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Parents are getting SMS messages that we didn't send

← Messaging
Sentral has a arrangement with one of Australia's largest SMS message carriers to provide SMS messaging services to schools using their network. Given the large size of this carrier, they are used by many other businesses as well as schools using Sentral.

In order to reduce costs, the default behaviour of Messaging is to send messages using a pool of shared numbers owned by the carrier. These numbers are allocated at random and are reused across different users of their SMS services. The may also change from time to time, meaning your parents cannot simply save that number in their contacts and assume it will only be used by your school.

Because of this, several limitations apply:
  • You must ensure the school name or initials are part of any message that your school sends
  • Inbound messaging can ONLY be facilitated when it is in direct reply to a message received my parents
  • Parents need to be advised that the number may change
  • Parents need to be aware that they may receive messages that come from the same sender as the other message
If you wish to eliminate these restrictions, your school may purchase a dedicated number which is reserved exclusively for your school's use. This does incur an initial setup fee, as well as a monthly rental fee (billed annually).

If your school is interested in setting up a dedicated number, please contact our Customer Service team for pricing and ordering information.

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