EmailToVoice.Net provides a seamless way to make alert voice phone calls and to send rich content SMS messages. This is done by merely sending an email. However, it is important to not disregard how easy it is to send TTS, recorded Voice, and SMS messages using the Customer Portal in EmailToVoice.Net.
Customer Portal
QUICK SMS
You can send Quick SMS messages to a list of phone numbers by using the Customer Portal.
Step One: Enter the cell phone numbers that are to receive the message. The only field that must be filled in is the Mobile Number field.
Step Two: You can optionally enter an SMS reply number. This is for International (not USA or Canada) numbers. If you need an SMS reply number for the USA or Canada, Contact Us
Step Three: Enter your messages. Your SMS message can be a maximum of 1071 text characters. Messages between 160 and 306 characters will be charged as two messages; each extra 153 characters after that will be charged as an extra SMS message.
On the next screen, you can merely hit SUBMIT if you want the message to be sent out immediately. However, there are other options available for you to schedule the job to be released on a specific day and time.
Create Escalation or Sequential Lists – SMS, TTS, Recorded Voice, Email, and FAX
You are able to use the Customer Portal to set up lists. These lists can be simultaneous or sequential escalation lists. You can have the messages sent to all recipients in the list at effectively the same time. Or you click the ‘escalation list’ box and have the messages sent one at a time until a person answers and listens to the message for 10 seconds. The Escalation lists are for TTS and prerecorded voice messages.
Send to Lists – SMS, TTS, Recorded Voice, Email, and FAX
You can send a new message broadcast to a predefined list in the Customer Portal. You will be guided through the setup step by step. The message can be SMS, TTS, Recorded Voice, Email, and FAX.
Features of the Customer Portal
The Customer Portal has many useful features for an enterprise to manage a no-code solution for business messaging. For instance, you can see the real-time status of jobs submitted through EmailToVoice.Net, change details in Customer Profile settings, create distribution lists, and much more.
View All Jobs: The customer can view summary and detailed information on messages that have been sent through EmailToVoice.Net. Specific date ranges or a specific job number can be specified.
Manage Personal Lists: The customer can setup distribution lists, which are then referenced by the LISTS tag in the content of the email for sending TTS or SMS messages to a group of recipients.
New Broadcast: The customer can send a TTS, SMS or Email messages to one or more recipients directly from the Portal
Quick SMS: A customer can send a Quick SMS message, one-way or two way, to one or more recipients directly from the Portal
Manage Opt-Outs: The customer can specify a phone number that is never to be sent through the customer’s account. This is useful for phone numbers that have changed and should no longer be used. This is useful when an employee leaves the company and their personal cell phone number remains in lists.
My Details: The customer can change profile settings, such as company address, email address or main account phone number. This includes the customer’s account password. To learn more about the very useful fields in the profile, refer below.
More than Email To Voice
EmailToVoice.Net does more than send Voice and SMS messages via an email interface. You can use the Customer Portal to quickly send SMS messages or you can create Lists and use the Customer Portal to send email, Fax, SMS, TTS, and prerecorded Voice messages. Explore the Customer Portal and learn about the advanced capabilities of EmailToVoice.Net. Or just Contact US and let us know what you want to do. Our Solutions Architects will get on the phone with your project coordinator and work out all the details. We want you to be successful and we can help you achieve that.
Author
Director at EmailToVoice.Net: CISSP – Solutions Architect for Industrial IoT Alerts and Business Communications. LinkedIn
EmailToVoice.Net can send Two-Way SMS messages in either simple text or rich content by just using Email.
Business applications and monitoring software need to send critical alerts and rich communications through SMS. Often, a response is required to ensure the recipient received the message or trigger another workflow action. EmailToVoice.Net provides the ability to send an SMS by using the email capability within Monitoring Software, CRM, ERP, or any enterprise business application.
Additionally, the recipient can reply to the SMS and the replied message is sent back to the Customer Portal and a designated email address. The authorized individual can review the replies on the Customer Portal or review the responses in the designated email address, 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) 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 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 that will then generate a phone call or SMS to other recipients.
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.
Sender ID
For One-way SMS, you will see the same Sender ID 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.
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 provides the ability to send 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,
the TO field merely needs to have the recipient’s phone number and specific email domain provided by EmailToVoice.Net.
Our cloud-based messaging service will convert the email content into a custom web page and insert the link of the automatically created Web page into the text message.
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 (Subscribed to EmailToVoice.Net)
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)
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.
