Clerk is a tool that lets teams send and receive customer text messages directly in Slack. When someone texts our Clerk number, the message appears in a Slack channel (called #texts-in-and-outgoing-973-888-1097) where all team members can read it.
Viewing SMS Messages: Slack Clerk Integration, Ring Central SMS
Clerk and SMS
We can use our Clerk number in Slack primarily to receive 2FA codes when SMS is the method of 2FA verification. Our Clerk number is (973) 888-1097. We may occasionally use it for other purposes.
(Note: We cannot use the Slack integration to send texts. To send, you must visit the web interface. See this article.)
As a matter of policy we avoid communicating with customers via text. There may be occasional exception to this policy, but they should be extremely rare.
Ring Central and SMS
Text messages that come into any tech's or office admin's DiD also forward to the Slack channel. (We use this approach to set up 2FA for some Apple IDs, because Apple only allows a limited number of Apple IDs to be associated with the same phone number.)
(We use RingCentral's forwarding feature to forward the messages to the email address for the channel. That email address is texts-in-and-outgoing-aaaaaysci66vgny5nr3gmj3qyy@nygg.slack.com .)
Instructions for each tech to set up the email notifications are here.
Texts that come into the main company number go to the office admin extension (x102). An admin can edit this from the RC desktop or mobile app to temporarily change the recipient. Go to Admin> Phone System>Fax / SMS recipient.
We do not use RingCentral to send text (SMS) messages, although we are registered with RC for SMS. We only use Clerk for this.
Forwarding RingCentral SMS Codes to Mission Control (2FA codes)
Some third-party apps send 2FA codes via SMS to our help desk DID, (347) 308-6455. Mission Control (our third-party help desk overflow team) does not watch this DID directly. Instead, the code is automatically forwarded to Mission Control's own SMS number via Twilio.
RingCentral setup:
The queue that owns this DID, Help Desk Support Call Routing, has email notifications enabled for received text messages. To view or change this setting:
Groups > Phone System > Call Queues > Help Desk Support Call Routing > Voicemail & Notifications > Settings tab > Notifications > click the Edit box.
This opens the "Notifications for Received Text Messages" dialog. The Specified Emails field should include
receivehdsms@geekgirlsit.com, a shared mailbox dedicated to this purpose.Power Automate Flow:
A flow named "Forward RingCentral SMS Using Twilio" watches the
receivehdsms@geekgirlsit.com shared mailbox for incoming notification emails from service@ringcentral.com with a subject containing "New Text Message from." When one arrives, the flow extracts the code from the "Message:" line of the notification and sends it via Twilio SMS to two numbers:- Mission Control: (647) 999-0158
- Clerk: (973) 888-1097
- Clerk: (973) 888-1097
This replaces the previous ThinkAutomation setup that performed the same function.
Technical note (for flow maintenance): RingCentral's notification email contains the word "Message:" twice, once inside the boilerplate phrase "You have a new text message:", and once as the actual field label right before the real code. The flow's parsing logic splits the email text on every occurrence of "Message:" and always takes the content after the last occurrence, so it correctly grabs the real code rather than the boilerplate text that precedes it.
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