SMS Notifications

SMS Notifications hedgesst

OPLIN offers a service that allows Ohio public libraries to deliver library notices to patrons as text messages. Libraries can email ILS notices to OPLIN's SMS gateway, and OPLIN will deliver the notice to patrons as native SMS.

  • OPLIN's SMS services uses a registered 10DLC (10 digit long code).
  • This service is free of charge to Ohio public libraries.
  • To comply with federal law, libraries may only use OPLIN's SMS gateway to send notifications for which patrons have opted in, such as ILS notices. Sending marketing messages to all patron numbers on file is not permitted. 

Prerequisites:

  • Your Integrated Library System (ILS) must be capable of sending patron notices via email.
  • Add a delimiter string to your ILS's email notice templates to mark the start of the 152-character SMS message.
  • Notify OPLIN of the IP address of the server that sends the ILS email notifications, or use OPLIN's authenticated SMTP relay.

Procedure

Invite patrons to opt-in to receiving ILS notices via text message. Normal charges for text messages from the patron's provider will apply.

If the patron opts-in, add an email address to their patron records in the ILS as<cellphone_number>@sms.oplin.org.

Example

If the patron wishes to receive notifications at their cell phone number 614-123-4567, add the email address

6141234567@sms.oplin.org

in an email field of their patron record. Notifications will now be sent to their cell phone via OPLIN's SMS gateway.

Provide OPLIN with a staff email address to receive weekly reports of SMS delivered. The report will list any deliver errors, and information about how to resolve the delivery error. 

If your library would like to receive replies patrons send to library texts, provide OPLIN with an email address to receive the texted replies from patron numbers. 

The OPLIN SMS system accepts notices 24 hours a day, but only delivers text messages to patrons between 9 AM and 9 PM, to comply with federal law. Any notices generated outside the window will be held in the queue for delivery at 9:00 a.m. EST.

Message format

All notifications sent to patrons' cell phones will be limited to 152 characters, which is the maximum length of a single text message, so your standard notification language must include all important information (library name, phone number, etc.) within those 152 characters.

The OPLIN SMS system uses *** as its delimiter to determine what text from your regular email messages will be sent to people's cell phones.

  • If you send an email to the system and no occurrence of *** is found, the system will discard the email.
  • If you send an email with one occurrence of *** the system uses that as the beginning of your 152 character message.
  • If the system finds two or more occurrences of *** it uses whatever you have between the first pair as your text message, taking the first 152 characters of that snippet.

Good examples of notices we've seen:
 

***This is a reminder from the UAPL that 1 item(s) will soon be due. Please return or renew them by their due date. Visit www.ualibrary.org for more information.***
 

***You have items ready to pick up at the Lane Libraries.***
 

***Your hold is available from the Lakewood Public Library. It will be held for 10 days. Call 216-226-8275 for more information.***

The Microsoft SMTP daemon typically uses an encoding for plain text that can cause "=" to appear at the end of lines. The OPLIN SMS system automatically strips those unwanted characters from your message.

The system also strips out any carriage returns or new-line codes that may be embedded in your message, so your message is formatted for optimum cell phone display.

The system automatically handles any base64 encoded email.

Service objectives:

  • Incident Response: OPLIN staff will respond within one hour to malfunctions of sending notifications to cell phones during regular business hours Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., excluding State of Ohio holidays; contact us through the OPLIN Support site.
  • Incident Resolution: OPLIN staff will either resolve the incident within 4 business hours or will open an incident ticket with the messaging vendor(s) and work collaboratively toward resolving the incident within the timeframe specified in the vendor's agreed service objective.

Questions?

Contact OPLIN Support.

 ​

Error Codes and Resolution

 

