perfox

SMS ​

Priya texts a short question to the number on Acme Diagnostics' appointment card. A few seconds later a reply lands on her phone. There's no app and no link, just a text back. This page shows how to set that up so your agent answers SMS.

It's for an admin who has a Plivo account and wants to turn an SMS number into a channel the agent answers. By the end you'll have a number that receives texts, replies from the same number, shows whether each message actually arrived, and follows India's DLT rules.

How SMS is wired ​

SMS runs over your own Plivo account, which you connect once on Admin → Connections → Plivo. That same connection also carries WhatsApp and phone calls.

  • Inbound: your Plivo number's Message URL points at your workspace. In the Plivo editor on the Connections page, Configure in Plivo sets this up for you. You can also paste the URL into Plivo's console yourself.
  • Outbound: replies go out through Plivo from the SMS number you pick in the agent's SMS Sender.

Setup ​

  1. Admin → Connections → Plivo: add your Auth ID, Auth Token and SMS number, then use Configure in Plivo (or set the number's Message URL by hand; the Plivo editor shows it).
  2. Open Agents, create an agent and add an SMS trigger. Under Business contact, pick your SMS number. Each number belongs to one agent, and a number another agent already uses is shown greyed out.
  3. Optional: under Include — only these callers / senders or Exclude — never these callers / senders, add exact numbers or prefixes such as +91. Exclude wins over include.
  4. Connect an SMS Sender action to the AI Agent's Action port. Pick Send from (your SMS number) and set Send to to The person in this conversation.
  5. Click Activate.

No SMS Sender, no reply

Without an SMS Sender on the AI Agent, an incoming text still starts the agent and its answer shows up in Conversations, but no SMS is sent back. See Channel Overview.

Now text your Plivo number from any phone. The agent replies from the same number.

A message, end to end ​

Setup. Asha, an admin at Acme Diagnostics, has connected the clinic's Plivo account, pointed its number at Perfox, and activated an agent with an SMS trigger and an SMS Sender.

Action. Priya texts the clinic number:

Priya:  Is my blood test report ready?

Result. A few seconds later she gets a reply from the same number:

Acme Diagnostics: Hi Priya, your report is ready. You can collect it
at the clinic, or reply "email" and we'll send a copy.

What just happened. Plivo delivered the text to Perfox, and the SMS trigger matched it to Asha's agent by the number it was sent to. The agent worked out an answer and used its SMS Sender to reply from the clinic's number. To Priya, it's one ordinary SMS thread with the clinic.

Delivery status ​

When Plivo accepts a message, that doesn't mean it was delivered. Real delivery goes through queued → sent → delivered, or failed. Perfox attaches a status callback to every SMS it sends, so each message's delivery ticks update in Conversations with nothing for you to set up. If a send fails, for example because your Plivo balance ran out, it shows as a failed delivery instead of a silent no-reply.

DLT compliance (India) ​

Commercial SMS in India carries DLT fields on every message. Perfox reads them from your Plivo connection and adds them to each outbound SMS:

  • Fill in the DLT entity ID, template ID and template category on the Plivo connection.
  • Keep the message text matching your approved template. You can fix the wording with the SMS Sender's Use a template or fixed text option.

You register the templates themselves on the DLT platform, with your telecom operator. That isn't set up in Perfox.

Who the sender is ​

Perfox matches a text to a customer by the sender's phone number, in full international format. One number that texts, messages on WhatsApp and calls you is one customer. If your systems already know the customer by an external ID, that takes priority. You choose how Perfox groups history across channels under Settings → Cross-Channel Customer Identity. See Customer Identity.

Where to go next ​

  • Sender Nodes: the SMS Sender and its fields.
  • Trigger Nodes: the SMS trigger and the other ways an agent can start.
  • Plivo Setup: the Plivo connection, Configure in Plivo, and DLT fields.
  • WhatsApp: the same number and connection on WhatsApp.