The Two-Way ActiveCampaign SMS integration is enabled in the FoneDynamics platform, it provides clients with the ability to retrieve, store, manage and trigger automations on message replies from their customers.


How it Works


The integration mainly uses the ActiveCampaign Custom Records API and there is a number of components to the integration which allow the integration to function. The first is creation of a child schema on a customer's ActiveCampaign account:


https://developers.activecampaign.com/reference#create-a-child-schema


The child schema uses the FoneDynamics public schema which enables the creation of an SMS Object record against contacts listed in Active Campaign, the schema will create an object with the following fields:


  • Messagesid
  • Datetime
  • Sendernumber
  • Recipientnumber
  • Messagetext
  • Status


This child schema will only be created once, it should be noted that if the integration is removed/deleted from your account ALL data and records in ActiveCampaign are removed, FDX however will always retain those records.


When the Schema is setup a new object will appear on a contact:



The next part of the integration is that FoneDynamics will pull all contacts out of ActiveCampaign and store them for each integration, we keep a record of any added, updated or deleted contacts.


https://developers.activecampaign.com/reference#list-all-contacts


Finally as part of the integration, every 5 minutes we get all sent and received SMS' for your project and look-up the contact recipient or sender if a received message. We then find the relevant contact and push the record back to ActiveCampaign.


It should be noted that this is done for all SMS tied to the project, it's recommended setting up a new project specifically for ActiveCampaign SMS.


Every evening messages will be re-retrieved and synced into ActiveCampaign, the status will then be updated if it has changed from Submit to Delivered, this will be re-attmepted until the message falls into either the 'Undelivered' or 'Expired' statuses (Approx 7 days).



How it Looks


SMS' will be synced under the contact and users can read the messages from the customer, this can be used in conjunction with the FDX platform to further manually respond if required.


Customers can also setup automations for received messages, order confirmations, Opt Out messaging etc can be achieved this way. Customers can jump into the automation section and click 'Add Start Trigger':



Under the trigger options there will now be an option for 'SMS Messages', it's recommended to create a trigger for both message created and updated for sent messages, only 'Created' should be required for received messages:


SMS Segmentation can then be added, below is an example of an Opt Out.



Getting Started


To start using this integration you will need your Rest API Credentials, these can be found in the platform under the 'Home' Page, a guide for this is here.


The first step is to connect FoneDynamics, this will be inputting your FoneDynamics Rest API Credentials. The second step is to connect your ActiveCampaign instance:




Your developer credentials for ActiveCampaign can be accessed within the AC portal, steps are in the help tip below, you will need administrator access to complete this.



After saving the credentials and clicking next you will be presented with a setup option for creation of the custom object/child creation schema. 


Note* The creation of the schema can only be added and not removed with this integration and hence if the integration has been used before please contact us to remove this prior to re-connecting this integration to your AC instance.



On clicking next the child schema will be created in your ActiveCampaign instance, this is an automatic step. The final phase of the setup is to input the PropertySID you will be using for syncing the SMS', this is available under the Rest API Credentials on the Home page.


Once completed there is three separate integration pieces which run.


Contacts Sync - This will require a large sync on first run, it's recommended to wait a couple of hours before sending/receiving SMS. This piece will pull new and updated contacts every 30 minutes from then on.


5 Minute Sync - This will pull Sent/Received Messages every 5 minutes and will attempt to sync them to ActiveCampaign.


Daily Sync - This will pull all Sent/Received Messages for the past 7 days and attempt to sync them to ActiveCampaign, this will automatically update any status changes in the messages as well e.g. Sent to Delivered or Sent to Failed etc.