Integrating SMS Messaging

Fischer also provides SMS integration, currently via CDYNE.  While Fischer has chosen to integrate with CDYNE there is not a strategic relationship, i.e. a partnership with them.  While it is the easiest for Fischer customers to use CDYNE it does require the customer to have a direct relationship with CDYNE in order to use the feature.  Fischer does not offer SMS as a Service in either our cloud or on premise models.  To integration with CDYNE, IGA Administrators will be required to perform the following steps:

To access the authentication configuration options the IGA Administrator will authenticate to the IGA admin console, select the “Configuration” tab and then select “Authentication” from the Functional Menu options appearing on the left hand side of the screen.

Select PIN Authentication and Password Reset from the combo box.

There are multiple options available in this configuration menu and some apply to your global SMS integration while others are specific to the PIN Password Reset feature which will be discussed in another course.  For this course, we will focus on how you configure your Fischer solution to integration with SMS, which is very straight forward.

SMS Gateway License Key

This key is provided to you from CDYNE, Fischer does not generate the key for you.  If no key is specified or if the wrong key is entered your SMS integration will not work.

SMS Gateway Type

Currently the only item you will see in the drop down is CDYNE.  As Fischer expands support for other SMS messaging gateways they will appear in this list.  If your organization would like Fischer to integrate with a specific messaging gateway provider, please contact our Solution Mgt. team, or your Implementation team (for active deployments) and make the request.  Fischer reserves the right to review each request and determine if integration is possible, feasible and secured but we will most certainly work with you to make sure we can meet your SMS integration needs.

SMS Gateway URL

This field is defaulted to the gateway URL from CDYNE.  If you’ve chosen to integrate with an alternate messaging gateway, Fischer will work with you to ensure the provide configuration options are available for SMS integration.

If you have an active instance of the Fischer product, you will see the default value.  We will not display it here in this document for security reasons.

PIN Size

Fischer provides IGA Administrators with the ability to set the size (total number of digits) of the PIN that will be sent.  The values can range from 6-10.  It is cannot be less than 6 and cannot be more than 10.

PIN Duration

Fischer provides IGA Administrators with control over how long a PIN is valid.  This setting is in minutes.  Once a PIN has been requested, it will only be valid for the length of time specified.  The value range can be 1 to 1440 (which is 24 hours). 

The default value is set to 30 as seen below:

Wait Time Between PIN Resends

Fischer provides IGA Administrators with the option to set to amount of elapsed time a user must wait before they are able to request the randomly generated PIN be resent to them.  This value is also in minutes and can range from 1 minute to 1440 minutes (24 hours).  The default value is set to 5 minutes as seen below:

Maximum Invalid PIN Attempts

IGA Administrators can set the maximum number of invalid PIN attempts from a user before the user is temporarily suspended from continuing to enter the PIN.  There is another setting we will discuss next that should be used in correlation to this configuration option.  This value has a range of 1 to 30 invalid attempts and the default is 3 as seen below:

Wait Time to Reset Attempts Count

This feature should be considered in conjunction with the “Maximum Invalid PIN Attempts” as it will directly affect the user experience if the value is set too high (meaning the user will have to wait a significant amount of time before they can try again) or it can flood the system with multiple requests if the value is set too low.  The value set is in minutes with a range of 1 to 1440 (24 hours).  Consider that the higher you set this value, the more likely the end user will end up calling the help desk.  The lower you set the value may also cause the user to call the help desk if they keep entering an incorrect value.  You should consider your specific service desk SLAs and your own unique user population when setting this value to one that best services your user population.  The default value to wait is 30 minutes, which if the user enters 3 invalid PINs in a row (per the Maximum Invalid PIN Attempt setting, they will be required to wait 30 minutes before they can try again.

Also keep in mind that if you have set the value allowing the end user to request the PIN to be sent again to a high value, you may end up with a user simply giving up and calling the help desk.  These settings are key to controlling your end user population.

SMS Dedicated Long Number

When you procure CDYNE, you can request a dedicated long number.  This is a part of your CDYNE contract and not tied to Fischer at all.  If you have reserved a dedicated long number, Fischer provides the extensibility to ensure that you can use that phone number for all SMS messages sent.

While this feature is available, it is not recommended to be used.  If you do decide to use this feature, you will need to set a separate feature bit called “SMS Operation Type” which will be discussed shortly.  The use case for dedicating a reserved number should be limited in scope to a small subset of users.  It is known that if you start sending too many SMS messages from a dedicated number the number may be flagged as SPAM from Telecom providers and your service will stop working.  So, while Fischer recommends that you do not use this feature, we want to make sure it is available if you have a use case that fits it.