Why Sender Setup Lives in the Hub
An SMS sender is a phone number (or short code) that your messages come from. It belongs to your organization, not to a specific queue, because:
- One sender can serve every queue, every reservation reminder, every alert in your account.
- Carrier approval (especially for toll-free) takes days or weeks — you don't want to redo it per queue.
- Brand consistency: customers seeing the same sender across messages trust it more.
Go to Hub → Settings → Notifications → SMS Sender to set it up. Once approved, every spoke app on the platform sees it as the active sender.
Choosing a Sender Type
Three options, each with trade-offs:
- Toll-free (1-833, 1-844, 1-855, 1-866, 1-877, 1-888) — best for most US/Canada operations. Higher throughput, two-way reply support, costs less per message than a dedicated short code. Carrier approval (10DLC) takes 1-3 weeks.
- Long code (your local area code) — looks like a normal phone number from your area. Lower throughput, may face deliverability throttling for high volume. Useful for very low-volume operations or markets where toll-free reads as spammy.
- Short code (5-6 digits, e.g. 12345) — premium option, high throughput, expensive. Use only if you're sending tens of thousands of messages a month.
For a single-location restaurant or salon, toll-free is the right answer in nearly every case.
Approval Times
After you submit your sender info (business name, use case description, sample message templates), it goes to the carrier for review. Timelines:
- Toll-free: typically 1-3 weeks for full 10DLC approval.
- Long code: same, since 10DLC applies.
- Short code: 8-12 weeks (this is why most operations don't use them).
During the approval window, your sender is in "pending" state. Messages can still go out at low volume but may be silently throttled or dropped by carriers. Don't launch a high-volume queue against a pending sender — wait for approved status.
Connecting Your Sender to Queue
Once approved, no per-queue action is required. NOWAITN Queue automatically uses the organization's approved sender for all outgoing SMS.
If you have multiple senders (rare — usually one toll-free per organization is plenty), you can pin a specific sender to a specific queue from the queue's notification settings. Most operations don't need to.
Verifying It Works
After approval, the simplest verification: add yourself to a test queue using your real phone, then page yourself. The Paged SMS should arrive within 30 seconds.
If nothing arrives:
- Check Hub → Settings → Notifications → SMS Sender — is the status "approved"?
- Walk the notification troubleshooting layers in Configuring SMS Notifications.
- Confirm your number isn't in the platform's STOP list (a previous test where you replied STOP would block all further messages — reply START to undo).
If all of that passes and the message still doesn't arrive, contact support with the test entry's ID.