Using GOV.UK Notify to send correspondence

The GOV.UK Notify service provides a cost-effective way of sending SMS text message and posting letters. It is developed by the Government Digital Service, offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model and can easily scale to meet demand.

We provide out-of-the-box integration with the Notify service for sending SMS messages and for posting letters. This page will explain what you need to do to get up and running.

Before you start

If you haven't done so already, you will need to sign up for a Notify account. The service is only available to public sector organisations - you can read more about which organisations are eligible on the Notify web site.

Sending SMS messages

In order to send SMS messages, please create a template in the GOV.UK Notify control panel. The template should contain a single token ((Body)) and nothing else. This is because the actual content of the message will be generated within ESB.

Once you have created your template, please let us have the template ID as well as an API key. We can then configure your installation accordingly.

Note that if you choose to use a test API key, messages will not actually be delivered to real devices but will only be viewable in the GOV.UK Notify control panel.

Due to the fact that you receive a free text message allowance and the transmission costs are small, we recommend using a live API key to perform your testing - that way you can observe the messages arriving on a real mobile device. The only exception to this rule would be if you plan to perform large scale testing, in which case you may wish to use a test API key.

Sending letters

Any PDF presentation template that is created within ESB can be sent as a letter using Notify. To get started, we suggest you create a test API key for the GOV.UK Notify letters service.

Once you have obtained a test API key, please let us know and we will configure your installation to use it. You can then start sending test letters to the service.

In testing mode, the letters are not actually posted but are instead available for viewing via the Notify control panel. This is a great way of ensuring your templates are formatted correctly without incurring any postage charges.

When you are ready to go live, simply obtain a live API key and make it available to us so we can update your installation accordingly.