Text messages

For administrators.

Gambrel Book emails customers about their orders. To text them too, connect your own Twilio account. Texts come from your own Twilio number: you set up the account, verify the number and pay Twilio for it. Obsidian Stag doesn't set up, verify or pay for any business's texting.

Texts are one-way order-status messages, with fixed wording, to customers who agree to them. There's no marketing.

Twilio's menus change from time to time. If a step below doesn't match what you see, Twilio's own help has the current steps.

In Twilio

1. Account: sign up at twilio.com and add billing (upgrade from the trial). Twilio bills you for the number and each text.
2. Number: buy a toll-free number with SMS (Phone Numbers → Buy a number).
3. Verification: submit toll-free verification for that number (Messaging → Regulatory compliance → Toll-free verifications), with your business's details (legal name, business type, EIN unless you're a sole proprietor, address, website, contact) and the standard answers below. Twilio usually decides in a few days, and texts can't go out until it approves. If it's rejected, fix the submission in Twilio and resubmit.
4. OAuth app for Gambrel Book: Settings → Account settings → OAuth applications → Create an OAuth app.
   • Name: Gambrel Book.
   • Permissions: Messaging, and Phone Numbers (read only). Nothing else.
   • Token expiration: the default.
   • Copy the client ID and client secret. Twilio shows the secret once.

In Gambrel Book

1. Go to Business → Text messages.
2. Enter the Twilio Account SID (on your Twilio Console's home page; it starts with AC), the OAuth client ID and OAuth client secret, and the Texting number.
3. Read the Messaging Terms, check the box to agree, and select Connect Twilio.

Gambrel Book checks these with Twilio before saving: that the credentials work and the number is in your account. The secret is stored encrypted and never shown again.

Changing or turning off texts

• To change the credentials (for example, after making a new secret in Twilio): select Disconnect Twilio, then connect again with the new values.
• To turn texts off: select Disconnect Twilio. Gambrel Book deletes the stored credentials and stops texting. Then delete the Gambrel Book OAuth app in Twilio. The number stays in your Twilio account, to keep or release.
• If texts stop: your number, verification and billing are in your own Twilio account, so check there first.

The standard answers

Use these in Twilio's toll-free verification. They're the same for every business using Gambrel Book.