[SalesForce] Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder sms

I have a question regarding Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey Builder. We have a requirement from our client to build a Journey that involves sending both emails and SMS to the audience. Our client did not choose to send the SMS via Mobil Studio standard functionality. Instead we are calling a web service that will receive as input parameters the receiver phone number, SMS Message…and other parameters.

My question is what standard functionality can we use (if something is available) in order to send the SMS from Journey Builder.

We proposed to send SMS messages via Automation Studio using a Script Activity (Server Side Java Script that invokes the SMS web service). This option was not accepted by our client, they want to send both the SMS and emails from Journey Builder as mentioned above.

As a possible solution we were thinking to try to connect Marketing Cloud to a Salesforce environment and in Journey builder add a step to interact with salesforce (Create a Task). In the input fields for the new task we would map all the required information in order to send the SMS from Salesforce APIs (we would do the call to the SMS gateway from Salesforce based on a trigger on Task object).

Can you please give us a better solution to this issue?

Thanks

Best Answer

For sending SMS through an external service provider, one option is to get the external web service provider to create a custom Marketing Cloud Package to pass the contact data from Marketing Cloud to the web service. This will create an activity in Journey Builder that will pass the necessary contact details to the external web service for sending SMS.

Official Marketing Cloud Package documentation here.

Once you have the package details from the services provider (API key and endpoint URL etc), you can follow these steps for the custom activity to appear in Journey Builder:

Go to Settings > Administration.
Go to Account > Installed Packages.
Click New to add your custom package.
Define a name and description and click Save.
Click Add Component to add customer journey activity to the package.
Pick Journey Builder Activity.

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Using Journey Builder Send SMS Activity with Mobile Connect templates

This is as per design - only outbound templates are supported. Refer the official documentation where it states

How to Configure MobileConnect for Use with Journey Builder

Follow the steps below to properly configure your MobileConnect messages for use with Journey Builder:

Contact your Salesforce Marketing Cloud relationship manager to ensure your account allows access to both MobileConnect (using the upgraded version of Contacts) and Journey Builder.

Ensure the MobileConnect Demographic data extension contains the contact data used to personalize any messages used as part of Journey Builder.

Ensure that all contacts you wish to participate in your Journey Builder activities subscribe to the appropriate short or long code and keyword.

You can specify those subscriptions at import or by using messages such as the Mobile Opt-In template.

Create all Outbound MobileConnect messages using the Interaction send method to permit Journey Builder access.

Note that all contacts must initially subscribe to your short or long code and keyword to receive messages at the beginning of the journey. The contacts must also remain subscribed continuously to your short or long code and keyword to continue receving messages as part of the Journey Builder activity. If the contact unsubscribes at any time, that contact will not receive additional messages.

Once you properly configure your MobileConnect messages, those messsages become available for addition to Journey Builder automatically:

Use the Send SMS activity within Journey Builder. Click Configure to select the message you wish to send within that activity. Journey Builder will display a list of all messages using the Interaction send method.

[SalesForce] Personalization in Mobile Connect SMS called within Journey Builder

I'd suggest trying the MOBILE_NUMBER personalization string for your lookup value.

%%[ 
    SET @idSubscriber = MOBILE_NUMBER 
    SET @rows = LookupOrderedRows("DE", 1, "ID_SUBSCRIBER Desc", "ID_SUBSCRIBER", @idSubscriber) 
    SET @RowCount = RowCount(@rows) 
    IF (Rowcount(@rows) > 0) THEN 
        VAR @ILRow, @name, @limit 
        SET @ILRow = row(@rows,1) 
        SET @name = Field(@ILRow, "DES_NOMPILA") 
        SET @limit = Field(@ILRow, "LIM_MC") 
    ENDIF 
]%%
1= %%=v(@idSubscriber)=%% 2= %%=v(@RowCount)=%%

The MOBILE_NUMBER is the subscriber key for SMS subscribers, since SMS and email opt-ins and opt-outs are handled separately in SFMC.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[SalesForce] Using Journey Builder Send SMS Activity with Mobile Connect templates

[SalesForce] Personalization in Mobile Connect SMS called within Journey Builder

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