What is covered in this article?
Overview
This release includes initial support for sending SMS or text messages to contacts that expressed interest in receiving updates via SMS or text messages. This feature must be enabled on a school-by-school basis. This adds support for several new features including; new preferred method of communications field and sending a generic SMS message for any email that is sent from a form submission or Applications/Student list screen.
If you are interested in enabling SMS for your school, please contact support.
| Note: SMS messages are not sent for any emails sent from Communications > Emails section of the app. This will be addressed in a follow on release. |
How Does it Work?
In general SMS messages are only sent to contacts that have opted-in to SMS as a preferred method of communications. However, as a school editor in Enquiry Tracker, you can enable SMS for a contact on the details screen. See below for more information on these two options.
If a contact has this feature enabled and a valid mobile phone number has been entered, then they will receive a generic SMS message for any email that is sent from Enquiry Tracker. Again, these emails include:
- Any automated emails sent from form submissions including Apply forms
- Any email sent from the Student List/Details screen
- Any email sent from the Application List/Details screen
| Note: All emails referenced in the list above are now logged in the new Communications log. |
SMS Costing
SMS are sent via segments. Message segments are how the SMS industry as a whole counts messages. When you send an SMS message containing more than 160 characters, the message is split into smaller messages for transmission. Large messages are split into 153-character "segments" and sent individually, then re-assembled by the recipient's device.
Once SMS has been enabled, we automatically load your account with 2,000 segments for testing and evaluation. There is no fee associated with this initial quota. School's will not be required to pay for these, however, once depleted, any new segments will be invoiced directly to the school. The goal of this initial period is to understand usage, volume and costing.
SMS segment bundles are available for purchase at:
- 5,000 segments for $750 +GST
- 10,000 segments for $1350 +GST
SMS - What's New
When SMS has been enabled by Enquiry Tracker for your school, you will see the following new features:
New Dual Compose Dialog
Anytime you send a message you will be presented with a compose dialog that displays fields for entering both an SMS message and an Email message.
| Note: In Versions 2.9, SMS editing is currently available for broadcast messages from Student List, Event RSVP list and Application list screens. This will be updated in the next release. |
Receive Updates by SMS on Contact Details Screen
On the contact details page we have a new toggle next to the mobile phone number allowing you to see whether a contact has enabled the option to receive updates via SMS. As a school editor, you can also set this manually.
- Go to Enquiries > Contacts
- Click in a desired contact to go the the details screen
- Within the Edit Contact panel you will see a new option next to the Mobile phone field
- Click the toggle to enable / disable sending SMS messages
| Note: While you can change an individual's setting on whether they wish to receive SMS messages, you are not permitted to bulk edit/update the SMS field due to a requirement that contacts must opt-in to receive SMS messages. |
New Preferred Method of Communications on Signup Forms
A New Preferred Method of Communications field will be added to all Classic sign up forms anytime the mobile phone is included as a field on your forms.
| Note: To ensure that mobile phone numbers are correct, in additional to preforming a check on the structure of the phone number, families will be required to also select the country code i.e. +61 etc. when entering their number. Note that this will default to the country code your school is in for all new entries. |
When a person chooses SMS as an option, the mobile field will be required independent of whether it is already mandatory or not.
This will appear as follows when editing the form under Admin > Signup Forms
And when a family fills out the form on your website, they will see the new communications preference field along with a dynamic disclaimer that will be displayed when they select the checkbox for SMS.
Preferred Method of Communications on Apply Forms
Unlike Classic forms, Apply forms will need to be updated to include the New Preferred Method of Communications field on your forms. This field is visible under the Manage Fields section in the form editor.
Follow the steps below to enable this new field on your forms.
- Go to Admin > Forms and select the desired form
- Click on Manage Fields on the top right hand side
- Click the Parent/Guardian tree control under Manage Fields
- Click Contact Details under the Parent/Guardian tree control
- Click Primary Information under the Contact Details tree control
- In the list of fields in this section you will need to locate the Communications Preference field and click the Eye icon to make sure it is visible on the respective form
- Once you are satisfied, click SAVE and PUBLISH to make sure the new changes are live
- Repeat this for each form
Searching for Contacts by SMS
On the student and contacts list screens, you can choose to find contacts that have chosen to receive updates via SMS. We recommend you do this from the Student List screen, since you can also send a message from this view as well.
- Go to Enquiries > Students
- Select More... from the filter
- Scroll down to the contacts section and select Receive Updates by SMS
- Choose Yes in the subsequent drop down (see screen shot below)
What SMS is sent to a Contact?
In this initial release we are sending a generic message letting the contact know they have received a message from the school. The message is personalised and includes the contact first name, the school name along with a link to the message that was sent.
In the next release you will be able to compose your own SMS message
| Note: For security purposes the link will expire after 48 hours. |
We have also created a detailed FAQ on SMS that you can read here