How Levitate Texting Stays Archived

Note: This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Compliance requirements vary by firm and jurisdiction. Consult qualified legal counsel for guidance specific to your situation.

The Bottom Line

For financial services accounts, text archiving is enabled automatically: every Levitate text message is archived through the advisor's existing email journaling configuration. There is no separate Levitate-to-archiver integration to set up, maintain, or break. Phone number porting has zero impact on archiving.

How Levitate's Texting Archive Works

Levitate authenticates to the advisor's actual email account (Gmail or Microsoft 365) via OAuth during initial setup. From that point forward, every text exchange generates a corresponding email that passes through the advisor's mail server — outbound messages are sent using the official send APIs (Gmail API users.messages.send, Microsoft Graph sendMail), and inbound messages arrive in the advisor's mailbox like any other received email. Either way, the existing journaling pipeline captures it automatically. There is no API insertion, no appending to existing records, and no shortcut around the journaling pipeline.

The Archiving Chain

Every major SEC/FINRA-compliant archiver — Global Relay, Smarsh, and Mimecast — captures email through envelope journaling at the mail server transport layer. This is the universal standard for compliant email recordkeeping.

Advisor sends or receives a text in Levitate.
Levitate generates the archive email — outbound texts are sent through the advisor's mailbox via the official send API; inbound texts are delivered to the advisor's mailbox.
The archive email crosses the advisor's mail server transport layer — the same path as their normal sent and received mail.
The journaling agent on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace fires automatically and generates a journal report.
The journal report is delivered in real time to the broker-dealer's configured archiver (Global Relay, Smarsh, Mimecast, etc.).
The text-thread email is preserved in the archive with full metadata, in native format, with chain of custody intact.

Why This Matters: Levitate vs. Carrier-Integrated Platforms

Some texting platforms (MyRepChat, etc.) archive SMS through a direct carrier-to-archiver feed. That architecture introduces compliance fragility around number porting and platform changes. Levitate's transport-layer architecture avoids these issues entirely.

	Levitate (transport layer)	Carrier-integrated platforms
Archiving method	Envelope journaling at the user's mail server	Direct SMS feed from telecom carrier (Bandwidth, Twilio) to archiver
Setup required by client	None beyond their existing email archiving	NNID registration; coordination with archiver
Impact of number porting	None — phone numbers are irrelevant to email transport	2-week notice required; archiving downtime; manual NNID reconfiguration
Risk of compliance gap during port	None	Real — archiving disconnects until reconfigured
Real-time archiving	Yes — archive emails are generated as exchanges happen	Depends on carrier integration status

MyRepChat and Number Porting

The following is sourced directly from MyRepChat (ionlake) support, April 2026.

Porting a Number Connected to MyRepChat

If a client is porting a phone number that is currently archived through MyRepChat, the port will disrupt the existing archiving connection. Archiving can be reconnected by the client directly through the MyRepChat settings panel after the port completes.

Reconnecting Archiving After the Port

Once the number has been ported, log into the MyRepChat account and complete the following steps:

Navigate to Settings > Archives and Reports > Connect to Archiver.
Enter the archiving email address or reconfigure the archiving provider.
Toggle archiving on (green) to activate.
Save settings to apply.

If Records Were Missed During the Port

If archiving was not active during the porting period, MyRepChat support can submit an archive redrive request to recover any missing records. Contact MyRepChat support directly with the relevant details.

Need Help with MyRepChat?

Contact MyRepChat support at support@myrepchat.com or 844-402-2428. Reach out to your Levitate Success Manager if you have questions about the porting process on our end.

Global Relay and Number Porting

The following is sourced directly from Global Relay support, April 2026.

Historical Records Already in Global Relay

Those do not go anywhere. What has been archived stays archived regardless of where the number ports.

Porting a Number Connected to Global Relay

If a client is porting a phone number that is currently archived through Global Relay, the port will in most cases disconnect the number from Global Relay's system and disrupt message archiving. With advance coordination, archiving can typically be restored same-day after the port completes.

Before the Port

The following steps are required prior to initiating a port:

Contact Global Relay at least 2 weeks before the scheduled porting date.
Provide Global Relay with a test number to verify compatibility with the new service carrier.
Designate a Levitate technical contact who will coordinate with Global Relay technicians on the day of the port.

What to Expect

Global Relay cannot guarantee that archiving will reconnect automatically, as reconnection requirements vary depending on the client's service configuration and the telecom providers involved. In most cases where archiving was active prior to the port, Global Relay is able to restore SMS archiving the same day.

Need Help with Global Relay?

Contact Global Relay support at support@globalrelay.net or 866.484.6630 to initiate the coordination process. Reach out to your Levitate Success Manager to identify the right technical contact on our end.

FAQs

Q: Does Global Relay / Smarsh / Mimecast need a special integration with Levitate?

A: No. The advisor's existing journaling configuration captures Levitate-generated emails the same way it captures every other email they send. No new connector, vendor relationship, or compliance review needed.

Q: What happens when an advisor ports a phone number to or from Levitate?

A: Nothing changes from an archiving standpoint. Phone numbers and underlying telecom carriers are irrelevant to email transport. The journaling pipeline is unaffected by porting events.

Q: Are inbound texts also archived?

A: Yes. Inbound texts are delivered to the advisor's mailbox and captured by the journaling pipeline the same way every email the advisor receives is archived. Outbound texts are sent from the advisor's mailbox and captured identically to any other email they send.

Q: What if a broker-dealer uses an archiver other than the major three?

A: Envelope journaling is the universal standard. Any archiver that supports SEC 17a-4 and FINRA 4511 email recordkeeping uses transport-layer journaling. The same architecture applies regardless of vendor.

Q: How is this different from MyRepChat's approach?

A: MyRepChat archives via a direct SMTP/API connection between their platform and the archiver. That connection is platform-specific and breaks when numbers move. Levitate uses the advisor's existing email account as the archiving conduit, so there is no platform-specific connection that can break.