog for more updates and helpful tips, and stay tuned for more exciting announcements.

Sending Two-Way SMS Alerts From Monitoring Software

Sending Two-Way SMS Alerts From Monitoring Software

by | Aug 10, 2024 | Enterprise SMS, How To, SMS

EmailToVoice.Net can send Two-Way SMS messages in either simple text or rich content by just using Email.

Business applications and monitoring software may need to send critical alerts and rich communications through SMS. Often, a response from the recipient of the SMS is required to ensure the recipient received the message. A particular response can even trigger a workflow process. This process of sending an SMS from an application and then receiving a response is referred to as “Two-Way SMS”. EmailToVoice.Net supports Two-Way SMS.

When the recipient replies to the SMS, the replied message is sent back to the Customer Portal and, also, to a designated email address. The replies can then be viewed on the Customer Portal or in the designated email mailbox, which is collecting the replies. 

SMS Reply Handling

Because the replies are collected in a designated email mailbox, no code solutions such as Microsoft Power Automate (Flow) or Zapier can be used to evaluate the replies and act upon them accordingly.

Microsoft Power Automate and EmailToVoice.Net work well together. Microsoft Automate has email connectors that enhance business flows. These email connectors can easily act upon emails being sent from EmailToVoice.Net, such as the replies from two-way SMS messages. EmailToVoice.Net and products such as Power Automate integrate SMS communications with enterprise business flows. When Microsoft Power Automate detects an email message arriving in the designated email address, it will trigger an action such as a database update and/or an email to be sent back through to EmailToVoice.Net which will then generate a phone call or SMS to other recipients.

Upon request, SMS Delivery Reports and SMS Replies received can also be sent to a URL via a webhook for deeper integration. This callback system does not require any coding and can send a standard html POST request with the content type application/x-www-form-urlencoded. If you do not want a POST request, we can modify the callback to a standard GET request.

Setup Two-Way SMS

The SMS can be set to 2-Way by adding the tag “<TwoWay>” anywhere in the email. If this is set, then the user can reply to the SMS, and an email with the reply contents will be sent to the email address set in the customer’s account profile. The email address to receive the replies can be set in the Customer Portal / My Details.

Alternatively, the tag “<TwoWayReplyAddress>” can be put in the email message when the SMS is sent through EmailToVoice.Net to set a designated email address to receive the replies for this specific event. To use this function, ensure that the email address is contained within a closing tag, for example: <TwoWayReplyAddress>smtp@example.com</TwoWayReplyAddress>

Setup the Sender ID

For One-way SMS, you will see the predictable Sender IDs each time an SMS is received through EmailToVoice.Net. In the case of a Two-Way SMS, the Sender ID number will be chosen from a pool of long-code numbers so that we can track the replies. However, you have the option to purchase a LongCode for a nominal monthly fee that is added to your monthly charges. Then the Sender ID number will be unique to your organization.

Text or Rich Communications

EmailToVoice.Net can send either a simple SMS text message from any email interface or a Rich Communications SMS message as a link to a hosted web page automatically inserted into the SMS by EmailToVoice.Net.

Sending formatted text messages for industrial communications can be done easily with just a simple email interface using EmailToVoice.Net. SMS Messaging is a reliable means to get important information to employees or business partners immediately. However, the limitations of SMS text messaging often keep it from being used in mission-critical business processes. Text messaging is limited by the lack of formatting and low text character limit, which is necessary to convey detailed information. MMS and RCS attempt to address this issue. However, they too have limitations that cause barriers to wide adoption for mission-critical applications.

EmailToVoice.Net allows sending formatted data to a cell phone using SMS from monitoring software or business applications. Messages with the formatting requirements of an HTML Web Page can be automatically sent to just about any cell phone in the world as easily as sending an email. EmailToVoice.Net uses the LinkInSMS service to provide Enterprise SMS to its customers. Enterprise SMS is a feature of EmailToVoice.Net, which creates a custom HTML Web page from your business email alert and then delivers it as a simple SMS message. For each SMS recipient, a custom web page is created and inserted in their SMS text message, allowing viewing of the page of HTML with a simple tap. This allows a single text message to communicate large amounts of formatted data.

To send an Enterprise Text message,

  1. the TO field merely needs to have the recipient’s phone number and specific email domain provided by EmailToVoice.Net.
  2. Our cloud-based messaging service will convert the email content into a custom web page and insert the automatically created Web page link into the text message.
  3. The recipient can then tap the link in the text message and see the entire email content formatted as a Web Page on their smartphone.

The Email Fields would look like this:

TO: 5551231234@linkinsms.message-service.org       (The recipient’s cell phone – no preregistration required)
FROM: emailaddress@yourcompanydomain.com   

SUBJECT: Anything (Used as a job name for reporting purposes)

The content of the email is converted to an HTML Web page. The Web page of data is hosted by our service and a link to the Web page is substituted into the outgoing SMS text message so that the recipient can easily view the data with a tap.

Features of Enterprise SMS

Enterprise SMS provided by EmailToVoice.Net is rich in features to meet any business requirement. Below are some examples of these features that can be set up in the Customer Details in the Customer Portal.

  • You can add a Header and a Footer that will be used in all text messages from your account. For example, you can add a logo, an introductory message, disclaimers, and links using HTML
  • You can specify a specific SMS Sender ID so the recipient can recognize the sender of the text message.
  • You can enter a default email address for SMS replies. So, if the recipient replies to the text message, the reply will go to this email address. You can then alternatively use Microsoft Power Automate to continue a complex business workflow process without any coding. (Contact us for assistance in developing workflow processes)

The CTIA Principles and Best Practices can help entities operating in wireless messaging, as well as inform consumers about wireless messaging services.

There are many more features of the Enterprise SMS Messaging feature in EmailToVoice.Net. Let us know if you would like to learn more. Contact us. We love to share our experience in industrial communications, workflow, and alerts.

Escalation List Tips

Escalation List Tips

by | Jun 21, 2024 | Escalation Lists, How To, List Management

Our customers use Escalation Lists for many business-critical processes. So, we wanted to summarize some great tips on the workings of EmailToVoice.Net Escalation Lists.

Create the Escalation List

To summarize some high points when creating an escalation list:
  • Create a list in the Customer Portal / Manage Personal Lists
  • Make sure the list name is small letters and no special characters. So the name of the list should be just one small word, such as ‘alerts’
  • Check the box that says this is an escalation list
  • When you create the list, the calls will be in the order of the Reference field. So make the reference field unique and simple, such as ref1, ref2, ref3, etc.
  • You can have the same recipient’s phone number repeated in the list. Just remember to always have unique reference names.
  • If the name of the list is ‘alerts’ you can send a message to that escalation list that would have the TO field look something like:

What is a Received Call

 
Regarding what denotes a received call, the default is that the recipient must listen to the message for 10 seconds. So if the recipient just picks it up and hangs up right away or the call goes to voicemail, then the next person on the list is called. Otherwise, the calls stop.
 
The amount of time the call needs to be listened to can be changed in the Customer Portal / My Details. So if you want that amount of time to be reduced, you can change the default.
 
Change Defalult escalation pickup time
 

 

Conclusion

There are many advanced features of EmailToVoice.Net. We love to share our many years of experience in this industry and provide easy delivery solutions for your workflow communications needs. Do not hesitate to Contact Us.

Author

 
Director at EmailToVoice.Net: CISSP – Solutions Architect for Industrial IoT Alerts and Business Communications. LinkedIn