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Wake Up With SMS Messages Powered by Telesign and Microsoft Flow

February 27, 2019

Telesign Team
alarm-Microsoft-work-flow

Check your screen time on your cell phone right now.

The number is high right? Like embarrassingly high.

It’s ok we’re not here to judge. I, like you, consider myself a rational person. I look at my phone a lot. When someone texts me I make a snap judgment whether to answer it or leave that person on read. (Just kidding, read receipts are for sociopaths)

What I don’t do quite as often is check my e-mail.

Or my instant messages, social media, CRM, calendar, file hosting, etc.

As a consequence of this, I often miss important updates. My boss emails me with an SOS in the middle of the night? I’m probably not responding. Someone sends me a calendar invite for an early morning meeting the next day? I’m still hitting snooze.

I stroll into the office at 9am smiling. I make myself a coffee only to realize there are already at least two people upset with me. This is not a great way to start the day.

If only there were an easy solutionÉ

There is!

With Microsoft Flow Connector you can send SMS messages powered by Telesign. This will help you create flows that streamline your workflow and automate certain parts of your life.

Remember that email my boss sent me in the middle of the night? Or that early morning meeting that was sent after hours? If I’ve set up a flow, I’ll receive an SMS alerting me immediately.

But the possibilities don’t stop there, I could set up notifications for social that mention my company, when the status of an electronic signature changes, when a file is created or changed in a database.

Let’s say I was a small entrepreneur selling t-shirts and I process payments through an app. I could set a flow that would shoot me an SMS any time I sold a shirt. Cha CHING!

The best way to think of Microsoft Flow is “Trigger = Action”

If _____ then _______

If Ômorning meeting is cancelled’ then Ôsend SMS telling me to sleep in’

Dare to dream right?

There are an endless amount of flows. Maybe you want to be informed every time there is some chatter on your intranet, every time the status of an asset is updatedÉor maybe you just want to make sure you aren’t missing emails from someone above you.

The point is, you check your texts more than you check your emails. You yourself might be one of those psychopaths with 2,348 unread emails sitting on your phone. How do you sleep at night? Maybe you don’t, but with Microsoft Flow powered by Telesign at least you won’t have to dig through that wasteland of an inbox looking for important info. We’ll push it right to you.

For more info on how to create a workflow, read on!

How To Get Started

All you need is a Microsoft account with Flow user permissions and a Telesign account to start sending text messages. Flow integrates with various Microsoft services, including PowerApps, Dynamics 365 and Office 365. The Microsoft Flow Admin Center allows an administrator to manage users, permissions and roles and ensure that employee created flows comply with data loss prevention policies.

To set up a Telesign account, visit: https://portal.telesign.com/signup– you will receive your CustomerID and API key, which is required to create your Microsoft Flow connection. If you are already a Telesign customer, all you need to do is add your CustomerID and API key information in the Telesign SMS Flow Connector to get started.

To download the Telesign SMS Connector, you can find it here: https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-US/connectors/details/shared_telesignsms/telesign-sms/.  Once downloaded, follow the directions and provide your information – enter the name of the connection, your Telesign CustomerID and API key and click create!

Telesign SMS Connector

Once your connection is created, you are ready to build your flow and send SMS message with all necessary details. You will need to provide the phone number, the message text, the external ID (your phone number), the message type (most users select ARN to send alerts, reminders and notifications) and the Telesign Sender ID (you can get that from your Telesign account) – and click save!

You’re now going to receive an SMS message when your workflow is triggered, in this example, when an email is received!