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Where to find it: Settings → Customer Notifs → SMS — Open in OTO ↗
SMS is the channel nobody has to install, nobody has to be logged into, and everybody reads. For a delivery message that has to arrive within the minute, it is still the most reliable thing available.

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One screen, one brand at a time

SMS is configured at Settings → Customer Notifs → SMS, across three tabs: SMS Settings, SMS Providers and Connected SMS Providers. Settings begin with a brand, because a brand is what a customer sees as the sender. Then a provider and a Status — the product’s own words: “Turn SMS notifications ON or OFF for this brand.” Beneath that sits every message type as a card, each with a description of exactly when it fires, an edit pencil and its own switch.
The SMS Settings screen

Fig. 1 — A phone mock-up on the right renders the message as it will arrive, sender name and all — so the thing being edited is the thing the customer gets.

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Fourteen message types

Each carries a category, a plain-language name and the trigger that fires it.
Message types, each with its trigger

Fig. 2 — Every card says when it fires. Switching one off is one tap, and it applies to this brand only.

Delayed Dispatch is the one to turn on firstMost of these tell a customer about something that has happened. Delayed Dispatch tells them about something that has not — the parcel that should have left and did not.That is the silence customers fill with a support ticket, and it is the only message here that can pre-empt a complaint rather than respond to one.

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Writing the message

Editing a message

Fig. 3 — Two things decide what is sent: who it goes to, and what it says. A character counter tracks the SMS segment as you type.

Per-country text is not a nicetyAn Arabic message and an English one of the same length do not cost the same to send: non-Latin characters use a shorter segment, so wording that fits in one message in English can silently become two or three in Arabic.Writing the text per destination — and watching the counter while you do — is how a notification programme stays predictable in cost as it crosses borders. It is also how the message ends up in the language the recipient actually reads.
Before going live, Send Test SMS delivers the real message to a number of your choosing.
The link is the messageAn SMS has one job: get the customer onto the page. Everything that matters — the status, the map, the form, your branding — lives there, where there is room for it and no per-character cost.Which is why a message type with no branded page behind it is a wasted send: it arrives as text that tells the customer something without letting them do anything about it.

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Providers

OTO does not send the messages itself; it connects to your SMS provider. The SMS Providers tab is a catalogue of pre-integrated ones — “Easily integrate your preferred SMS provider to send order updates, delivery notifications, and more instantly.”
The SMS provider catalogue

Fig. 4 — Regional carriers and global platforms side by side, each a Connect away.

The list runs well beyond the usual names: STC, Mobily, Zain, Unifonic and Unifonic Cloud, Msegat, Taqnyat, 4jawaly, Hi SMS, Bevatel, Mrasel, Mshastra, Gateway, iMissive, BabSMS, GoInfinito, TurkeySMS and Twilio, among others. Connecting one takes a Connection Name, a Sender Name — what appears as the sender on the customer’s phone — a Token from the provider, and a Status switch. Connected SMS Providers then lists what you have, each with its own switch and menu, so a provider can be disabled without being deleted.
Why the regional depth mattersA global platform will deliver an SMS to Riyadh, but sender-name registration, local delivery rates and per-message price are all better through a local carrier — and in some markets an unregistered sender name simply does not arrive.Having STC, Mobily, Zain, Taqnyat and the rest pre-integrated means that is a choice from a list rather than an integration project. Multiple providers can be connected at once.

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Automated and manual

Most of these fire on their own: a tracking SMS when the shipment moves, a failed-delivery SMS on a failed attempt, a feedback SMS after delivery. Order Confirmation can be targeted rather than universal — sent by city or by order status, so the confirmation step applies where cash orders actually go wrong rather than to everyone. For everything else there is Notify, on the Shipments screen: select an order, choose Send SMS, pick the type, send. It uses the same configured templates, so a manual send still looks like the rest of your communication. SMS is the only channel that can be sent to several orders at once this way. Click & Collect deserves a note of its own: the ready-for-collection message carries the collection point and, where you use one, the Delivery Confirmation Code the customer quotes at handover. See Order fulfillment.

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Did it arrive?

Settings → Logs → Notification Logs carries SMS Logs and Email Logs. Each SMS row holds the OTO Order ID, Sender Name, Phone Number, the Message Text as it was actually sent, Message Time, Message Type, Provider, the provider’s raw Gateway Response and a Status.
Read the message text, not just the statusA Success status means the provider accepted the message, and the Gateway Response carries their own reference, segment count and cost. Both are useful.But the column worth scanning is Message Text, because it shows what the customer actually received — after every dynamic field was substituted. A template that looks right in the editor and wrong on the phone is only visible here.
Notification Logs on the SMS Logs tab

Fig. 5 — One row per send, with the message as the customer received it and the provider’s own verdict beside it.

A failure is explicit and explained: a Failed chip, with the reason carried in the Gateway Response — a duplicate send, a rejected number, an unregistered sender name.
Two rows for one order is normalAn order that triggers both a tracking message and an address-verification message produces a row for each, at the same minute and against the same order ID. That is the system working, not a duplicate.What is worth investigating is the reverse — an order with fewer rows than the configured message types would predict.