Respond to SMS sent from Braze in Front

Based on Braze’s current integrations and guidelines, that isn’t directly supported. Braze’s two‐way SMS functionality is built around specific integration frameworks. For example, when using a Front integration or one of Braze’s approved partners like Twilio or Infoblip, there’s a defined workflow:

1. Outbound SMS messages are sent from Braze.
   2. Incoming SMS responses are received through a partner-integrated webhook (using Front, for example) that reformats and forwards the data back into Braze (using Braze Data Transformation) so it can be tracked as a custom event on the user profile.

If you try to use a completely separate service to respond to Braze-sent SMS messages, that response won’t be processed by Braze’s system because the proper webhook and data transformation pipeline wouldn’t be in place. Essentially, Braze requires that you use one of the supported integrations for two-way SMS to ensure consistent routing and tracking of both outbound and inbound messages.

For additional details, you might want to review the SMS, webhooks, and two-way messaging sections of our documentation:

• Front Integration & Data Transformation Overview: https://www.braze.com/docs/developer_guide/webhooks/
  • SMS and Two-way Messaging Best Practices: https://www.braze.com/docs/user_guide/message_building_by_channel/sms/

I hope this clarifies the situation.

Hello tyler You can only send one way messages OR two-way messages.

What you are trying to do is add a third service in the mix to respond. Unfortunately this is not supported as of now. 

This will require a lot of work. Braze won't know the text sent by Front and vice-versa. Also the users initiated message can be forwarded to only on Platform.

To achieve this, you will have to add a middle layer that can receive message from multiple sources and act as a bridge between your applications (Braze/Front) and the customer.

Know it's been a while since this was posted - but wanted to share the Front <> Braze partner documentation that was recently released! 

https://www.braze.com/docs/partners/message_orchestration/additional_channels/instant_chat/front

Hi Tyler,

To clarify, when you send an SMS through Braze, it'll probably end up on your end user's mobile device. Are you hoping to reply to Braze's SMS, or are you hoping to reply to the end user's response to the original Braze SMS? 

There are Braze triggers for when you receive an inbound SMS from your end users, and you might be able to use that to trigger a webhook to Front to perform some other actions. Sounds like it could be tricky, but not completely impossible...

Let me know if you have any questions!

Allan