Broadcast - SMS

Broadcast - SMS

Introduction

Sending alerts (invitation , confirmation & reminder) to your attendees has now been made easy with the SMS sending feature. With this feature, you can quickly and conveniently send important event updates, reminders, and notifications directly to your attendees' mobile phones.

Important Remarks

  • SMS Confirmation messages only apply to attendees that are imported via the Add an Attendee flow. It does not apply to attendes that register via the Registration Form or imported using the current bulk import flow.

  • SMS Invitation messages are applicable for attendees invited via the Invite Attendee flow and Special Role invitation flow. It does not apply to the RSVP invitation flow. 

  • SMS Reminder messages will be sent to attendees that have input valid country code and mobile numbers in the registration form even if they did not receive any SMS Confirmation message. This includes Special Roles. 
  • Organizers may opt to use Email only or Email and SMS as event delivering methods but unable to choose SMS only.
  • The SMS service is turned off by default, organizers will need to enable it manually.
  • The SMS message content cannot be edited.
  • The SMS sender number is by default displaying +1 (938)888-8249.
  • SMS message support English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese content.
  • For new EventX users, SMS content language will be decided by the country code. For example,
    • If the user's contact number is +86 (China), the user will receive the SMS message in Simplified Chinese.
    • If the user's contact number is +852 (Hong Kong) or +886 (Taiwan) the user will receive the SMS message in Traditional Chinese.
    • For other country code,  the user will receive the SMS message in English.
  • For users who signed up for an EventX account before, the SMS content language will be based on the EventX platform language they chose in their account. For example, If the user's contact number is +852 (Hong Kong) and received the invitation SMS in traditional Chinese after he registered for the event successfully and change the platform language to English, he will receive the SMS in English next time.

Steps To Enable

Step 1: Go to Event settings > Basic event info > Event delivering methods. Click Short Message service (SMS). It will turn to red.


Step 2: Click SAVE.

Sending SMS invitation

Inviting attendees one-by-one

Step 1: Go to People List > Click Invite Attendees > Email/SMS invitation



Step 2: Enter the email address, pick the area code and add the contact number. Don't forget to tick I want to send SMS invitation to the user


To add additional invite click Add Attendee. Then, click Send Invite when done.


Inviting attendees by bulk using CSV file

Step 1: Click Invite Attendees > select CSV UTF-8 



Step 2: Click Download CSV UTF-8 Template


The template includes Name, FirstName, LastName, Email, AreaCode, ContactNo, JobTitle and ShouldSendSms columns. If SMS needs to be sent to the attendees, please fill in the area code, contact number and fill in "Yes" under ShouldSendSms column.


Step 3: Upload the CSV

To send an SMS message, toggle on Send Invitation Email & SMS

Click Import Attendee List, then the Email and SMS will be sent upon import.


Step 4: The attendee will be imported successfully if the email and contact number are valid. Attendees will receive the SMS if the organizer indicates "yes" under the ShouldSendSms column.

If the attendee's email or contact number is invalid, it will not import to the platform. Organizers can find the list under "Failed".



Event invitation SMS template for Attendees


The attendees will be directed to the event page after clicking on the event link. 

Confirmation SMS template

Note: The comfirmation SMS template for In-person events are different from Virtual and Hybrid events. For In-person events, the SMS confirmation will consist of a link that shows the Check-in QR Code once clicked while the virtual and hybrid events include a link that directs the attendee to the event site.

Confirmation SMS Template For In-person Events


Comfirmation SMS Template For Virtual & Hybrid Events

Reminder SMS template

When the short message service (SMS) is turned on, attendees who have set to allow sending SMS will receive the reminder SMS message 24 hours and 1 hour before the event goes live. 

Note: The reminder SMS template for In-person events are different from Virtual and Hybrid events. For In-person events, the SMS reminder will consist of a link that shows the Check-in QR Code once clicked while the virtual and hybrid events include a link that directs the attendee to the event site.

24-hour reminder SMS

For In-person Events 



For Virtual & Hybrid Events 

1-hour reminder SMS
For In-person Events 

For Virtual & Hybrid Events

Reminder SMS Criteria

The automated SMS reminder messages will only be sent out if all criteria below are met. 
  1.  The role must be an Attendee. 
  2. The event must be Published. 
  3. If approval mechanism is turned on, the attendee must be under Approved status.
  4. The Registration Status must be either Registered or N/A.
  5. The contact number and country code must both be valid.
The SMS reminder messages will not be sent out if any criteria below are met. 
  1. The event is not Published.
  2. The Approval Status of the attendee is either Rejected or Waitlisted.
  3. The Registration Status of the attendee is Pending.
  4. The role is either Organizer or Host.
  5. The contact number or country code are invalid.

SMS Character Limit 

We are using Twilio as SMS gateway.

The SMS character limit details: https://www.twilio.com/docs/glossary/what-sms-character-limit

SMS Limitations In Different Countries 

To send bulk SMS messages to countries other than China, EventX utilizes Twilio as its SMS gateway service. However, there are several country-specific regulations regarding SMS compliance that impose certain restrictions.

Other than the countries listed below, please note that the SMS feature is not supported for Macao mobile numbers as well.

Some of the examples are:

CountryLimitation
TaiwanURLs (especially shortened URLs) is strictly prohibited in Taiwan.
SingaporeFrom 30 January 2023, all non-registered Sender IDs will be overwritten with Alphanumeric Sender ID ‘Likely-SCAM’. From 31 July 2023 all non-registered Sender IDs will be blocked.
UKSMS messages sent with non-compliant sender types to U.K. mobile operators BT and Sky will be blocked.
MalaysiaEffective July 2, 2023, any SMS message that contains unregistered URLs and phone numbers will be blocked. You must register all full-length URLs and phone numbers that will be used within the body of an SMS message to Malaysia by this date. Shortened URLs will not be allowed for registration.

For specifics, see Twilio's official SMS guidelines. 

https://www.twilio.com/en-us/guidelines


    • Related Articles

    • Send Invitation, Confirmation & Reminder via SMS

      Remarks Using SMS to send the notifications cannot disable sending the email notification. Organizers may opt to use email only or Email and SMS as event delivering methods but cannot choose SMS only for event delivering methods By default invited ...

    • Broadcast - WhatsApp

      Remarks The WhatsApp notification feature is available for all event types. The message content cannot be edited. The WhatsApp notification feature supports sending automated Confirmation, Reminder (24 hour) and Reminder (1 hour) messages. This ...

    • SMS limitation in different countries

      EventX utilizes Twilio as its SMS gateway service to send bulk SMS messages to various countries. However, there are several country-specific regulations regarding SMS compliance that impose certain restrictions. Some of the examples are: Country ...

    • Broadcast - Email

      Manual Email To know more regarding our manual email feature, please refer to this article. Automated Email To know more regarding our automated email feature, please refer to this article.

    • Secondary Email Feature

      Newly created events after Jan 15, 2024 will consist of the Secondary Email feature where organizers and attendees can input up to 5 secondary email addresses. The secondary email addresses that has been input will receive a carbon copy (cc) of all ...