Three controls answer different questions
Communication eligibility is cumulative. A send is allowed only when every applicable layer permits it.
- Contact DND is a business/user decision not to contact that Contact through all channels or a selected channel.
- Marketing subscription records the Contact-level permission used for marketing eligibility.
- Endpoint suppression records that a specific normalized phone, email, or external account cannot receive the channel. It follows the destination even if it moves to another Contact.
Turning DND off does not create consent and never clears a provider/recipient suppression.
What STOP and START do
- An inbound SMS matching a configured opt-out word such as STOP suppresses that recipient phone for outbound SMS across the tenant.
- The provider's narrower sender or Messaging Service context is retained as evidence, but Crewvana does not route around the block through another tenant number.
- A verified inbound START or UNSTOP from that endpoint to the required sender context can clear the matching endpoint suppression. The audit history remains.
- START, YES, or UNSTOP from an endpoint that is not currently suppressed remains an ordinary inbound message; it does not manufacture an opt-in event.
- Provider error 21610 is treated as suppression evidence only after the destination and sender scope are verified. It does not enable DND on unrelated Contact endpoints or channels.
A manual DND toggle cannot simulate START. Do not clear a customer's communication restriction without authoritative evidence and a human compliance review.
Choose the exact endpoint
In Conversations, the composer lists the Contact's available endpoints with type, primary marker, and blocked reason.
- Contact SMS DND disables every SMS endpoint for that Contact.
- Endpoint suppression disables only the matching destination.
- Choosing a different eligible endpoint opens or creates its own bound conversation; it never retargets old history.
- Viewing history does not imply permission to send.
If two Contacts are merged, restrictive Contact-level preferences are preserved for review and each endpoint keeps its own suppression state. A spouse's opted-out phone, for example, remains suppressed after a merge even when another phone on the resulting Contact is eligible.
Marketing boundary
Crewvana currently enforces Contact/channel marketing subscription plus endpoint suppression. A separate endpoint-and-program affirmative-consent ledger is not yet modeled. A campaign that legally requires that additional evidence must stay unavailable until an authoritative consent source is integrated. Registration approval alone is not consent.
Troubleshoot a blocked send
- Open the exact Contact endpoint in Conversations and read the disabled reason.
- Check Contact-wide and channel DND separately from the endpoint's suppression state.
- Review conversation system events for STOP/START evidence and the Message Delivery Log for provider error 21610.
- Confirm whether the content is marketing and therefore needs affirmative marketing eligibility.
- If evidence is ambiguous, preserve the block and escalate for human review. Do not move the endpoint, merge Contacts, retry, use an Automation, or choose another sender to bypass it.
The repair command used by administrators is dry-run by default and deliberately leaves ambiguous threads and legacy DND for review. End users should not ask support to auto-clear a restriction without evidence.