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There are three ways to have an agent text first: by hand from the inbox, on a schedule, or from a Salesflow sequence. All three need the same things:
The agent is Active.
Its Agent Type is Outbound.
It has a First Message.
It has a phone number bound.
The contact has a usable phone number.
Your plan and credit balance allow SMS chat.

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Start an SMS chat by hand

Open the contact under CRM → Conversations and pick the SMS tab. With no open session, the composer shows an opening-message box, a Schedule button and Start SMS Chat.
SMS composer with the opening-message box, the predefined-messages menu, the Schedule button and the Start SMS Chat button

No open session: write an opener, schedule it, or start now

Start SMS Chat opens a window with the Client, the SMS Agent picker — outbound, active agents, shown as “Name (+number)” — an optional Disposition Tag, and Start Chat. Whatever you typed in the box overrides the agent’s First Message for this run. The First Message must still exist on the agent.
Start SMS Chat window with the client, an agent selected in the SMS Agent dropdown, the Disposition Tag field and the Start Chat button

Pick the outbound agent and an optional disposition tag

The picker lists every outbound SMS agent on the account, not only Lumina ones. Pick yours by name.

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Why a start can fail

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Replies come back to the same agent

The open session owns the customer-and-number pair. A reply reaches this agent even outside its hours, and even if the number has no inbound agent at all.

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Schedule an SMS chat

Schedule opens Schedule an SMS chat: the client, the SMS Agent, an Opening message, a Timezone, and When should the chat start? — a date and time picker with a countdown (“Will execute in 1 day, 2 hours”). The scheduler fires every minute, so expect a delivery window of about a minute around the chosen time.
  • The time must be at least 5 minutes ahead.
  • The contact must have a phone number.
  • At fire time the same checks as a manual start run, and the chat fails if the contact has any open SMS session by then.
  • Pending chats can be rescheduled or cancelled from the Scheduled SMS chats button in the composer.
Schedule an SMS chat window with the client, the Delivery follow-up agent selected, an opening message, the America/New_York timezone, a start date and time, and the countdown Will execute in 1 day

Agent, opening message, timezone, and a start time at least five minutes out

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From Salesflow: the Send SMS Chat action

Add a Send SMS Chat action to a sequence and press Configure SMS Chat.
SMS Chat Configuration window with the Delivery follow-up agent selected, the disposition tag picker, Wait for Completion on, and Opening message set to Generate with AI with a generation prompt that uses first_name

Agent, tags, wait, and an AI-generated opener

There’s no retry block. The failures are the same as for a manual start, and after three failed runs the event stops firing for that contact.
The conversation’s credits are charged when the session closes, not when the action runs.

Salesflow action reference

Every action a sequence can run.

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Salesflow entries and stage triggers

A pipeline can also react to SMS conversations. The input-node source SMS Chat enters a contact:
  • on start — any new session, inbound or outbound;
  • on resolved — when a session closes.
Both modes take a Filter by Agent (which SMS agents count) and optional Keyword Filters, combined with All filters (AND) or Any filter (OR). The SMS Chat Completed stage trigger fires when a session closes.
Configure Input Node panel with SMS Chat Conditions: Trigger mode set to On conversation resolved, Match Mode All filters (AND), Filter by Agent with Order support selected, and a Keyword Filters field

An SMS Chat entry: on resolved, filtered to one agent

Input nodes

How contacts enter a pipeline.

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What doesn’t exist

  • A bulk or campaign send screen for Lumina — use a pipeline.
  • A retry setting on the action.
  • Starting a chat from the client page — it’s done from Conversations.

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Next step

Compliance and opt-outs

Before you text anyone: opt-outs and registration.