Configure simple SMS replies

You can configure xMatters to accept simple SMS responses to notifications. These simple replies require Users to enter only a single digit as a response to a notification, rather than entering a phrase that includes the notification key. For example, the response choices for a notification with simple responses enabled might resemble the following:

Network Server 1211 is offline. Reply 1 to Acknowledge, 2 to Ignore, or 3 to Clear.

The User responding to this notification could respond with "1", and the event would be marked as acknowledged.

Because SMS is "stateless" and does not contain hidden information that can be used to link related messages together, xMatters uses the phone number of the text phone Device to associate the response with the correct notification.

When simple SMS replies are enabled, xMatters maintains a mapping of SMS Device numbers and response options, retaining the information for 72 hours. Because a Device may receive multiple notifications for different events, the integers used for the response options will change for each notification on a Device based on the number of response choices and the number of active events.

For example, a User might receive a notification prompting them to respond with 1 to acknowledge or 2 to ignore. The next notification, for a separate event, may prompt them to respond with 3 to acknowledge, and 4 to ignore. This incrementing would continue based on the number of notifications received, possibly into double or triple digits as required. Integers would not be reused until the event associated with them is no longer in an active or created state, and is at least 72 hours old. The waiting period helps to reduce the possibility that Users could accidentally respond to an active event by responding to old SMS messages (related to closed events) that may be waiting in their phone message queues or inbox.

Note that this makes it impossible to accurately predict the specific integers required for an anticipated event, such as a Scheduled Message.

Before implementing the simple SMS replies feature, please note the following:

• xMatters uses the country assigned to the Site with which a Device is associated to determine its country code. For example, Devices associated with a Site based in Australia will have a country code of 61.
• If the validation pattern and template specified on the Global Configuration page are not correctly configured, notification responses will be ignored; for information about any ignored responses, review the xMatters logs.
• The phone numbers specified in the Device details must be formatted consistently across all Devices for the validation patterns and templates to work properly; if the validation results do not match a number in the system (due to inconsistent formatting), responses may be ignored.

This feature requires the following configuration steps:

1. Ensure that all User Service Providers for Text Phone Devices do not have a mixture of protocols; for example, any text phone User Service Provider that includes the SMPP protocol must not also include GSM or HTTP Client.
2. Enable response validation and simple responses on the Global Configuration page, and specify the validation pattern and template.
3. Edit the Response Message field on the Device Engine to indicate the new response process for Users. The notification message delivered is configured as <message payload> + "Response Message" (which must include the key, %RESPONSE CHOICES%).