Incident Report: Transactional SMS API Changes

Overview

On 4 November 2022, we changed our transactional SMS API call, removing transaction IDs from the response. This was to improve the performance of transactional SMS by sending transactional SMSs asynchronously.

The problem
When sending transactional SMSs, the API response object changed, removing the transaction ID. The removal was approved as it was not a documented addition to the response object and it was required to send SMSs asynchronously.

The impact

Because the response object changed, client API calls or systems that handled or stored the transaction ID stopped working.

How it was resolved

We resolved this by generating a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) on the transaction before send and returning that UUID on the response object.

Remediation & follow-up steps

We will ensure that before changing the request or response object definition of any API call, we give clients notice of the upcoming change ahead of time.

Conclusion

Please accept our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience this incident has caused you.

For further questions and or queries please contact your account manager and or the support team on 011 447 6147.