RCS stands for Rich Communication Services and is a modern communications standard for mobile devices that was developed as a successor to traditional SMS.

Unlike plain text SMS, RCS messages can send high-resolution photos and videos (often up to 100 MB), voice messages, and other file types.

todo4teams offers an interface to the messaging service provider Esendex (https://www.esendex.com).

Sending RCS

Esendex offers you a convenient interface for generating RCS content: You can configure image, text, and interaction elements in templates, see https://www.esendex.co.uk/text-message-template-library/

Design your own template and, if necessary, use placeholders that are inserted for each recipient during sending:

To use placeholders in the text elements, simply enclose the placeholder name in double square brackets, e.g., "Good afternoon [[Name]], ...".

After saving the template in Esendex Studio, copy the ID of your new template. You'll need it later in todo4teams.

Also, create a "Subscription Key" in the Esendex console: https://console.esendex.com/subscribe:

Click "Show" and save the displayed "Primary Key."

If you haven't already done so, set up the Esendex account in the "Messaging" section of todo4teams, as described in here and here.

Enter the copied primary key in the Properties section as the variable richContentSubscriptionKey, e.g.,
richContentSubscriptionKey=825555tttzz7778uuzzz1

To send an RCS template in a todo4teams script, copy the following code and adjust the parameters accordingly:

The format of the call is

helper.sendTemplateMessageChannel(
ID_OF_MESSAGING_CONFIGURATION,
RECIPIENT_NUMBER,
TEMPLATE_ID,
VARIABLE_MAP,
SENDER_ID,
"RCS");

Simply set the VARIABLE_MAP to null if no placeholders are used.

Also set the SENDER_ID to null if you want to use the default value from your Esendex account.

Receiving Replies

Add the primary key of a webhook subscription to your messaging configuration in todo4teams, e.g.,

webhooksSubscriptionKey=?????????????????????

to receive replies to your SMS/RCS directly in todo4teams!

SMS/RCS replies will then arrive like emails: