Topic
How to substitute alphanumeric caller IDs for voice calls in Everbridge Suite.
Description
This article describes how you can set up your US and Canadian recipients to see your organization name or other custom text instead of the caller ID for phone (voice) notifications in Everbridge Suite.
When a phone call is placed, through Everbridge Suite or even without using Everbridge at all, only a numeric caller ID is sent by the call initiator. To display text instead of a numeric phone number in the caller ID of the recipient's device, the phone number that is being used as the caller ID must be registered with the telephony carrier who the phone number is procured through. This technology is commonly known as CNAM (Caller ID Name) and is limited to US and Canadian carriers only.
If you want to have your notification calls made through Everbridge Suite show up with a text caller ID, then first determine what the caller ID that you are using for your voice calls is. You can find out this information by going to Organization Settings > Notifications > Sender Information > Sender Caller ID. The Sender Caller ID should be a number that is owned/procured by your organization through your local telephone carrier. Next, you'll need to determine what local telephone carrier you procured this number from (Verizon, AT&T, etc.) and contact them to inquire about registering the number with a desired business name or custom text.
If the voice phone numbers are provided and managed by Everbridge (for example, Audio Bulletin Board or other Everbridge-managed voice numbers), Everbridge can submit the desired alphanumeric caller name (CNAM) to the terminating carriers on your behalf and confirm when carriers have configured it for those numbers. Everbridge can also review proposed caller ID names in advance and advise whether they are likely to be accepted by carriers.
When registering a Caller ID name (CNAM), be aware of these requirements:
The name must be between 2 and 15 characters long
It cannot begin with a number
It must clearly reflect your organization's name
Only ASCII characters (A-Z, 0-9, spaces, and select punctuation) are allowed
The name will be converted to uppercase
No marketing terms, profanity, or misleading terms are permitted
Note that CNAM is static and associated with your number through a national CNAM database (Line Information Database, or LIDB), and this registration applies only to U.S. domestic calls.
Even when CNAM is correctly configured, the display of the caller name is not guaranteed for every recipient. CNAM display depends on the terminating carrier and the recipient's device or subscription settings: for example, most landlines display CNAM by default, while many mobile carriers require the subscriber to opt in to caller name services or use a carrier app. In addition, if a terminating carrier does not query the CNAM databases regularly or uses outdated records, recipients may see an outdated name or only the phone number.
Avoid using generic Caller ID names as they may be rejected because they do not clearly identify your specific organization, may be flagged by spam filters, and lack local identity and context, which can lead to calls being ignored or blocked by recipients.