SMS Log

The SMS log records text messages the platform sent, with the identifiers needed to trace one with your provider.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Activity:

• SMS Log — messages sent, with provider identifiers

Architect Panel → Communication:

• Message Log — the drivers and accounts messages are sent through

What an entry holds

• When it was sent.
• Number it went to.
• Message text.
• Message identifier — the provider's reference for the message.
• Request identifier — the provider's reference for the submission.

The identifiers are the point

SMS delivery is genuinely outside your control once the provider accepts the message — it crosses networks you have no visibility of. When a recipient says nothing arrived, the only way to find out what happened is to ask the provider, and the only way they can look is with their own reference.

Quote the message identifier and they can tell you what the network reported. Without it the conversation is "a text to this number, some time on Tuesday", and the answer will be correspondingly vague.

Sent is not delivered — more so than e-mail

The log records that the provider accepted the message. Handsets are off, numbers are reassigned, networks drop messages, and none of that comes back to the log.

Never use SMS as the sole channel for something that matters. It is excellent as a prompt and unreliable as a record.

Check the number format

Wrong or badly formatted numbers are the commonest cause of a message that never arrives. Look at the number in the entry — a missing country code or a leading zero where the provider expects international format will be accepted by the platform and go nowhere useful.

Messages cost money

Unlike e-mail, every message has a unit cost, and long messages are billed as several. The log is where an unexpected bill is explained: a journey firing more often than intended, or a template that grew past the single-message limit and quietly doubled the cost of every send.

Review volume periodically rather than only when the invoice arrives.

Keep messages short deliberately

Beyond cost, a long text is a poor message. Say the one thing, and link to the detail rather than including it.

Consent and hours

Text messages arrive on personal phones, often audibly, at whatever hour you send them. Check that you have a basis for texting somebody, that they can stop, and that scheduled sends are not landing overnight. A message that wakes somebody at 03:00 will generate a complaint whatever it said.

Numbers and content are personal data

The log holds mobile numbers and message text. Restrict and retain it accordingly.

Worked example

A recipient reports missing appointment reminders. The log shows all three sent and accepted, with identifiers. The provider confirms all three were delivered to the handset. The conversation moves from "our system is broken" to the recipient's own device settings — resolved in one call because the identifiers made it checkable.

Recommendations

• Keep the identifiers — they are the only route to a real answer.
• Never rely on SMS alone for anything important.
• Check number formatting first when a message does not arrive.
• Review volume monthly, before the invoice does it for you.