Company Administration Guide

Within the Company Settings pages you can tweak various settings that apply to all of your users, or just selectively. You are also able to set API and STOP settings.

User Management

Under User Management you can see a list of user logins configured company wide. It includes useful information such as when the last message was sent by that user (helpful for finding inactive Users), last login and the individual's role. You can search for users using the convenient instant search box.

Bulk activities are possible on the User Management screen, for example you can select multiple users and bulk apply roles, resend the welcome email, or deactivate them.

The available menu options are:

Menu	Purpose
Create User	Create a new user. More information available here
Compose	Send a message to selected users
Deactivate	Deactivate selected users. Such users will not be able to login
Assign to Role	Change the role of selected users
Resend Welcome Message	Send the Welcome Message to selected users

Create User

Creating an individual user is in most cases self-explanatory and once the user is created they are free to login. Sending a welcome message allows the user to set their own password, if you do not do this you will have to issue the user with a password and contact them directly.

Users can be created with a variety of roles:

Role	Purpose
Admin	Each Company must have a user which is the designated Company Administrator. In addition to the messaging features, this user has additional options for administering their user accounts. Security, user user maintenance and reporting options are the main features and are detailed in the Company Administration section.
User	This user has their own unique login and may share Contacts and Groups with other Company Users, but all administration is done by the Company Administrator. The Company Administrator should be contacted with any queries a User may have.
Group Admin	Can access everything a user can with the addition of being able to access and edit Groups and Contacts
User Management Admin	Can access everything a user can with the addition of being able to access, create and edit users
Report Admin	Can access everything a user can with the addition of being able to access Reports

Administrators can define user-specific permissions and settings that the user cannot override themselves, as well as control the level of access they have to the Contact Security Domains.

Email2SMS settings

User-specific Email2SMS settings can also be defined.

Send to Any Number

Although the service supports sending 'email' to phone numbers, your administrator may have configured the system to only allow messages to be sent to known Contacts. When 'Send to Any Number' is enabled the user may send to any number.

e.g. 642715414141@bulletinmessenger.net

Email Signature Separator Regex

Due to SMS character/part restrictions it is useful to have Email2SMS messages automatically exclude your email auto-signature content from sent SMS messages.

To do this Messenger uses an Email Signature Separator Regex to identify the start of your Email auto-signature. Any content that appears in the email after the Regex characters will automatically be removed and not included on your Email2SMS messages.

The default characters that appear in this field are two dashes and a space “-- “, (this will also take effect if this field is left blank) but this field can be set as any characters you chose. For example, using “Regards,” might be useful if your emails always end with this closing.

All email2SMS content sent from your email will now only include the content that appears before your Regex characters.

Allowed Email Addresses

The email addresses or domains that will be billed to this user are listed here. Management of this information is handled in the purpose-built Email2SMS page.

Import Users

Using the import function allows you to export a list of users from any of your existing systems and import them straight into Messenger with only a few minor changes. There's even a handy preview screen which allows you to check that all the user details are correct

Importing users is done through a CSV file which should be in the following format:

Name, Username,Email,Mobile
James Smith, james.smith,james.smith@awesomecompany.co.nz,6421601237
Jason Jones, jason.jones,jason.jones@awesomecompany.co.nz,6427123258
Mike Jones, mike.jones,mike.jones@awesomecompany.co.nz,6427301330
Bob Day, bob.day,bob.day@awesomecompany.co.nz,6427890147
Jane Smith, jane.smith,jane.smith@awesomecompany.co.nz,6427234234

User Requests

User Requests are actions that a user has requested an Administrator perform on their behalf.

Users, for example, can request email addresses to be whitelisted or request access to Security Domains. These requests are visible as 'User Requests', making it much easier to manage large numbers of users.

Administrators can grant such requests simply by clicking a button.

Company Settings

Company Limits

Message Limits

The Administrator may set some messaging limits for the company. These limits apply across all users within the company. For example, with three users and a message limit of 500 then when the combined total for all three users reaches 500 no further messages may be sent.

