Enable Two-Way SMS with Attentive

In this article, we'll guide you through integrating your Attentive account to enable Two-Way SMS capabilities (Conversations) within SmarterSends. This process will involve installing the SmarterSends Attentive application into your Attentive account, configuring values within SmarterSends and setting up Outbound SMS within Attentive. If any of the following does not make sense or you'd simply like our team to configure it for you, please reach out to our team and we'll get you setup quickly.

1. In your SmarterSends account, select Integrations -> Two-Way SMS.
2. Select Attentive in the Two-Way SMS Provider drop-down.
3. Click the "Install Attentive Two-Way SMS Integration" button.
4. Log into your Attentive account if necessary and Authorize the integration.
5. You'll be redirected to SmarterSends where you'll need to input the subdomain of your SmarterSends instance. If you access your instance at https://mysubdomain.smartersends.com then your subdomain would be mysubdomain.
6. Once you click Install, you'll be redirected back to the Two-Way SMS integration page with your API Key and Webhook ID automatically pre-filled.
7. Enter the keyword your customers will use to initiate a conversation with your SmarterSends users e.g. Service. Be sure your Default Reply in Attentive mentions this keyword so your customers know how to get in touch.
8. Add/Update the Acknowledgement message text. This message is automatically sent to your customers after we receive the Service Keyword set above.
9. Enter the attribute name used for your customer's First Name e.g. first_name
10. Enter the attribute name used for your customer's Last Name e.g. last_name
11. Enter the Group Identifier attribute we will use to route conversations to the correct Group within SmarterSends. We'll assign identifiers to groups in a moment.
12. Select the Default Group if a conversation is initiated with a customer that has a Group Identifier value that does not match an assigned value or their identifier is blank.
13. Select the User Assignment Rule
    1. Oldest Recent Activity - This will assign the user (in the correct group) who has been inactive the longest, based on their most recent conversation activity helping ensure idle team members are re-engaged first.
    2. Least Active Conversations - This will assign the user (in the correct group) who is currently handling the fewest active conversations, ensuring no one is overloaded. An active conversations is one that is not Closed or marked as Spam.
    3. Longest Time Since Assignment - This will assign the user (in the correct group) who has gone the longest without being assigned a conversation. This helps ensure fair distribution and prevents the same people from receiving new conversations repeatedly.
    4. Let Users Self-Assign - New conversations remain unassigned until a team member chooses to claim them, allowing users to pick up conversations based on availability and context. This rule is not compatible with the User Isolation feature.
14. Define the number of days for your SLA (service level agreement). Conversations will be escalated if they remain awaiting a reply for this many days.
15. Define the number of days at which to send a reminder to the assigned user that the conversation is awaiting a reply.
16. Define the number of days to consider a conversation Stale e.g. awaiting a customer reply.
17. Choose to use Business/Week days or all days for the above values.
18. Enable/Disable MMS for outbound replies. Inbound messages do not support MMS/Image attachments.
19. Create the Outbound Journey within Attentive.
    1. Log into Attentive
    2. Click Journeys
    3. Click Create Journey, select Start from scratch.
    4. Select the "SmarterSends SMS" custom event as the journey trigger.
    5. Select "Send a message about something else" - This maintains the conversation as promotional messages which require the contact to Subscribe to SMS.
    6. Click Get Started
    7. In your Journey, add a Branch as the first step.
       1. Choose "What properties the event has"
       2. Choose event property - select mediaUrl and enter "none" (without the quotes) for the Branch 1 value.
       3. Click Save.
       4. Now add a Send text message action to the "mediaUrl equals none" branch.
          1. Name the Message - SmarterSends Outbound SMS - No Media
          2. Enter the following for the message "{{triggerEvent.custom['msg'] | default: 'message text'}}" (without the surrounding double quotes).
          3. We suggest turning off Use Smart Sending or your customers will be limited in the number of messages they can receive.
          4. Choose to enable or disable Quiet Hours based on your business rules.
          5. Click Save
       5. Add a Send text message action to the Else branch.
          1. Name the Message - SmarterSends Outbound SMS - With Media
          2. Enter the following for the message "{{triggerEvent.custom['msg'] | default: 'message text'}}" (without the surrounding double quotes).
          3. Click the + (Add media button).
             1. Select Dynamic Image
             2. Choose mediaUrl for the Dynamic image content
             3. Click Insert
          4. We suggest turning off Use Smart Sending or your customers will be limited in the number of messages they can receive.
          5. Choose to enable or disable Quiet Hours based on your business rules.
          6. Click Save
    8. Add an End Journey step as the last step in the Journey and click Turn On.
    9. Set the "Allow subscribers to enter this journey once every" value to 0 Minutes.
       1. This allows your customers to receive multiple messages from your users as would be expected in a threaded conversation.
20. In SmarterSends, select the Groups menu item.
21. Click the Manage Group Content Areas button
22. Add a New Content Area with a name that matches the Group Identifier Attribute you set above. Typically this would be set as a Text content area type.
23. For each Group that should be assigned Conversations, set the value for the Group Identifier content area you just created by clicking into each group and setting the value.

That's it. You've enabled Two-Way SMS Conversations.

When a customer subscribes to your short code and receives your Default Auto Reply, they'll know to reply with your Service Keyword to initiate a conversation with your team members. Once they reply with that keyword, a conversation will be created in SmarterSends, assigned to the correct Group and user based on your settings above.