Default Behavior

By default, Community Connect will match contacts with channels using the following criteria: 


If you have multiple channels of the same type connected to your account, the channel that the contact last initiated contact with will be prioritized. Contacts can be locked-in to a relationship with a specific channel (they'll only received messages from this channel) under three conditions:


  • You have multiple channels of the same type connected to your account.
  • The contact's address type priority corresponds with the channel type (e.g. phone number) that possess multiple channels (e.g. multiple phone numbers).
  • The contact initiates contact through an incoming message.
  • If the contact has never interacted with a channel linked to your account, Community Connect will prioritize the channel whose number has the largest prefix overlap.

For example, if your channels are +12505661212 and +2505551212, and you are sending an SMS to or calling +2505661231, Community Connect will use the +2505661212 Channel because it overlaps the most.


In most cases, Community Connect is able to discern the carrier associated with a contact's phone number and prioritize channels based on carrier, though this depends on carrier behavior.



Custom Behavior

Using the 'Set preferred channel' action, you can create your own channel-matching logic to either assign or switch a contact's preferred channel without waiting for an incoming message. This new action will allow you to do things like:


  • switching between channels of the same type (e.g. phone numbers).
  • switching between channels of different types, like phone numbers and Telegram bots.
  • assigning Android channels based on contact fields, prefix overlap or group membership (to get around throughput restrictions).
  • switching between toll-free and standard virtual numbers.
  • assigning a number based on a user’s number’s country code, area code, and more. 



Considerations

Community Connect will match contacts with channels according to the above-mentioned criteria until a contact enters a flow containing a 'Set Preferred Channel' action. The contact will be permanently mapped to the selected channel until (a) they send a message to a different channel or (b) their preferred channel is changed by another 'Set Preferred Channel' action.