What this does

Sends and receives text messages (SMS) and picture/file messages (MMS) from Communicator, using a phone number linked to your extension. Conversations sync across every device you use Communicator on, and MMS availability depends on it being enabled on your system.

What you’ll need

  • An SMS number associated with your extension — check under your Personal Information screen if you’re not sure you have one. Your extension can have more than one (see If you have more than one SMS number below). If this feature isn’t available on your Bluehubcloud PBX, contact us and we’ll set it up for you.

Steps

  1. Click the SMS icon in the Communicator toolbar to open the SMS window.
  2. Start a conversation either by searching for a contact’s name or number in the SMS window, or by right-clicking a contact elsewhere in Communicator and choosing Send SMS. If the contact has more than one number, you’ll be asked which one to message.
  3. Type your message in the input field and click the send icon (or add a file first — see below). Up to 4 messages can be queued to send at once. A standard SMS has the usual character limit; if you attach a file the message becomes an MMS, which allows up to 1000 characters of text.
  4. To send a photo, document, or other file, click the file icon next to send, or drag files straight into the message area — up to 10 files, 500KB total. Adding a file turns the message into an MMS automatically.
  5. To manage a conversation, use the two buttons at the top right of the SMS window: the phone icon calls the contact, and the delete icon removes the current conversation. Right-click any message for Copy (copies the message text) or Delete.

If you have more than one SMS number:

Your admin can give your extension several SMS numbers, each with a label such as Sales or Marketing, and one set as your default. In Communicator, a new conversation always starts from your default number, and a reply always goes out from the number the message arrived on. Your default is the first number you were given unless you or your admin change it. Ask your admin if you want a different number as your default.

What you should see

Sent messages appear on the right in white, received ones on the left in blue. A character counter appears once you start typing; it switches to a remaining-kilobytes counter once a file’s attached. An unread-count badge shows on the SMS icon, taskbar, and tray icon whenever you have unread messages — click it for a quick list of conversations with unread counts, or to mark everything read at once. Each outgoing message shows one of three states — Sending, Sent (reached the server, not necessarily delivered), or Failed (click Retry to send it again).

Troubleshooting

  • Someone else’s name appears at the top of a message you didn’t send. Your SMS number is shared across more than one extension — every extension sharing that number can see all messages sent or received on it, and each other’s messages show a name/avatar header (yours won’t, on your own screen). Click Multiple users share this number in the conversation to see who else is on it.
  • A file won’t attach, or you get a “maximum size” warning. MMS is capped at 500KB and 10 files per message, but a large photo isn’t rejected the moment it crosses that limit — JPEG and PNG images are compressed automatically before sending, so a photo over 500KB can still go through at a reduced size (quality is kept as high as possible). The size warning only shows once the message still exceeds the cap after compression, or for a file type that isn’t compressed this way. Supported types: images (JPEG/PNG/GIF), audio (MP3/OGG/AMR), video (MP4), and PDF/vCard/plain text.
  • You’re not getting notified about new texts. SMS notifications are off by default — turn them on under Preferences > Alerts, and separately enable the notification sound there too if you want one.
  • MMS (photos/files) doesn’t work at all, only plain text, and there’s no file icon. MMS can be switched off for your own extension, for your whole organisation, or across the system, and the file icon disappears while it’s off. Contact us if you need it turned on.
  • Every message ends with the same extra line of text. If your admin has turned on an SMS footer, up to 160 characters of standard text is appended to every outgoing SMS/MMS automatically, and it counts toward your message’s length limit — this is expected, not a fault.
  • You need your old SMS conversations from before an update. Go to Preferences > Messaging and click Export old SMS history (only shown if older history exists) — pick a location and your old conversations export as individual files, with any MMS attachments saved alongside them.

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