Author
Director at EmailToVoice.Net: CISSP – Solutions Architect for Industrial IoT Alerts and Business Communications. LinkedIn
Business applications and monitoring software need to be able to deliver detailed information to mobile devices, such as detailed orders, repair instructions, and more. Although EmailToVoice.Net can send voice phone calls using an email interface from a monitoring software or any business application, we can also send an Enterprise SMS Text Message using any email interface.
EmailToVoice.Net Provides Enterprise SMS
EmailToVoice.Net provides the ability to send a large amount of formatted data (16MB) using LinkInSMS to a cell phone as an 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 using simple SMS, which is available everywhere in the world.
SMS was proposed in 1982 as part of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), a second-generation cellular standard devised by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Little has changed in SMS since the beginning. SMS messages are still limited to 160 text characters per message. If a message exceeds this limit, most carriers will chain the messages together so they present as a single continuous message to the recipient. SMS is still universally used throughout the world despite its lack of growth in capability.
Enterprise Alternative
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.
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 (Subscribed to EmailToVoice.Net)
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.
Integration with Business Applications
The implementation of industrial communications is critical for premier customer support, business continuity, and process efficiency. However, integration projects can become a major effort. Sending large amounts of data with special formatting from monitoring software or directly from an IoT device to a phone could require program development with specialized hardware and software. Connections to smart devices, CRM, PCS or ERP systems need to go through complex API’s or propriety software gateways.
Enterprise SMS is excellent for automating labor-intensive, time-sensitive tasks generated from monitoring software, ERP, or CRM applications. The messages can be two-way and integrated with complex workflowprocesses. EmailToVoice.Net allows a single text message to communicate large amounts of data. For example, a text message could deliver detailed technical information for device repair or financial data accessed by a simple click in their SMS text message.
The Challenge to SMS by Business Processes
Businesses often need to send large amounts of formatted data as part of enterprise workflow processes to a cell phone. This 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. And, the ability to send informational and alert messages from business applications is complex without the ability to use standard email capabilities.
Enterprise SMS Using LinkInSMS from EmailToVoice.Net
Enterprise SMS is a text messaging feature from EmailToVoice.Net that enables the delivery of large amounts of formatted data, up to 16MB, to a cell phone by just sending an email to the SMS phone.
The implementation of industrial communications is critical for premier customer support, business continuity, and process efficiency. However, integration projects can become a major effort. Sending large amounts of data with special formatting from monitoring software or directly from an IoT device to a phone could require program development with specialized hardware and software. Connections to smart devices, CRM, PCS or ERP systems need to go through complex APIs or propriety software gateways.
You have become a user of EmailToVoice.Net. So, now what?
First Things First
Let’s make sure we all understand the basics of how EmailToVoice.Net works. Our cloud messaging service converts the text in the email message to a genuine-sounding voice or formatted SMS text message and then delivers that message to a phone anywhere in the world without preregistrations. No need to install hardware or use APIs.
To send a message, the Email Fields would look something like this:
TO: phonenumber@NNN.message-service.org (The recipient’s cell phone, NNN can be TTS, SMS, LinkInSMS, Voice or FAX)
FROM: emailaddress@yourcompanydomain.com (The authorized email address to send messages through our service)
SUBJECT: Anything (Used as a job name for reporting purposes, but can be used as the message or part of the message)
CONTENT (For TTS, this will be converted to a voice message. For SMS, this becomes the text message)
Those are the fundamentals. So, now let’s cover what more we can do to meet your enterprise business needs. (Note that this is not an inclusive list. These are the most commonly used advanced features.)
Send a Voice or SMS message from Monitoring Software, CRM, ERP, PCS, or any business application
Integrating communications with business applications is the most common use of EmailToVoice.Net. Applications can send an email, but it is so important in today’s sensory-filled world to get the important messages out as a voice phone call or an SMS text message. Merely change the recipient’s email address to the format of the TO as described above, and you are now sending live communications from your applications without the need for APIs, coding, etc.
What Email Addresses are Authorized?
The main email address specified during the Subscription process on the account can always send messages through our service. That email address also receives reports, password changes, and billing:
You can request us to add an additional email address to your account that will be authorized to only send messages through our service. Just Contact Us.
There are many security features to identify items such as a whitelist of IP addresses. Let us know what you need.
What Phone Numbers Can I Send To?
You can send messages to any number in the world. If the number is in the USA or Canada, then the country code is not needed. When the number is outside of the USA and Canada, then specify phonenumber in the TO field to be something like +6155555555, where 61 is the country code. (Note that there are some global regulations that may exclude some phone numbers.)
Can I Have Only Part of the Message Converted to Voice or SMS?
