You must configure service accounts to send or receive text messages (SMS), voice calls, and print mailings. Depending on the type, service accounts can represent phone numbers, ad accounts, or print accounts.

Adding a service account

📝 Purchase at least one block of Slate Credits to add a service account.

1. Go to Database → Deliver Configuration. Requires Administrator (All Access) role.

2. Select Add Account.

3. Choose one of the following account types:

   • SMS/Voice

   • Facebook Ads

   • Print

   • Scoir Unified Messaging

4. Select Continue.

SMS/Voice

SMS/Voice accounts are used for Text Messaging, Robocalling, and Webinar Audio Bridges.

Provision a number

1. Select a Country from the list.

2. If you select United States or Canada, you can enter specifications in the Area Code, Contains Digits, and Near ZIP Code fields. Otherwise, you can specify digits only.

3. Select a number that most closely matches your preferences. This number appears as the caller ID for all outgoing texts and to which return texts will be sent.

4. Enter the confirmation text in the browser pop-up.

5. Select OK. Your new number appears in the list.

Configure the service account

1. Select the number you just provisioned.

2. Configuration the following settings:

   • Status: Active

   • Name: Give the account a descriptive internal name.

   • Slate Credits Account: Assign the service account to a Slate Credits account.

   • Inbox Group: Assign the account to an Inbox Group.

   • Inbox User:

     • Assign to Pool (🏔️ Summit 2025 Feature): Add this number to an Inbox group’s number pool.

     • Or, assign the account to a specific Inbox User.

   • Bot: Assign the account to an Inbox Live Bot.

Number pooling

🏔️ Summit 2025 Feature

Pool phone numbers in a single Inbox group.

Many higher-ed admissions, advancement, and (especially) advising offices have large numbers of staff responding to prospect, donor, and student messages. Rather than provisioning (and paying for) a new phone number for each of these staff members, these offices can use Message Number Pooling, which lets you make multiple phone numbers available to the members of a single Inbox group.

When a user in an Inbox group initiates an SMS conversation from Inbox, Slate picks one of the available numbers from the Inbox group’s number pool and assign it to the conversation. That number is now associated with this user when communicating with this recipient.

Any messages from the recipient to this pooled Inbox group are returned to the user. As communications to the pooled Inbox group come in, they’re routed to their associated conversation threads.

You only need as many numbers as you’d want individuals to be able to communicate with the same recipient. For example, say you have 100 advisors: you might only need three numbers in your Inbox group’s pool—enough for 3 different advisors to potentially talk to the same person over the lifetime of the conversation.

Voice-specific configurations

If the phone number is to be used for Voice (as opposed to SMS), the following settings can be configured:

• Slate Voice: Determine whether the account should ring the assigned user via Slate Voice.

• Dashboard: Assign the account to an inbound call dashboard.

• Slate Voicemail: Determine whether the account should use Slate Voicemail.

• Call Forwarding: Determine whether the account should use call forwarding.

• Forwarding Number: If using call forwarding, add a forwarding number.

Facebook Ads

Selecting Facebook Ads redirects you to Facebook. From there, you can connect an existing Facebook Ads account to Slate. For more information, see our article on Facebook Custom Audiences and Facebook's documentation.

Print

This account type allows for the sending of physical printed materials configured in Slate.

Scoir Unified Messaging

Select this account to use Slate Credits to send messages within Scoir to Scoir applicants, including "stealth" applicants (that is, students that are raising their hand in Scoir but haven’t reached out via Slate). Status tracking lets you see clicks and opens on the messages in Scoir.

📖 Further reading: Scoir Unified Messaging