Setting up your CoolBeans business line

CoolBeans gives each user a dedicated business phone number (via Twilio) for outbound SMS, inbound SMS, and calls. The number is yours. It stays with your account, separate from your personal cell.

How provisioning works

There are two paths. Both end in the same place.

• •**Auto, during onboarding.** When you enter your personal phone on the onboarding screen, CoolBeans uses Twilio's `nearNumber` search to find a number geographically close to yours. Multi-area-code cities (Toronto 416/647/437, NYC 212/646/917) work correctly because it searches by proximity, not just area code. It auto-provisions the first available match. If anything fails, onboarding doesn't block, you just provision later in Settings.
• •**Manual, in Settings → Profile.** Scroll to the **Business Phone** section. Type a city name, pick from the list of available numbers in that locality, click **Provision**. Takes a few seconds. The number appears on the page once it's ready.

You don't see a loading bar during provisioning. The page just refreshes with the new number visible and a green confirmation.

Sending your first SMS

Once the number is on your profile:

1. 1Open any contact's thread in Brief.
2. 2Type the message in chat, then prefix it with "text" or click the SMS toggle on the compose row.
3. 3Send. The recipient sees the message from your CoolBeans number.

Inbound replies land in the same thread automatically. You'll get a push notification (or a notification-center entry if push isn't set up).

Inbound calls and recordings

Calls to your CoolBeans number route through Twilio. CoolBeans records and transcribes them. Both recording and transcript attach to the contact thread.

• •If you pick up via the CoolBeans web app or mobile, the call connects directly.
• •If you don't answer, Twilio routes to voicemail. Voicemail audio + transcript land in the thread.
• •Outbound calls work the same way: dial from a contact, your CoolBeans number is the caller ID.

US testers: A2P 10DLC registration

If you're in the US, there's an extra step. US carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile) require every business number sending SMS to be registered under the A2P 10DLC program. Unregistered numbers get silently filtered out, often without errors.

During alpha, CoolBeans handles 10DLC registration on the platform side via a shared Messaging Service. You don't fill out the forms yourself. But:

• •Your first few SMS messages may arrive with a slight delay (seconds, not minutes) while the message clears the registered route.
• •Canadian numbers don't need 10DLC. Canada has no equivalent gatekeeper.
• •If your messages are not arriving at US recipients, tell Ara. It almost always means the Messaging Service env isn't pointed at your number, and that's a one-line fix on the server.

What if you haven't provisioned yet

Until you have a CoolBeans number:

• •SMS through CoolBeans is gated. The compose row tells you to set up a number first.
• •Calls fall back to your personal number if you've connected one, otherwise the dialer is hidden.
• •Inbound texts to no number can't reach CoolBeans (there's nothing to receive them).

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