User Manual for the Salesforce™ Text Anything Application

Overview

The Text Anything application is the first A2P 10DLC compliant Salesforce™ application that allows you to send and receive text messages from your Salesforce™ account. If you are messaging in the United States, Text Anything’s has built in compliance registration will help ensure your messages are not blocked by Carriers. 

Text Anything is a paid service that charges per user license, per text message sent and received and also charges (at cost) any A2P registration and campaign registration fees.  You may cancel at any time.  Phone numbers may be both rented by the month and released if no longer needed.  Text Anything supports traditional “long codes”, i.e., phone numbers in the ten-digit long code format; short codes are not supported. 

This user manual covers an overview of the service and how to setup and configure the application in your Salesforce account.

What is A2P 10 DLC and Why is it Important?

A2P 10DLC refers to a system in the United States that allows businesses to send Application-to-Person (A2P) type SMS and MMS messaging via standard 10-digit long code (10DLC) phone numbers.  It is important because as of November 3rd, 2022 unregistered businesses texting without phone numbers associated to active A2P campaigns are subjected to fines and their numbers [and messages] will be blocked by carriers. But don’t worry, we make registration and campaign configuration via a wizard-driven process. When configured, your texts will have fast delivery and a high deliverability rate.

There are two categories of Accounts that Text Anything offers:

Small Business Account

This is for companies messaging in the US sending less than 3,000 messages per day. Registration fees are $4 and standard campaigns (you must associate every phone number you use to message in the US with a campaign) are $10/month. Text Anything passes on registration and campaigns fees at cost based.

Enterprise Account

This package is for companies messaging in the US sending more than 3,000 messages per day. Registration fees are $44 and standard campaigns are $10/month. Like our Small Business package, registration and campaign fees are not marked up.

How Do I Start Texting?

You will need to do the following to enable texting:

  1. Download and install the application from the AppExchange and install it in your Salesforce org

  2. Run the Setup Wizard and create your paid account

  3. Add the Chat Panel to Page Layout(s)

  4. Enable the Utility Bar Text Manager (optional but recommended)

  5. Purchase a phone number

  6. Create a campaign

  7. Associate your campaign with your purchased phone number

Download and Install the App

Download the app from the AppExchange and install it in your Salesforce org. We recommend install it for all users.

Note: If you do not want certain users to have access to the app, you can install for specific users OR you can control visibility via component visibility settings or by Organization-Wide Defaults (OWD’s) and/or custom or manual sharing rules (discussed in Visibility Settings).

Adding The Chat Panel to a Page Layout

To text from your Salesforce org you will need to add the Text Anything Chat Panel (which is a Salesforce Lightning Web Component) to a page layout on an object which you intend to send text messages to.  For example, the most common use case is to put the Chat Panel on the Contact layout and select “mobile” phone as the default number for which to send text messages to.  Instructions to add the component are as follows:

On a record layout page, in the top right corner click the gear icon and “edit page”.   In this example we are using a contact record but this works for any standard or custom object.  Note: The standard or custom object must have at least one phone number field.  

Enabling the Utility Bar Text Manager

The utility bar Text Manager works similarly to text messages on your phone.  It shows up to 100 of your last conversations on the utility bar which stays open as you navigate from page to page. 

The Utility Bar Text Manager has the following features:

  • Toggle between “read” and “unread” messages

  • Messages are shown with the newest messages at the top

  • Up to 100 conversations are shown but it can be configured to show less in the Admin Panel

With Administrator rights, from the Home tab in Setup, enter App in the Quick Find box, then select App Manager.

  1. To edit or add a utility bar to an existing app, click Edit in the dropdown menu next to your app.

  2. To create a Lightning app with a utility bar, click New Lightning App.

  3. Click the Utility Items tab and add the Text Anything Utility Bar Manager.

  4. You can specify component and utility properties, like the height and width of the utility panel, however we recommend you keep the default values.