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Connecting a Messaging Provider

Messaging is the single outbound path for text and WhatsApp messages — from workflows, from campaigns, and from the platform's own two-factor and password-reset paths.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Communication:

  • SMS & WhatsApp Accounts — the console — providers, credentials and sending numbers
  • GOV.UK Notify Templates — template mappings where you send through Notify
  • Message Log — every message, its state and its cost

Architect Panel → Activity:

  • SMS Log — the platform-side sending record

Seven providers

  • AWS End User Messaging SMS — the current AWS route for text.
  • AWS SNS — the legacy AWS route, still supported.
  • AWS End User Messaging Social — AWS's WhatsApp route.
  • Meta WhatsApp Cloud API — WhatsApp direct from Meta.
  • Twilio — text and WhatsApp.
  • ClickSend — text, and physical letters.
  • GOV.UK Notify — text, email and letters for public sector organisations.

Every provider ships disabled and without credentials. Enable the one you use and supply your own — nothing starts talking to an external service because an update was applied.

Setting one up

  1. Open Communication → SMS & WhatsApp Accounts and add an account for your provider.
  2. Enter the credentials. Use a service identity rather than a personal account — provider credentials tied to an individual stop working when they leave.
  3. Configure the sending number or sender ID.
  4. Send a test to your own handset before wiring it into anything.
  5. Enable the Inbound Message Drain task under Automation → Tasks. Dispatch runs through it, so messaging that appears to do nothing at all is almost always this.

Sender IDs cannot receive

An alphanumeric sender ID — your organisation's name rather than a number — looks smarter and cannot be replied to. It is also not permitted in every country.

If you want two-way messaging, and for casework you almost always do, provision a real number. People reply whether or not you invited them to, and a reply into a void is worse than not offering the channel.

WhatsApp is not SMS

WhatsApp requires pre-approved message templates for anything you initiate, and a session window within which you may then reply freely. Approval takes days, not minutes.

Plan for that: a campaign scheduled before templates are approved simply will not send, and the failure arrives at the worst moment. Get templates approved before you build the process around them.

GOV.UK Notify

If you already use Notify for email, adding text and letters is a mapping exercise rather than a new supplier relationship. GOV.UK Notify Templates maps your platform templates onto Notify's, which is necessary because Notify holds the content its end.

Worked example

A council already sends email through GOV.UK Notify. Adding text is a second account on the same Notify credentials, with the platform's reminder templates mapped to Notify templates. A separate Twilio account with a dedicated two-way number is added for the housing repairs service, because tenants need to reply and Notify's sender does not accept replies. Two accounts, two purposes, separate reporting.

Recommendations

  • One account per purpose where you want separate reporting or separate numbers.
  • Use a real number if replies matter.
  • Get WhatsApp templates approved early.
  • Check the trigger before enabling any automated send — a workflow firing on every save of a busy datastore is expensive and irritating in equal measure.