Code Meaning Resolution
DR001 Mobile number has opted-out of future messages Having patron text "unstop" to 877-675-4632 will remove the block, and will automatically respond with a generic subscription confirmation message. If the automatic response does not arrive, patron should contact their vendor about being able to receive shortcode messages from 877-675-4632.
DR002 The gateway is not routing messages to this network prefix. Number is likely a landline or unknown carrier.
DR005 The messaging gateway failed to deliver the message to the phone provided Message failed at patron carrier level. If previous attempt was successful, one retry will be attempted. Troubleshooting would involve patron reaching out to their carrier to ensure successful delivery of messages in the future.
DR006 The mobile number is invalid and cannot receive messages. Do not retry. Check for a typo in the patron's @sms.oplin.org email address in the patron record
DR008 The message expired and was not delivered to the subscriber. Message failed at patron carrier level. If previous attempt was successful, one retry will be attempted. Troubleshooting would involve patron reaching out to their carrier to ensure successful delivery of messages in the future.
DR009 The carrier rejected the message. This can be due to short code messaging blocked, anti-spam policies, or their wireless plan. Message failed at patron carrier level. If previous attempt was successful, one retry will be attempted. Troubleshooting would involve patron reaching out to their carrier to ensure successful delivery of messages in the future.
DR010 The message was not sent due to a temporary system error. Message delivery failed at the carrier due to a temporary error.
DR013 The mobile number does not support text messages. Check for a typo in the patron's @sms.oplin.org email address in the patron record.
DR015 SMS could not be delivered due to a phone error Message failed at patron carrier level. If previous attempt was successful, one retry will be attempted. Troubleshooting would involve patron reaching out to their carrier to ensure successful delivery of messages in the future.
DR017 Unknown reason The carrier did not provide a delivery receipt. The message may have been delivered successfully, but the sending service did not receive confirmation of success or failure.
DR019 Message will be retried by carrier.  
MPCE3202 Cannot send to international number Check for a typo in the patron's @sms.oplin.org email address in the patron record
MPME0601 Inappropriate Message Content. The content of the text message was rejected by filters at the SMS bulk carrier. The message may contain spammy words like "naked."
MPME1204 Special Characters are not allowed Check message for odd characters or punctuation.
MPME2301 The subscription ID OPLIN has on file for this number is no longer valid. No action needed. Main reason to see this is if a patron blocks the texting service. When OPLIN receives this message we automatically delete the old subscription ID and retry the message. Retrying the message will either successfully generate a new ID, or will cause a different error to fire.
MPSE0501 User has a block in place Having patron text "unstop" to 877-675-4632 will remove the block, and will automatically respond with a generic subscription confirmation message. If the automatic response does not arrive, patron should contact their vendor about being able to receive shortcode messages from 877-675-4632.
MPSE2201 Invalid mobile number format Check for a typo in the patron's @sms.oplin.org email address in the patron record
MPSE2208 Invalid mobile number Check for a typo in the patron's @sms.oplin.org email address in the patron record

Mail Relay

Mail Relay jessica

Mail Relay

OPLIN offers Ohio public libraries access to an authenticated mail relay. 

Public libraries are welcome to relay email from ILS, appliances, cloud platforms, or other sources. OPLIN's mail relay requires SMTP authentication, encryption, and accepts mail for relay from any source. Older cipher suites and TLS/SSL versions are supported to enable libraries to send email from older appliances and devices with embedded firmware that is incompatible with modern cloud email services.

OPLIN's mail relay supports custom configuration, including rate limiting, unique accounts per source, large attachments, and monthly statistics and deliverability reports.

If a library wishes to send SMS notifications from a cloud-hosted mail solution, use of OPLIN's mail relay is required. 

OPLIN can also provide guidance about configuring the library's DNS records to improve email deliverability. 

For more details and a relay account, please email support@oplin.ohio.gov.

DMARC Report Analyzer

DMARC Report Analyzer jessica

DMARC Report Analyzer

What is DMARC?

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) is a DNS-based standard for email authentication that enables email administrators protect their domain from spoofing. In the past, DMARC was considered an optional feature. Now, configuring and maintaining SPF, DKIM and DMARC is essential for organizations that send mail to external recipients.

Starting in early 2024, Google and Yahoo enforced best practices for email sent to Gmail and Yahoo recipients. Google has published detailed guidance for ensuring your library's email is delivered to Gmail inboxes successfully. Without valid SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured, libraries cannot successfully deliver email to the majority of recipients.

OPLIN Provides DMARC Report Analyzer

Configuring DMARC for the library's email domain provides you with visibility into how recipient mailservers handle the library's mail by providing DMARC deliverability reports. Reviewing DMARC reports can help find misconfigurations of your SPF and DKIM records, among other issues. 

OPLIN hosts an instance of the open-source DMARC analyzer parsedmarc to help libraries manage and easily review DMARC reports. Parsedmarc summarizes DMARC reports for easy review in a Kibana dashboard and weekly CSV summaries. To add an account for your library, please email support@oplin.ohio.gov.

If you would like assistance with configuring valid SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for your library's email domain, please email support@oplin.ohio.gov.

Resources for Configuring DMARC

MXToolBox SuperTool: Check your email domain's DNS configuration

Demystifying DMARC: Sean Whalen explains configuring SPF, DKIM and DMARC in depth

Learn DMARC: Send an email to an interactive tester that analyzes your email domain's configuration in real time