Continuity - SMS Services

This article contains information on Mimecast SMS Continuity Services, including setup, prerequisites, notifications, and how administrators can use SMS to keep users informed during email outages.

Introduction

Mimecast SMS Continuity Services extends some Mimecast capabilities, to allow cell phones to be sent SMS notifications, during Continuity events, which:

• Keeps your users informed at the start and end of planned and unplanned email outages.
• Advises yours users of which Mimecast applications to use during a Continuity event to maintain productivity.
• Reduces help desk calls, due to improved communication.

Considerations 

2-Step Authentication and cloud password reset by SMS is available to all accounts, not just those with the SMS Services package.

Prerequisites

• You have Mimecast SMS Continuity Services as part of your Mimecast subscription.
• You have configured the SMS Attribute via Account | Settings | System Notification Options | SMS Attribute in the Mimecast Administration Console.
  Use Change Attribute | Lookup to select the required attribute, before you Save and Exit. 
  When sending an SMS message to a user, Mimecast uses the number associated with the attribute for that user. See Mimecast Account Settings.
• You've familiarized yourself with the other articles relating to use of SMS:
  • SMS Dashboard: how to specify and verify cell phone numbers for SMS use for your users, and how to use the SMS Dashboard to confirm delivery of SMS messages.
    This includes details on how to correctly format cell phone numbers, including country codes.
  • Cloud Password Reset: setting up Cloud password reset for your users, to allow them to reset their password via SMS. This can be configured at an Authentication Profile or Continuity Event level.

We will never send unsolicited messages, marketing, or promotional messages to users mobile phones. Additionally, we will only send one verification code per end user request. Message and data rates may apply.

• • Logging in & Setting your Password: how your users can set up, or reset, a Cloud password with an SMS verification code, via the Mimecast Personal Portal.
  • Subscribing to SMS User Notifications: how users can subscribe to SMS services, or opt out of them, including key words to text for this.

SMS Continuity Notifications

Once you have everything set up, you can use the SMS service to send a custom alert to a specific group of users at the start and end of a Continuity Event.
This type of SMS program is called a recurring program, and requires your users to opt-in before Mimecast are able to send them a message.