There are now some formatting options for Alerts that can provide shorter messages better tailored for SMS transmission. Formatting options are per contact and per device, not per account. For example, you can have different options for alerts to your cell phone compared to that of your work or home email. You can actually have different options depending on device too for users with more than one device on their account.
Right now the full alert shows the nature of the alert in the subject, as well as in the body of the message, along with the location/device name, the time, and the partition it was associated with.
If you select SMS with partition, you will get the nature of the event as the subject, and in the body you will receive the location, time, and partition.
If you select SMS w/o partition, you get the same as above without the partition information.
This should address some people's concerns with some alerts being too long and end up being sent as two SMS messages.
New Message Formats for Alerts
Moderators: EyezOnRich, GrandWizard