SMS channel and provider setup

What it does

Customer Insights - Journeys sends text messages through a third-party SMS provider you bring and connect. The platform handles composition, personalisation, consent and journey orchestration; the provider handles numbers, carrier delivery and the bill.

Key facts

Six providers are integrated out of the box: Azure Communication Services, Infobip, LINK Mobility, TeleSign, Twilio and Vibes. Vibes covers the US and Canada only. Anything else goes through the custom channel framework.
Setup lives at Settings > Customer engagement > SMS providers > +New. You're pasting credentials from the provider's console, so someone needs access to both.
Sender types vary by provider and include toll-free numbers, short codes and alphanumeric sender IDs. Alphanumeric sender names are case-sensitive and must match the provider's configuration character for character.
Two callback URLs drive inbound traffic: a Delivery Report Callback URL and an Incoming Message Callback URL. Without them you get no delivery reporting and no replies.
Wiring those callbacks differs by provider. Azure Communication Services uses an Event Grid system topic with subscriptions for the SMS Delivery report received and SMS received events. Twilio uses the A MESSAGE COMES IN field on the number's configuration page. Infobip, LINK Mobility, TeleSign and Vibes need their support teams involved.
TeleSign Standard accounts need Status Callback enabled manually; Enterprise accounts need TeleSign to enable it.
Messages are composed under Channels > Text messages > +New text message. Emoji, personalisation and inline {{#if}} / {{else if}} / {{else}} / {{/if}} conditions are supported, and there's a Check content button plus Test send.
The SMS segment is 160 characters. Longer messages are split and reassembled by the protocol, and providers usually bill per segment.
Links are shortened automatically to save characters. Shortened URLs expire six months after the message is sent — that behaviour started 10 October 2024.
Every message needs a compliance profile, purpose and topic. STOP handling has to be configured at the provider as well as in the platform; the provider is where the carrier-level opt-out actually lands.
Keywords are managed separately and can branch a journey on the customer's reply. Neither the provider subscription, the numbers, nor the message volume is included in the Dynamics 365 licence.

When to use / skip

SMS is worth it for time-critical, short, transactional-adjacent messages: appointment reminders, delivery notifications, event day-of logistics, two-factor-style confirmations. It's high open rate and high irritation cost, so the use case has to justify the interruption.

Skip it if the client is expecting a marketing broadcast channel to sit alongside email at similar cost. Per-message costs, per-country regulation and short code registration make SMS an expensive channel to use casually. Also skip it if nobody on the client side owns the provider relationship — the platform can't help you when a carrier filters your traffic.

Two-way SMS with keyword branching is genuinely good, but it's a step up in delivery effort: numbers that can receive, callbacks wired correctly, and a keyword strategy that survives customers replying "STOP PLEASE" and "yes please".

Configuration decisions

Which provider. Azure Communication Services is the easiest to procure inside an existing Azure agreement; Twilio has the widest country coverage and the best self-service; the others usually get chosen because the client already has a contract.
Sender type per market: short code (fast, expensive, slow to register), toll-free, or alphanumeric sender ID (cheap and recognisable, but one-way in most countries).
Whether two-way messaging is in scope, which decides both the number type and whether callbacks need setting up.
Which compliance profile, purpose and topic structure applies to text — it doesn't have to mirror email, and usually shouldn't.
Keyword list and the branching behaviour behind each one, including what happens to a reply that matches nothing.
Who owns provider-side consent and STOP handling, and how that reconciles with consent held in Dataverse.

Gotchas

Alphanumeric sender ID case mismatches fail in a way that looks like a delivery problem rather than a configuration problem. Check the casing first.
STOP configured only in the platform and not at the provider leaves you non-compliant in most jurisdictions, and you won't find out from a test send.
Shortened links dying at six months matters for anything long-lived — a message pointing at a document, a booking page, a receipt. Customers do go back to old texts.
Character counting catches everyone: one emoji switches the message to a different encoding and cuts the per-segment allowance sharply, so a 160-character message becomes three billable segments.
Delivery reports are only as good as the carrier and country. A "delivered" status from one operator and silence from another is normal, and the client will read the gap as a platform fault.
Test sends are constrained by the provider's own restrictions during setup — Azure Communication Services preview toll-free senders can only test to US mobile numbers, which makes UK-side testing awkward.
SMS costs sit outside the Dynamics licence. Clients budgeting from the D365 quote alone will be surprised, so put provider costs in the commercials explicitly.

Consultant notes

Get the provider account and number procurement started early. Short code registration in particular runs to weeks, sometimes months, and it is never on the project plan.
Demo two-way keyword branching rather than a one-way blast. The blast looks like every other SMS tool; the reply-driven journey is what the platform is actually for.
Tell the client the per-segment billing model in the first workshop, with a worked example including an emoji. It changes how they write.
Before go-live, send a real message to a real handset on each target network and confirm the sender ID renders as expected — sender ID handling is carrier-specific and inconsistent.
Push back on using SMS for anything the customer hasn't clearly consented to receive by text. Email consent is not text consent, and the regulator does not care which system you kept it in.

Worth another look if new providers are added natively, or if the six-month link expiry or Azure Communication Services preview limits change.