Only SMS messages are included in any message limits.

System Limits

Please note there may be a system limit in place for your account to prevent abuse and you may need to contact Support in order to have that lifted.

Password Policy

Password Policies let you set the password strength for users within your Company. This allows for added security and reduces the possibility that your Users will be compromised.

Contact Settings

Contact Settings let you define behaviour associated with your Contacts.

STOP Keywords

When you are sending messages to the general public in many regions (eg: the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland) you must provide a mechanism for the recipients to be able to stop receiving these messages.

With this setting enabled you can setup an automatic trigger on specific words such as STOP (or any words you define) being received and these numbers are automatically added to your company shared blocklist automatically. Block lists apply to ALL your Company users, blocks are applied at a Company level and not a user level.

Stop-word format

Please note these are case insensitive and whole words only, so for example ‘stopping’ would not trigger an opt out if STOP was the keyword but ‘stop’ would.

Contact Properties

Contact Properties represent custom properties (eg: 'department', or 'favourite team', or 'pet name' that your Organisation wishes to be able to define for their Contacts. When Contacts are created, these fields can be edited. When messages are sent, these values can be included in the message.

Contact Key

This defines the identifier used when Contacts are imported. For more information see the import documentation

Mobile Settings

Mobile Settings control how your users can use their own mobile phone number.

Reply To Mobile

Reply to mobile lets your users send messages that appear to come from their own personal mobile numbers. This is network dependent as some carriers prevent this from occurring to limit abuse (such as pretending to be someone else) This setting is applied to all users.

Note

This setting is defined at a system level and you must request for it to be enabled by the support team.

Forward to Mobile Number

Forward to mobile is a feature that enables you to relay traffic to and from your personal mobile. Useful, for example, when out of the office. Depending on your plan, there may be additional charges for this service. This setting is applied to all users.

API Settings

API Settings provide the opportunity to configure the Messenger API. Primarily these settings control how we call your servers when new messages or statuses arrive into our system.

Callback URL Format

Callbacks from the Messenger API can be either in XML or the HTTP FORM format. Changing this setting modifies the return payload for all callbacks sent to the Callback URL, so make sure your server supports the selected format.

Default Callback URL for Replies

You can specify the Callback URL for replies within each individual API call and this works well for messages that come in as replies to outbound messages, however it does not function when you have your own virtual number or short code. Setting this value to an http or https endpoint is supported, and you can also specify an email address using the mailto format.

Default Callback URL for Statuses

You can specify the Callback URL for Status messages within each individual API call and this works well for messages that come in as replies to outbound messages, however it does not function when you have your own virtual number or shortcode. Setting this value to an http or https endpoint is supported, but mailto: is not supported for status callbacks.

More Information

For more detailed information please see our comprehensive Messenger API documentation

Email2SMS Security

Email2SMS Security allows Administrators to control the use of the Email2SMS functionality. Access is restricted based on the source of the email. ie:

Type	Purpose
Domain	A Domain Name allows SMS messages to be sent from email addresses within the registered Domain. This is the most commonly requested type of licence and allows the Company Administrators to easily manage their users' access. Each lower level domain must be registered separately. E.g. sales.example.com is NOT covered if only the example.com domain is registered.
Email Address	An Email Address allows SMS messages to be sent from a single registered email address.
IP Address	An IP Address allows SMS messages to be sent from any email address that uses the mail server specified at the registered IP address. This type of license is not used much and is not recommended. You should be fully aware of IP and network routing issues and discuss your requirements with the service provider if you have any doubts.

Type

Purpose

Domain

A Domain Name allows SMS messages to be sent from email addresses within the registered Domain. This is the most commonly requested type of licence and allows the Company Administrators to easily manage their users' access.

Each lower level domain must be registered separately. E.g. sales.example.com is NOT covered if only the example.com domain is registered.

Email Address

An Email Address allows SMS messages to be sent from a single registered email address.

