Text conversations
When someone texts your organization’s Conversations number, the text lands in Messages → Texts. Your team answers from the dashboard, and the person gets your replies as ordinary texts from your church’s number.
Who can see texts
Give people one of these permissions in Users & permissions, under Text conversations:
- Text conversations (assigned to them): they see texts assigned to them, and can text people in their groups and on their workflow items.
- Manage all text conversations: they see every text, including new ones nobody has picked up yet, and can assign them.
Find a conversation
Open Messages and select Texts.
- Text admins see Mine, Unassigned, All open, and Closed. New texts from people land in Unassigned.
- Everyone else sees Mine and Closed.
Texts that start with a keyword, like your prayer request code or a form’s text code, go to that form or prayer request instead. So do STOP and HELP.
Reply to a text
Open the conversation, write your reply, and send it. The bottom of the box shows who it’s sending as, from which number, and how many texts it will take.
- Templates: select the templates button to drop in a saved reply.
{firstName}is filled in with the person’s first name. - Each text holds 160 characters, or 70 if it has emoji or special characters. Longer messages are sent as several texts, and each one counts toward your texting bill.
- Curly quotes (’ “ ”) count as special characters. If you paste some in, select use plain quotes to fix them.
- Under each message you send, you’ll see Delivered, Read, or Not delivered with the reason.
Leave a note for your team
Switch the box from Text to Note and write Add a note only staff see. Notes stay in the conversation for your team and are never texted to the person.
Assign a conversation
Use the ⋮ menu at the top of the conversation:
- Assign or Reassign it to someone with a texting permission. They get a notification.
- Take it to assign it to yourself.
- Add a teammate to bring someone else in. They show under Also here.
- Close conversation when it’s done. It moves to Closed. If the person texts again, it opens again. Select Reopen to open it yourself.
- View person opens their profile.
Text someone first
You can text people who have agreed to get texts from you. See Who you can text.
- In Messages, select New message. Under Text someone, search for a person, or type a phone number and select Text.
- On a person’s profile or a workflow item, select Text.
If Text is greyed out, hover over it to see why:
| What it says | What to do |
|---|---|
| Your organization needs a Conversations number first | Get one in Set up texting. |
| They opted out of texts (replied STOP) | You can’t text them. They can text START to opt back in. |
| They haven’t opted in yet | Ask them to text your Conversations number first, or to add this number to their account in your app. |
When someone opts out
If a person replies STOP, or said no to texts on Plan a visit, the conversation shows Texts are off for this number with the reason, and you can’t send them texts. They can text START to turn texts back on.
Texts from workflows
A workflow automation can text the person on an item, for example to thank a first-time guest. Replies show on the item and in Messages, assigned to whoever has the item. See Automations and the rules for workflow texts.