You can parse the email message by specifying where the important part of the text starts and ends. This eliminates the irrelevant parts of your email, such as the top Header part, and the bottom of the email, such as the Signature, leaving only the important part of the message. Set these parameters in the Customer Portal / My Details / Change Details. It is great to keep the message short and more succinct.
Can I Set a Window of Time for Delivering the Messages?
If you want to send alerts out to your staff as phone calls or SMS text messages only during a specific time of day, you can specify the times in Customer Portal / My Details / Change Details / Email To Broadcast: Active Window.
Can I have the Sending Number be From My Company?
You can have the Caller ID for TTS and Voice messages be from a number that you own. Just Contact Us. It is important that you are able to provide proof that your company owns the phone number. We cannot guarantee that the Caller ID will display in all regions of the USA and globally because carriers throughout the US and the world have to meet varying regulations regarding Caller ID.
You can specify an SMS Sender ID number in Customer Portal / My Details / Change Details. If you are not in the USA and Canada, you can specify a number you own. Within the USA and Canada, you will need to request a number (a Long Code) from us and we will update your account with that number. There will be a minimal monthly charge for that Long Code.
Can I Send to Multiple Destinations?
There are several ways to send to more than one destination.
Multiple Destinations in the TO Field
Multiple destinations can be specified in the TO field by separating them with a “#”. IE;:
2145551234#2145551235#2145551236@tts.message-service.org
OR, multiple destinations can be entered as multiple full email addresses:
“2145551234@tts.message-service.org, 2145551235@tts.message-service.org”
NOTE: When stringing destinations in the TO field of the Email, there is a standard general length restriction of about 64 characters for the TO field.
NOTE: The type of messages, such as TTS or SMS, cannot be mixed in a single message.
Multiple Destinations in the Email Content
Multiple Destinations can be In the body of the message in the following format:
<Numbers>
2145551234
2145551235
2145551236
</Numbers>
NOTE: The destination phone numbers are included in the body of the message. So, the TO field should be: msg@tts.message-service.org
Multiple Destinations Using a Pre-Loaded List
Multiple Destinations can be through pre-setup lists by using the format:
<Lists>
First ListName
Second ListName
</Lists>
NOTE: These lists are created and loaded through the Customer Portal
NOTE: The TO field should be: msg@tts.message-service.org
Can I Have the Subject Field be Part of the Message?
The Subject field of the email coming into our service is always used as the Job Name for reporting purposes. However, sometimes the Subject Field has valuable information in it. So, you can choose to concatenate the Subject field to the message or have only the Subject field be the entire message. You specify this in Customer Portal / My Details / Change Details.
Can I have an SMS Message Deliver Large Amounts of Formatted Data?
An Aert text message sometimes needs to deliver a large amount of formatted data (HTML). This can be done by sending the SMS message with the TO field as phonenumber@LinkInSMS.message-service.org. For instance, the formatted data may be the section of a user manual on how to perform the repair for the failed device. Our ‘Enterprise SMS’ feature, which uses LinkInSMS, is explained in more detail in our post called “Sending Enterprise Text Using a Simple Email Interface “.
How Does Reporting Work?
Every time a message is sent from your account through our service, the main email address receives a detailed email providing the status of the message. This can be changed in your account so that the main email address receives messages only if there are exceptions, such as a failed job. Just Contact Us.
You can specify additional emails to receive reports, or specify that no email reports are sent at all.
Is There A Customer Portal To View Job History?
We have mentioned the Customer Portal previously regarding Account Details and Lists. However, it has much more, such as ‘View All Jobs’ to see the jobs history on any date range you choose.
In Summary
There are many advanced features of EmailToVoice.Net. These are merely a few of them. We love to share our many years of experience in this industry and provide easy no-code solutions for your workflow communications needs. Do not hesitate to Contact Us.
Enterprise SMS is a feature of EmailToVoice.Net, which uses LinkInSMS to deliver rich content to smartphones from mission-critical business applications using the combination of commonly available platforms of Email and SMS.
Your company can send large amounts of formatted data to a cell phone with SMS by merely sending an email, like from your Monitoring Software, CRM, or ERP application. When you send an email through our service as an Enterprise SMS, we create a custom HTML Web page from the content of the email. We then deliver the link for that custom web page in an SMS message. The recipient can then view the formatted HTML web page with a simple tap.
This allows a single SMS text message to deliver large amounts of formatted data to any smartphone in the world initiated by any simple Email interface. There are many more features of Enterprise SMS to meet your mission-critical communications requirements.