IP Address

An IP Address allows SMS messages to be sent from any email address that uses the mail server specified at the registered IP address. This type of license is not used much and is not recommended. You should be fully aware of IP and network routing issues and discuss your requirements with the service provider if you have any doubts.

Emails from a given source are then assigned to a Messenger user, which is in turn used as the sender of the forwarded SMS message.

Example: Allow all email users at the @example.com domain access to use Email2SMS. Messages are sent via a single Messenger user.

This is the most commonly requested type of licence.

Login as an Administrator
Visit the Email2SMS page under 'Company Settings' (click here)

Click 'Create Email2SMS Security', and define:
- 'Emails Sent From' as 'Domains'
- 'Security Type' to match your preference

If you use Google for your email, you should choose 'By Google Mail'. If you use Office365 or Outlook.com for your email, you should choose 'By Outlook.com'. If you have your own mail server with a well defined IP address you could use "By IP Addresses", but we strongly recommend 'Via SPF', which we describe in more detail here.

Click 'Create Domain', and enter the name of your domain. eg: example.com. Click 'Save'.

Note the verification token provided. It will be something like 9e9e65dc2aeceb9bf16694b201961269.
Within your Email Provider's Administration Interface create a TXT record containing the value shown when you clicked 'Save'. (More details below in 'How to verify a domain via DNS').

Now that we have defined the email domain, and proved that we control it, select the new domain and choose the 'Allocate to User' menu option, and select the Messenger user that emails from the domain will be sent via.

Example: Allow specific email addresses to use Email2SMS

Configure 'Emails Sent From' to 'Email Addresses'
Set the 'Security Type' appropriately for the email system sending the message. We strongly recommend 'Via SPF'.
Click 'Create Email' and select an email address to allow, and the Messenger user to be used for SMS delivery.

How to verify a domain via DNS

When allowing access via domain, once you have added a domain for use in sending you will need to verify it through a TXT record. This is done as follows:

Log in to your domain provider's administration interface.
Open the DNS settings page.
Locate the domain settings for the domain you entered (e.g. example.com)
Set the TXT records value to the value given when adding your domain
Optional: Change the TTL of your DNS record. This will allow updates to be propagated faster.

Why should I verify domain ownership?

Verifying control of the email domain is a way to ensure only your organisation can use your domain for email2sms.

To assist you, each time a new server (IP address) is used an email is sent to the Company Admin (only one email is sent per IP address). The address and the sender details are also logged and displayed in the Log section of the security page.

If you have any questions about IP addresses, mail servers or how to prevent email 'spoofing' and other fraudulent activities, contact your IT helpdesk.

The Forwarding User

When configuring Email2SMS Security, whether at the Domain level, or at the individual email address level, you need to ensure that at least one Messenger login is assigned as the ‘Forwarding User’. This user is used to send the SMS message on behalf of the email user.

You can have multiple email addresses configured, and all of them can share the same ‘Forwarding User’.

Importing Emails

Using the import function allows you to export a list of email addresses from your existing systems and import them straight into Messenger for use for sending SMS via Email. There's a handy preview screen which allows you to view the emails you are importing to use for Email2SMS, then you can correct any issues you may have before attempting the import.

Sending a notification is an easy way to let all users know that their emails have been authorized for sending SMS via Email, with all email addresses being active and ready to instantly.

Imports should be done using a CSV in the following format

Email,Username
james.smith@example.com,james.smith
jason.jones@example.com,jason.jones
mike.jones@example.com,mike.jones
bob.day@example.com,bob.day
jane.smith@example.com,jane.smith

Blocked Numbers

Blocked Numbers provides the facility for a Company Administrator to block selected numbers for all of their users quickly and conveniently.

An Administrator may also add numbers to a specific user's blocklist. The user is unable to edit or delete these entries. The user must be selected from the dropdown which then provides access to the per-user blocklist.

Users can continue to operate their own personal blocklists regardless.