With the Salesforce SMS Component, agents can send and receive SMS messages directly in Talkdesk for Salesforce and supervisors can also report on the number of interactions per contact as an example.
The SMS Component feature can be used on Cases, Contacts, and (Person) Accounts objects.
To learn how to configure and use SMS within Talkdesk for Salesforce, please follow these step-by-step instructions.
How to enable SMS in your Talkdesk account
Setup of the component in Salesforce Lightning
Defining a default contact phone field to be used
How to send and receive SMS messages
Setup in Salesforce Console view
How does it work?
- Agents can specify to which contact the SMS will be sent. If the SMS contact has multiple phone numbers, agents can choose the phone number to which the SMS will be sent. Note: All non-numeric characters will be removed from the SMS contact phone number (for example, parenthesis and hyphens) and the phone number will be prepended with a plus sign (+).
- The SMS contact will default to the contact specified on the case.
- Agents can specify the number from which the SMS will be sent from, based on the numbers enabled for SMS on Talkdesk.
- Customers can both call and send SMS messages to the phone number.
- If your account receives an SMS from a new number that isn’t associated with a contact, Talkdesk will automatically create a new contact with the phone number set as the last name.
- If an SMS case is already open for a particular contact and an agent receives an SMS from that contact to the SMS-enabled phone number, it will append the text of that SMS to the case.
- For a new incoming SMS from a contact, we rely on Salesforce settings for assignment rules. See Salesforce documentation for assignment rules.
- If there are no rules set up, the case will remain unassigned.
How to enable SMS in your Talkdesk account
- Start by opening your Talkdesk account.
- If you’re already on Talkdesk for Salesforce in Lightning, simply click on the Talkdesk tab.
- In Talkdesk, go to the Admin section, select the Preferences tab and scroll down to SMS Settings.
- Switch the toggle to the right to enable your SMS settings:
- A pop-up window will be displayed. You can click the “X”, as we can execute this step later.
- Drag the phone numbers of your choice to the left column [1] and hit Save.
- Go to the Integrations tab and open your Salesforce integration settings by clicking on Configuration [2].
- Save the configuration without changing anything, by clicking the Save button [3] at the bottom of the page. This will force the SMS-enabled phone numbers to immediately synchronize with Salesforce.
Now you can add the SMS component to your case or contact page layout.
You can set up the visualforce page “SmsToCaseLayout” (or “SmsToContactLayout”) using Lightning Page Layout, Classic Page Layout, and Feed Page Layout for Case (or Contact) in Salesforce.
Defining a default contact phone field to be used
You can set a default contact phone field (standard or custom) to be used in the Talkdesk SMS component.
In order to do this go to Talkdesk Admin > Settings > SMS for Contact/Case default field; next, choose the desired field and click Save.
Setup of the component in Salesforce Lightning
Please follow these guidelines to set up the Case object. If you wish to set up the Contact object, the procedure is very similar.
- After enabling SMS in your Talkdesk account preferences, open the Setup in Lightning:
- Select Object Manager and then Case:
- Open the Case Page Layouts and hit New:
- Create a new page layout:
- In Existing Page Layout select Case Layout.
- Type the name Talkdesk Case Layout.
- Do not tick Feed-Based Layout.
- Click Save.
- Select Visualforce Pages, click on Section and drag it to the Case Detail area below so that you can add a 1-column section named “SMS”:
- Drag the Visualforce Page SmsToCase Layout component to this “SMS” section:
- Double click on the added component to edit it as follows:
- Width: 100%
- Height: 400
- Tick Show scrollbars.
- Tick Show label.
- Click OK.
- Click Save to save the layout:
- Click on Page Layout Assignment:
- Click on Edit Assignment:
- Select the profiles (it’s possible to select more than one at the same time) and then pick Talkdesk Case Layout from the list. Click on Save when you’re done.
How to send and receive SMS messages
After setting up the Case object, to start sending SMS messages, select a Case and scroll until you see the SMS component. If you have set up the Contact object, the procedure is the same.
- Choose an outbound number (you can search by friendly name or number) to select from which one you want to send the SMS.
- Select the SMS contact to reach out to. It can be that you have one or more contacts related to that Case, then choose one from the list.
- Next, select the contact's number to select to which phone number of the contact the SMS is meant to be sent. Note: If you have previously selected a default contact number, it will be displayed here by default. For more information on how to configure the default contact number, please read the instructions above, in the section “Defining a default contact phone field to be used”.
- Finally, type the SMS message in the “Message” text field and press Send to send it to the chosen contact.
When the contact replies, the agent will be able to see the SMS on the SMS history between the agent and the contact.
The Case SMS history shows all SMS messages that are related to the Case, while the contact SMS history shows all SMS messages that are related to the contact. All inbound SMS messages are related automatically to cases and contacts.
The contact algorithm searches for a contact that shares a phone number with the sender's phone number.
The case algorithm works in the following way:
When a contact sends an SMS to the contact center, the system chooses the most appropriate case to append the SMS to. Talkdesk only appends SMS messages to cases that are open and that already have an outbound SMS sent from the chosen outbound number to the contact’s phone number. More specifically, if there are multiple outbound numbers and/or the contact has multiple phone numbers, then the case needs at least one outbound SMS between each combination of outbound numbers and contact numbers in order to appropriately append to the case all SMS messages from that contact. The SMS messages will be displayed in the SMS history of the case, with the contact’s name below the message.
To get an alert when a new SMS is received, you can use Salesforce email alerts.
Setup in Salesforce Console view
- Choose the sidebar and add Visualforce page. Select the SmsToCase Component:
- Click save and you are done. Now, when you go to the case view, a new Message box will allow you to start sending SMS messages:
Setup in Salesforce Classic
- Under Setup, search for Case > Page layouts.
- Choose the page layout you want to edit.
- Drag and drop a new section that will be 1 column and name it “Talkdesk SMS”. Include detail Page and Edit Page checkboxes:
- Drag and drop the “SmsToCaseLayout” to the newly created section and assign it a height of 400 pixels:
SMS on Person Accounts
It's possible to send and receive SMS from within the SMS component, which can be added to the Person Account record layout.
Before starting to use SMS on Person Accounts, you need to set up the SMS component for the Salesforce object. There are three requirements you need to take into account:
- Having a Salesforce org integrated with Talkdesk.
- Having SMS enabled on Talkdesk with a phone number configured, and save it.
- Adding the new “SmsToAccountLayout” Visualforce page to the Person Account page layout.
Then, you can start using the SMS component on Person Accounts:
- Go to the Accounts tab [1], choose a Person Account and open it.
- Then go to Details [2] and, if asked, log in with your Talkdesk ID, otherwise, you might be able to see the component section straightaway.
- After logging in, you are able to see the SMS component under the "TalkdeskSMS" section [3]. There you’ll see:
-
- Outbound Number [4]: Dropdown with the Talkdesk enabled outbound numbers to select from which we want to send the SMS.
- Contact [5]: Dropdown with the contacts related to the current record, for the Person Account object this is the record itself.
- Contact Number [6]: Dropdown to select to which phone number of the contact the SMS is meant to be sent.
- The timeline of the component containing the SMS history sent between the agent and the contact [7].
- The "Message" [8] text field where the agent can write down and send [9] the message to the contact.
Please note that the new Visualforce page can be added to both Person and Business Accounts page layout, however, the feature is currently not supported in Business Accounts specific object type. If you access a Business Account rather than a Person Account, you will see the “Talkdesk Sms feature is not available for Business Accounts” warning message displayed.