Configuring Departmental SMS Settings

Due to changes in federal and cellular carrier policy intended to cut down on the amount of fraudulent calls and text messages in the United States, ARI Departments are required to complete some additional steps in order to send SMS text messages from the ARI platform. These regulations affect both mass texting using autogroups and individual texts sent through ARI messenger.

One major requirement of these new policies is the process of sender verification. Application to Person (A2P) senders, which includes all ARI texting, are required to register their business information with the major US carriers to prove their messages are legitimate and provide a means to contact the sender should they fail to comply with federal or carrier policy. In order to enforce these new policies, our SMS (texting) vendor Twilio has introduced some new costs for texting. A one-time setup fee of $50 is charged to process your verification application. Once verified, a carrier campaign fee of $10 will be charged monthly. The $10/month fee covers messaging verification for all teams in your department. Per message rates still apply.

As a consequence of this requirement, on August 31st, 2023, non-compliant Departments will lose the ability to text US numbers from ARI. Department Heads will need to follow the instructions in this article in order for coaches to be able to text out of the ARI platform after that date.

From the Team Dropdown at the top of your screen, select "Department Manager." Once in the Department Manager, click on the Settings (Gear) Icon and Select "SMS Compliance"

Select "Business Profile Set-Up" from the drop down menu in the SMS settings area. Complete the Form for your Institution. This information will be used by US cell carriers to verify that your messages are coming from a legitimate sender rather than someone pretending to be your institution.

Open the Set-Up Payment Tab. In this tab you will add the payment details for your SMS verification. A one-time setup fee of $50 is charged to process your verification application. Once verified, a carrier campaign fee of $10 will be charged monthly. The $10/month fee covers messaging verification for all teams in your department. Per message rates still apply.

In order to comply with the new requirements, all of your messages will be considered to be part of one "Campaign". This campaign must be registered with some sample information in order for your texting profile to be complete.

Select your Organization type from the drop down. Most schools will be non-profits. Then click on the Proceed button.

Once you click on Proceed, the Satus will appear as In Progress. You won't be able to move on to Step 4 until your campaign has been reviewed and approved by our SMS vendor Twilio and the Campaign Status changes from In Progress to Complete. Check back periodically to see if the status has changed to Complete and then move on to Step 4.

Select the use case that best encompasses all of your communications. Most of our clients are qualified 501(c)(3) organizations and should select “Charity.” For other academic organizations, select “Higher Education” or “K-12 Education” as appropriate. For all others, select “Mixed”.
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Next, provide a brief description, at least 40 characters in length, of your intended use of SMS (keep it simple - e.g., communicating with prospective and current athletes), a brief description of your opt-in procedures (e.g., End-users opt-in by filling out an information request form, providing their mobile number, and checking a box to opt-in to texting), and two example messages (keep it simple here, too) to submit to the carriers for review. Examples of Campaign Use Cases and sample messages are provided at the bottom of this article.

Once your campaign has been reviewed and approved by our SMS vendor, it will appear as in this screenshot below with a Status of Complete:

As the department manager, you have the ability to manage SMS for your teams. You can toggle which teams will have access to the SMS module in the ARI messenger as the Final Step of the SMS configuration Process. These settings may be updated at any time.