SMS Beginning and Present
SMS was proposed in 1982 as part of GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), a second-generation cellular standard devised by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Little has changed in SMS since the beginning. SMS messages are still limited to 160 text characters per message. If a message exceeds this limit, most carriers will chain the messages together so they present as a single continuous message to the recipient. SMS is still universally used throughout the world despite its lack of growth in capability.
In response, there have been rich communication alternatives introduced, such as RCS (Rich Communication Services) and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). Let’s take a look at these communication protocols.
A Look at RCS
Rich Communication Services (RCS) was brought into the GSM Association around the late 2000s. The protocol lay quietly until around 2018 when Google announced it was interested in developing some communications services using RCS.
Considering Google and the carriers are still scattered on how RCS will come together — or even if it will coalesce into some kind of cohesive whole — the new, improved RCS universe as an interconnected unified messaging system is still waiting to emerge. As of mid-2020, things seem to have gone quiet. RCS may be officially available from the network operators, but it is not available on all devices. According to the GSMA, there are 430 million active users with 13 million of them in Germany. Even though RCS has already been launched in many parts of the world, a connection between all these networks is not guaranteed. It looks customers will have more waiting to do before RCS comes to the forefront of consolidating messaging technologies.
RCS has some advanced features over SMS. For instance, RCS can support higher quality picture messaging of up to approximately 10MB in size. The issue that seems to restrict the growth of RCS is that both parties must be using a messaging app and network that supports RCS. If both parties are not on a messaging app supporting RCS, then SMS or MMS will be the fall-back protocol.
A Look at MMS
MMS is built using the same technology as SMS. This allows SMS users to send multimedia content. Whenever you send a message with more than text, such as a picture, you are using MMS.
While their maximum size depends on the carrier and the device receiving the message, 300 KB is often mentioned as the largest size most carriers will reliably handle.
The Challenge to SMS by Business Processes
Businesses often need to send large amounts of formatted data as part of enterprise workflow processes to a cell phone. This 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. And, the ability to send informational and alert messages from business applications is complex without the ability to use standard email capabilities.
Enterprise SMS Using LinkInSMS from EmailToVoice.Net
Enterprise SMS is a text messaging feature from EmailToVoice.Net that enables the delivery of large amounts of formatted data, up to 16MB, to a cell phone by just sending an email to the SMS phone.
Enterprise SMS is a feature of EmailToVoice.Net that creates a custom HTML Web page delivered through a simple SMS message using LinkInSMS. For each SMS recipient, a custom web page is created and inserted in the SMS 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 a receiving smartphone anywhere in the world.
Business applications and monitoring software can deliver detailed information to mobile devices, such as detailed orders, repair instructions, etc. using Enterprise SMS.
The implementation of industrial communications is critical for premier customer support, business continuity, and process efficiency. However, integration projects can become a major effort. Sending large amounts of data with special formatting from monitoring software or directly from an IoT device to a phone could require program development with specialized hardware and software. Connections to smart devices, CRM, PCS or ERP systems need to go through complex APIs or propriety software gateways.
Detailed reports are provided to the enterprise customer for business reporting through the Customer Portal and through optional detailed reports that are sent to operational email addresses. These reports show dates, times, success or failure of the messages, and more. The detailed reports can be exported for import into the customer’s BI applications.
The communications channel used to send the message initially is email, so business applications such as Monitoring Software, CRM, or ERP applications can be used seamlessly. The EmailToVoice.Net Customer Portal provides fields for universal header and footer information as well as the ability to manage delivery windows of time.
How Enterprise SMS works
Enter phonenumber@linkinsms.message-service.org in the “to” field.
Type in anything you want in the subject field using less than 120 characters.
The message in the email will be converted to an HTML Web page, up to 16MB, and a link to the page will be inserted in the SMS message.
And then just send the email. The recipient will receive a link to the custom web page.
Features of Enterprise SMS from EmailToVoice.Net
Enterprise SMS provided by EmailToVoice.Net is rich in features to meet any business requirement. Below are some examples of these features.
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.
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 workflow processes, industrial communications, and alerts.
Communication Enable your Business Processes
Enterprise SMS is excellent for automating labor-intensive, time-sensitive tasks generated from monitoring software, ERP, or CRM applications. The messages can be two-way and integrated with complex workflowprocesses. EmailToVoice.Net allows a single text message to communicate large amounts of data. For example, a text message could deliver detailed technical information for device repair or financial data accessed by a simple tap in their SMS text message.
To deliver rich content to smartphones, Enterprise SMS from EmailToVoice.net uses the combination of commonly available platforms of Email and SMS to deliver large amounts of formatted data from mission-critical business applications.
