Using the SMS Application within Teams

This article provides instructions on how to send SMS/MMS through the SMS Application in Microsoft Teams client.

Secure SMS
This embedded application is not available to Teams users when the enterprise avails the Secure SMS feature. See User Experience when Secure SMS Feature is On

Before You Begin

You must have added the SMS Connector App into your MS Teams client. For instructions, see Adding the SMS Connector App into Teams.
Understand the full user experience as a ConnecttoTeams user by reading the article SMS and MMS (Texting): Intro to End User Experience.

SMS CallerID Number Selection

This is accessible from the drop-down on the upper left portion of the page. The numbers are prefixed with Personal and Group to identify the phone number type. The chosen SMS CallerID Number is the FROM number for outgoing SMS/MMS messages. When you are assigned several SMS numbers, be sure to choose the right CallerID to send messages to your intended recipients.

Recent Conversations

This lists the parties you have conversed with in the last 120 days. These could be individual phone numbers, corresponding contact names, or text group names.

Main Chat Dialog Screen

The Main Chat screen displays the recipient's numbers or saved contact names, the SMS/MMS conversation (including inbound and outbound messages), and a message box for composing a new message.

Note
You will only see the messages of the selected SMS CallerID Number in the drop-down menu.

Sending SMS/MMS

To send an SMS or MMS using the application, do the following:

Select the desired SMS CallerID Number from the drop-down menu.
If there is only one number enabled for the user then this list will only have one option.
Note: You can only send SMS to recipients with the same country code as that of your Enterprise’s Home Country in the Microsoft Admin Center.
Do any of the following:
1. Select an existing conversation, type the new message, and click Send.
2. Click New Conversation and type the full number of the intended recipient (country code included), compose a message and click Send.

It is possible to send to multiple numbers by pressing the enter key or comma key. When multiple numbers are detected, SMS may be sent as a Broadcast SMS or as a Group SMS.

Group Text Availability
The Group SMS (Group Text) feature is available only if the feature is enabled for your enterprise. For more information on group texting, see the Group Texting.

You can also send SMS to Outlook contacts and Microsoft Office 365 Organization contacts who have mobile phone numbers. Just type the contact's name in the recipient box. To know more about contacts, see this page.

If you wish to send an MMS, use the picture icon to choose your attachment from your computer. Whatever file formats your carrier accepts, ConnecttoTeams will accept. Be aware of MMS limitations.

New Message Notifications

Users gets notified when there are new SMS and MMS messages via the Microsoft Teams Activity Feed.

Here is a new message notification shown in Microsoft Teams desktop app.

Here is a new message notification shown in an iOS mobile device with Microsoft Teams app.

Deleting an SMS Message

Deleting an SMS message from the app also deletes the corresponding message shown in the relevant channel in MS Teams. In other words, deleting SMS messages synchronizes between the embedded tab in the SMS app and the channel in MS Teams.

Deleting the SMS message only removes the message from the display on SMS App and Microsoft Teams. However, because the integration synchronizes all messages with Microsoft Teams, the messages are still in Microsoft Teams archive. Refer to Microsoft Teams Security and Compliance documentation for more info.

Hover the cursor over the message you wish to delete and click the Delete icon beside the message bubble.
Click Delete from the confirmation window.

Deleting a Whole SMS Conversation Dialog

Deleting an SMS conversation is only available in the embedded tab of the SMS app and does not delete from the corresponding channel in MS Teams. As such, the conversation would still be visible in a channel in Teams. This functionality gives the user an option to make the embedded tab in the SMS app less "noisy". To do this:

Beside the relevant recipient's phone number, click the Delete icon.

A confirmation message displays.

From the confirmation message, click Delete.

Result: The whole SMS conversation dialog is deleted. The message is deleted from the application but it would still appear in the corresponding Teams Channel.

Next Steps

Learn other ways to send SMS/MMS as an end user at SMS and MMS (Texting): End User Experience.