Since February (it's now June), we have been moving toward the implementation of Vega Interact SMS. After a series of stumbles & sputters, things now seem to be back on track, though we were just yesterday blindsided with the alarming news that for Sierra users at least, text messages are only available as an option to patrons who have their notice preference set to email.

We learned early in our review of Vega Interact SMS that these text alerts would supplement, not replace, a patron's chosen notice preference. While not optimal, as it meant patrons would be receiving multiple notices (of a different type) regarding the same item, & depending on how our autonotices are configured, possibly just minutes apart, we thought that at least texts could serve as a backup method of contact to address ongoing reports of undelivered/failed notices.

After learning yesterday that only patrons with email as their notice preference can receive texts, this eliminates roughly 120,000 of our users - those with their notice preference set to phone - from receiving text messages. This is especially frustrating, because phone notices are more likely to fail/go undelivered than email notices & are also more difficult to track & troubleshoot with the current reporting tools available.

Even if it were possible for patrons with phone as their notice preference to also receive text message notifications, they would still only be supplemental.
As it stands, the current "text message" solution offered by Vega Interact SMS is the following:

-In order to opt-in to receive text message notifications, a patron's notice preference must be sent to email & they must have an email address on their patron record in Sierra.
-Text message notification is not available as an option for patrons with their notice preference set to phone.
-Texts will be sent just prior to the running of your autonotice jobs. In our case, these begin shortly after 6 AM, so patrons would receive a text at say, 6:15 AM & an email notice 15 minutes later, both of which they're likely to view on the same device.

The usefulness of this offering as currently available is a hard sell to both patrons & staff.

So we feel like what's really needed is for text messages to be their own, separate notice type that patrons can choose. Not something that is just a more nuanced workaround for email to SMS. For those who want to receive more than one notice type (for example, texts & phone calls or texts & emails) make that a possibility, not a requirement.