To use the yap helpline system, service bodies need to get an account with Twilio and purchase one or more phone numbers. In the past year, Twilio has started requiring that all numbers be registered; if they are not, some SMS traffic may be blocked or will incur higher charges. Many service bodies have been having trouble with the registration requirements, and sometimes an application by one service body will get rejected even though another service body managed to get registered with basically the same information – it sometimes depends on who happens to be evaluating it. Plus the information from Twilio changes periodically.
All this is a giant pain. But we recommend doing it anyway, and if your application gets rejected, file a support ticket with Twilio and try again. Have courage – people have been getting their applications through eventually. We’ll update this blog post if we get additional information on what works and what doesn’t – please either hop on the BMLT #yap slack channel, or if you’re not on slack, send email to help@bmlt.app.
There is a separate application process and set of requirements for local numbers and toll free numbers. Registration and verification is about sending SMS texts – this doesn’t affect voice. The process seems to be driven by problems of spam SMS texts, and trying to control them. The verification is particularly concerned with “consent” – that is, the caller needs to agree to get a text before one is sent. Some applications were getting bounced because consent was not clearly enough given. In response, we’ve updated the yap software to make consent more explicit, and to indicate that consent was obtained in the reports generated by yap.
- The different kinds of numbers and registration requirements according to Twiliio
- General legal information from Twilio on their legal policy and consent requirements
Yap Version Requirements
The directions below and application templates use yap version 4.2.10, which includes the updates to make consent more explicit. If necessary, update your yap installation before putting in a registration application so that you’re on version 4.2.10 or later.
Registration Procedure for Local Numbers (i.e., numbers that aren’t toll free)
There are two steps:
- creating a “brand” (for us, that means information on the service body that is sending texts);
- creating a “campaign” (describing how callers use the system, and in particular how they opt-in to getting texts).
Once you get through this registration, if you have multiple numbers you can just select the same campaign for each of them.
Creating the “Brand”
If your region or other service body has a US EIN/Tax ID, then you can use the Low Volume Standard Brand Registration.
A potential problem is that Twilio says that your address has to match the address that the IRS has for your EIN; and elsewhere they say that it has to be a physical address, not a PO box. Some service bodies managed to register earlier using an EIN and a PO box – it’s not clear whether Twilio will accept that any more or not. (Sorry, that’s all we know! Probably just try it and see.)
If you don’t have an EIN, you can probably register as a direct sole proprietor. For this case, you would probably need to have a trusted servant register using that person’s name and address, and not as your area or using your area’s PO box.
Campaign Description
Here are sample answers to the “campaign description” (i.e., use case) that they ask for in the registration – feel free to copy and adapt them. These include updates that make consent opt-in and explicit. https://bmlt.app/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/twilio-campaign-registration-2023-07-24.docx
Toll-Free Verification Process
If you get a Twilio error “Error 30032 – Toll-Free Number Has Not Been Verified”, that means your number isn’t verified and the SMS text has been filtered out.
Here are Twilio’s directions for verifying toll-free numbers for the US/Canada.
As of July 11, 2023, there is a new console for submitting and checking the application. We don’t have any feedback from yap users who have used this console – previously you needed to submit a support ticket – but it should make things easier. If you do manage to use it (successfully or unsuccessfully), please post a note on slack and let us know what happened. We will update this blog post as new information comes in.
Here is a sample verification request that we used for an earlier version of this requirement (which was submitted using a support ticket) — feel free to use this as a template in filling out your own request. https://bmlt.app/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/twilio-toll-free-verification-2023-07-24.docx
