SMS for Microsoft Teams Guidance

The SMS for Microsoft Teams solution is designed for immediate 1-to-1 two-way texting for business purposes only. This service facilitates timely, personalized interactions with recipients based on their preferred communication method. All users and supervisors must read and understand the following guidelines.

Usage Restrictions

• Do not use for unsolicited promotional messages to large groups.
  • If you are looking for promotional texting for large groups, please contact TSS for alternate solutions.
• Do not use for non-Shoreline CC related messaging.
• Usage is covered under the college’s Acceptable Use of Technology & Data Policy (4126).

Licensing and Approval

• Licenses are assigned by Supervisor request with sign off from the corresponding budget owner.
• Each use case is evaluated and approved by the TSS department.

Important Usage Details

• SMS (Short Message Service) allows the exchange of short messages between devices.
• Each licensed user is allocated 500 text messages per month (pooled per organization) with a maximum cap of 1000 messages per user per month.
• Exceeding the message limit results in an overage charge applied to the end user’s budget.
• Overall message counts are reported by the carrier at the end of each billing cycle.
• Each SMS text is broken down into 160-character blocks.
  • Emojis typically count as approximately 70 characters per emoji.
  • Pictures are broken down into multiple blocks depending on size, counting as multiple “blocks”.
  • Invisible Unicode characters from applications like Word or a Browser also count in the total character count, potentially counting as multiple “blocks”.
  • Block counts are determined by the carrier. TSS cannot determine block counts for messages.
• Transmission of SMS messages is not encrypted and inherently not secure.
  • Do not transmit confidential information or personal identifiable information (PII).