Reference
Outbound SMS

Angel Cheung

Updated March 03, 2025 23:13

Send a single SMS to a designated recipient. The node offers two outcome paths based on message delivery status—sent and not sent. Handle fallbacks and failures by tailoring experiences based on these outcomes.

An Outbound SMS progresses on the Sent path after 10 minutes by default. This wait time is configurable, and exists to monitor for any sending failures that may occur. Learn more in Outcomes section of this article

Usage Scenario

The following example demonstrates a practical application of the Outbound SMS within a flow, that sends an confirmation message following a event sign-up.

Configuring the action

Settings

Edit the recipient field and the message body. Refer to the merge fields section to see how to reference a merge field.

Values in the recipient field must follow the internationally standardised E.164 format: [+] [country code][area code] [recipient number]. For example, an E.164 format Australian number: +61400000000.

Segment and character counter

The approximate number of segments and characters in your message. This count does not include merge fields.

Non-GSM characters

Non-GSM characters (e.g. emojis) are characters that increase the size of your SMS and are highlighted in orange. Note that non-GSM characters within merge fields are not considered.

Learn more about non-GSM characters and SMS size here.

Copying and pasting from other programmes such Microsoft Word or Google Docs will surface any non-GSM characters present. These will be highlighted automatically.

Preview

This is how the message will appear to recipients.

Outcomes

Configure how the experience should continue after this node depending on outcomes of this node.

The possible outcomes of the Outbound SMS are:

Sent

The experience will continue on this path if no failure notifications are received within the default wait time of 10 minutes.

This configurable wait time exists to monitor for any sending failures that may occur after the SMS has been sent to a mobile carrier for delivery. You can change the wait time by clicking on the pencil icon, and when edited, the 'Not sent' wait time will be synced too.

For example, if a sending failure occurs within the default 10 minute wait time, the experience will progress onto the 'Not Sent' path. If no sending failures occur within the default 10 minute wait time, the experience will progress onto the 'Sent path'.

Not sent
The experience will either end or continue on this path (depending on its toggle settings) if a sending failure has occurred within the default wait time of 10 minutes.

This configurable wait time exists to monitor any sending failures that may occur after the SMS has been sent to a mobile carrier for delivery. You can change the wait time by clicking on the pencil icon, and when edited, the 'Sent' wait time will be synced too.

When toggled off, the experience will end and exit the flow. When toggled on, the Not Sent path will be visible on the canvas, where you can further configure the experience on this path. You can refer to Merge fields section below to personalise experiences continuing on this path.

Merge fields

You can reference any merge fields from nodes previous to this node. Learn more about merge fields

In later nodes, when viewing the available merge fields for the Outbound SMS node in merge field explorer you can expect to see:

Merge field	Description	Possible outputs	Output definition
outcome	The final message delivery status (string)	`success`	The message was sent to the mobile carrier for delivery, and no failure notifications were received during the set time period. The experience will continue on the 'Sent' path.
outcome	The final message delivery status (string)	`failure`	The message failed to be sent. See outcomeReason (below) for possible reasons. The experience will continue along the 'Not Sent' path (if configured) or exit the flow.
outcomeReason	The reason for a message delivery (string)	`success-timeout`	The SMS was sent to a mobile carrier for delivery, and no failure notifications were received during the set wait time. The experience will continue on the 'Sent' path.
		`failed: [reason]`	The carrier has accepted the message, but encountered an error while sending it to the recipient. The experience will continue along the 'Not Sent' path (if configured) or exit the flow.
		`failed-normalization`	The recipient's phone number is invalid. Ensure it is present and in the correct E.164 format. The experience will continue along the 'Not Sent' path (if configured) or exit the flow.
		`other-error`	Another error was found while sending the message to the recipient. Contact Support for further troubleshooting. The experience will continue along the 'Not Sent' path (if configured) or exit the flow.
		`rejected`	The carrier has rejected the message. The experience will continue along the 'Not Sent' path (if configured) or exit the flow.
		`validation-error`	An invalid value was found in the node. Ensure the message body is not empty. The experience will continue along the 'Not Sent' path (if configured) or exit the flow.

Reference
Outbound SMS

Usage Scenario