Communicator SMS (texting)

Owned by Karl Hoffner
Last updated: Oct 19, 2022
3 min read

If you have been assigned the SMS functionality for your Communicator, then you can follow the instruction below on how to make the SMS icon display in Communicator as well as how to use the Communicator SMS functionality.

If a you have technical issues with the SMS function, please contact Mueller Technical Support at https://helpdesk.muellerreports.com for assistance.

If the SMS function is unavailable or does not work, you most likely have not been assigned an SMS number and the functionality is not currently available. Please contact your supervisor if you believe you need this ability.

Arranging the icons

  1. In Communicator (not the Agent Panel), click on the vertical ellipses.

  2. Select Organize icons

  3. From the Organize module icons, find SMS below. Click on the SMS icon and drag it where you would like to see it on the list.

  4. Once completed, it should look something like the following.

Using the SMS [text] function

Note that the SMS text phone number is 7162645<your extension>

  1. Click on the SMS icon.

  2. In the SMS dialog, enter the number you want to text in the search field and press enter.

  3. In the SMS message area (bottom) enter the text you want to send

  4. Click the SMS button at the far bottom right.

Receiving an SMS [text]

  1. In Communicator (not the Agent Panel), you see a notification if you receive an SMS message.

NOTE: You will also receive a screen popup at the lower right corner of your computer when an SMS message is received. The duration by default is 5 seconds. If you choose to change that, you can adjust the Inbound Call alert duration in Preferences > Alerts

Communicator GO app - Arranging the icons

Communicator GO app - Using the SMS [text] function

  1. In Communicator GO app, you see a notification if you receive an SMS message.

Problems with SMS

Maximum Number of Messages Exceeded

You may receive and error indicating that you cannot send the SMS due exceeding the maximum number of messages.

 

A common mistake is to inadvertently use a UCS-2 character. GSM-7 isn’t a supported character set in many text editors, which may replace GSM-7 compatible characters with characters outside of GSM-7. For example, if your text editor changes " to “ — a ‘curly’ or ‘smart’ quote mark — you will have a UCS-2 character in your message and that will reduce the character limit from 160 to 70.

This will mainly happen if you cut and paste from Word or some other editor that “replaces” characters with other characters.

Notice in Example 1 that as you type the numbers at the bottom left tell you the remaining number of characters. Should the message go beyond the default 160 characters, the message will be broken into multiple messages indicated by the <number of characters remaining>/<number of messages> (see first four screen shots)

If the content includes characters that have been replaced as noted above, the character limit was reduced and the number of split messages increase due to the character limit.