Email to SMS/MMS Service Configuration Tutorial
tl;dr You can use SMS and MMS gateway addresses made available by all cellular carriers for their subscribers, to convert email to text messages for delivery to mobile devices or text messaging applications. All you need to know is the phone number and carrier of the intended recipient. The rest is explained below.
What's required?
- An email distribution list such as a Google Group
- Administrative access to configure the group.
- Phone numbers and carriers of the intended recipients
Step 1: Create a Google Group with an intuitive name, description, and address.
Step 2: Set the posting permissions to one of the following options depending on who you want to be able to email the group.
- Members can post - Everyone on the group can send email to it.
- Managers can post - Only members granted the manager privilege can send email to the group.
- External or Public can post - Anyone in the world can email the group.
Step 3: Set the group to allow external members.
Because the members of the group will be addressed with the sms and or mms gateway domains belonging to their carriers they aren't addresses that are internal to your domain. This requires that the setting to allow external members be enabled
Step 4: Add yourself and test.
Add your email address as a member of the group and grant it the manager role. Add your phone number and gateway address as a member and email the group to test.
Step 5: Gather your list of phone numbers and carriers.
Reference their respective SMS and MMS gateway addresses online. SanDisk makes a comprehensive list available to the public.
Tip: Put the numbers and carriers and gateway addresses into a spreadshet and use a concatenate formula to combine the phone number, address and a comma. You can now copy and paste the result in the next step.
Step 6: Add the members to your group.
Go to the group settings > members > direct add and paste in the information from your spreadsheet or type them out separated with a comma if you didn't make a spreadsheet. Add a welcome message and click add.
Step 7: Profit
Nice work you're finished.