Journaling of SMS messages
Administrative authorities have a duty to record documents sent or received in connection with case processing in the authority's activities.
The obligation only applies to documents that are of importance to a case or the case processing in general. Both internal and external documents in final form are covered by the obligation.
This means that if a government employee sends or receives an SMS that is relevant to a case, it must be logged. There can be challenges and different solutions to fulfill the obligation to journalize, and you can read about it on relevant public websites, such as The Ombudsman on the duty to journalize.
The challenges
The challenges when it comes to SMS journaling are that there are some challenges that are unique to the medium. The biggest challenge is that the delivery of the SMS message takes place on a platform where the local IT department has little control. It is delivered through an autonomous network where it is not possible for the IT department to intercept the messages.
On the phone itself, consumer protection is paramount, so it's not possible to install software that intercepts communications.
Specifically, the challenges are:
- No control over the device
- No control over the network
- No option for automatic journaling
When it comes to email or dialog in contact forums, both the user and the IT department have a better opportunity to mark and journalize the message.
Existing solutions
In our experience, the way authorities most often solve the problem is by asking employees to take a screenshot of the messages, send the screenshot to themselves via email, and from the email make the logging. This transfers the responsibility to the employee, who has to spend time on it, may not get it done, and may deletes the messages by mistake.
Another solution we've heard is that the employee is told not to send any text messages that could affect the case processing. This is not possible because both sent and received messages must be logged, and the employee is not in control of what citizens send to them. On the other hand, for some employee groups, it can be downright difficult for them to do their job, e.g. if they work with vulnerable young people.
Some authorities have integrated SMS into their case management systems. If the systems can both send and receive, this can be a good and viable solution. However, we see that in the real world, there is often a need to be able to send SMS when you haven't opened your case management system..
Our solution - SMS logging from your phone
SureSMS is in the unique position of having access to our own SMS center. This means that we can capture SMS messages both when they are sent and received before they are delivered to the phone. This means that we have the ability to journalize the messages without the employees having to do anything, both the incoming and outgoing SMS messages.
The way it works is that the employee gets an extra e-sim installed on their phone. This number is used to send and receive SMS messages. This is a SureSMS number and because of our deep integrations, we are able to capture the SMS messages. These messages will typically be forwarded to the authority's record system. In the log system, rules can be set up for when an SMS should be logged.
Typically, however, you will choose to log all SMS messages because they are very small in terms of data. The price for a complete solution starts at approx. 40,000 DKK including 100 numbers.
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Our solution - SMS journaling on PC
For communication between municipalities, institutions, authorities and citizens to work, it is extremely important that messages and information both arrive AND are read! Studies show that the vast majority of SMS messages are read by the recipient, making SMS messaging a fast and reliable form of communication.
With an SMS gateway, public institutions can maintain an overview and comply with record-keeping requirements.
Advantages
- Built-in journaling. Through our web portal, you always have documentation for all messages sent to citizens or employees.
- Service messages and appointment reminders via SMS are a great service for citizens and users while ensuring fewer cancellations and less waste of resources. Use auto-generated SMS messages or manage the sending yourself via our web interface.
- All communication between the client and our servers is encrypted using the latest SSL encryption. This makes it safe to send sensitive personal information via SureSMS.
- No expensive subscriptions. We only charge SMS rates for the number of messages you actually send. Invoicing is free and it's easy to pay via EAN number.
The above is a selection of our features. But there are many more. See our feature pages at suresms.com for inspiration.
Full overview and documentation via the SureSMS web portal
From our web portal, you can easily log in and send SMS messages to users from your computer. From here, you can quickly send messages to groups, schedule sendings and merge names into messages.
Here you also have a full overview of the messages that are sent, and the messages remain here for logging or documentation purposes. You always have an overview of both the content and time of sending and receiving messages.
Serving both government institutions and municipalities
Over the years, we have delivered SMS to many public institutions and therefore have extensive experience working with them: libraries, state prisons, assistive technology centers, government agencies and much more. Public institutions need to communicate with a broad cross-section of the population, while price, quality and security MUST be top-notch. We have the expertise to deliver a solid, flexible gateway that's easy to use.
Send from multiple numbers
Does your workplace need to send from multiple phone numbers, or does your login need to be flexible so that multiple employees can send from a specific user? It's easy with our online portal.
Here you can read some examples of how our customers are using our online SMS service today:
- One of the Danish professional organizations uses our online SMS service to send out newsletters to customers. It's obviously easier to send out long newsletters via a computer's larger keyboard, and it also allows you to attach links with relevant articles to the organization's members.
- A hunting association in Zealand has signed up on our Gateway. As the members of the association take turns organizing the hunts, they all have a login to the association's account, from where they send notifications about upcoming hunts to the other members.
- A heating company uses our gateway to notify residents of supply disruptions. For example, when the heat is shut off due to repairs in a certain area, the phone numbers are pulled out of the utility's system, pasted onto our website, from where they can simply send a message to all affected households.
Visit our Manual website
To help our customers, we have gathered all instructions and descriptions at manual.suresms.com. Here you can see how our gateway works and get simple, user-friendly instructions for the many features.
developer.suresms.com
SureSMS is made by developers for developers!
At developer.suresms.com we have gathered documentation and code examples to make it easy to integrate our gateway into your system.
Watch our how-to videos!
Are you starting a new feature? Or do you just need to know a little more about how our gateway works? On Youtube we have gathered our instructional videos. Ready to go!