1) Why are messages, contacts, and groups separated?
These tabs allow you to see the data from different perspectives, and to manage your lists in various ways.
2) Can I search by the text within a message?
Currently, you can only search by phone number, group name, contact first name, or contact last name.
Searching the context of a message is a feature that will be coming in a future release though!
3) What is the icon next to the search box for?
This allows you to quickly check messages you have not yet had time to read.
You can turn this off and on by tapping on the icon next to the search box.
4) What is the external id on my contact used for?
This allows you to tie a contact to an internal system (CRM or other) for future reference back to that matching contact.
- If there is ever an integration added for your CRM, this field will be the key to ensuring the contact from Texting for Business is the same as a specific contact within your CRM (or other system).
5) Which phone number will receive a text if I add multiple numbers to the app, both?
The secondary number is for informational purposes only.
Only the Mobile Number will receive the texts that you send from the application.
6) What happens when I delete a contact?
If a contact is deleted, you will no longer see the contact in your list AND your message threads will be removed.
- Don’t worry though, that data will still be saved on the back end for reporting and validation purposes in the future.
- Plus, if that contact sends a future message, it will re-open the message threads that existed before.
You won’t lose your message history with Texting for Business.
7) Can I easily add large numbers of contacts to the application?
Yes, if you tap the + button on the bottom right of the contact edit page, you can choose “Import Contacts”. This will allow you to pull in a .CSV file (spreadsheet) of contacts and phone numbers.
- The data you can import consists of a first name, last name, email address, mobile number, other number, notes, and external id.
- This will auto-create contacts for you as well when pulled in with at least a first or last name.
If you are wondering about the format required, you can tap the “Download Sample” button and you can just add your contacts to that file to upload into the contacts section of the application.
8) In what ways can I use Groups within the application?
There are two ways that groups can be used within the application.
- To create a group to send the same message to everyone at once (in separate, individual messages) and
- To create a group that will interact with each other just like a group message on your cell phone.
- Note that the second is only possible with groups of LESS than 20 numbers.
When you send a message out as individual contacts, you will get responses back as if they were sent with a person-to-person message.
- If you have a smaller group and toggle OFF the ‘Text group contacts individually” toggle, everyone in the group will get the message and see ALL replies from anyone else in that group.
If you want to send one message to a group larger than 20 members you will need to include opt/in/out language in your message.
- Our Texting for Campaigns product enables this, please email the opt/in/out language to , and will assist you in enabling the Texting for Campaigns product. Additional charges will apply.
9) Why can’t I change the “Text group contacts individually” after saving a new group?
Once a group is created, there are many behind-the-scenes ramifications of texting individually rather than as a group…and once it has been done, it can’t be undone.
This is not something we chose to do, but rather is required by the downstream providers as individual messages are handled very differently than group messages.
10) Can I add or delete members of a group?
While we attempted to allow this functionality, what we have found is that despite our efforts, we don’t control enough of the data to allow this.
For example, even if you remove someone from a group message, they still have the original message and can respond to the entire group at any one time. This is easier for “texting contacts individually” because we control the messages that go out and they are essentially like person-to-person messages. But when you have a true group message, adding or removing contacts is really a new group and will require creating a new group.
11) Can I easily add large numbers of contacts to a group?
Yes, if you tap the + button on the bottom right of the group edit page, you can choose “Import Numbers to Group”. This will allow you to pull in a .CSV file (spreadsheet) of contacts and phone numbers.
- The data you can import consists of a first name, last name, email address, mobile number, other number, notes, and external id.
- This will auto-create contacts for you as well when pulled in with at least a first or last name.
If you are wondering about the format required, you can tap the “Download Sample” button and you can just add your contacts to that file to upload into the group.
12) How do I add contacts or phone numbers to the group?
There are three ways to do this:
- Add a phone number manually and tap the “Add Number” button in the middle of the page.
- Tap the + button in the bottom right and choose “Add Contact to Group”. This will allow you to find and add an existing contact to a group.
- Import contacts from a .CSV file into the group.
13) Can I personalize a message being sent to a large group when sending the text individually to each contact?
Yes, there are a couple ways you can personalize this message.
If you tap the Eye icon below the send a message bar, you’ll see the message content needed to apply to each member of the group.
For example:
If you want to add the contact’s first name to a text, you could format it as
“[firstName], please read my awesome text and respond whenever you have the time!”
If you enter this phrase and hit the Eye button, you’ll see a preview of the message using the first contact in the list. The preview also lets you see the other options available to use for personalizing your message.
14) What do the app settings tied to my phone number mean?
There are currently a handful of settings that you can add to the application:
The first is a toggle to turn on or off Microsoft Teams notifications.
When you have a number tied to a channel, you can pick a custom name OR let the channel name show up in your notification. This can be helpful when everyone that has a team number is getting every team’s/channel’s notification. This will help you direct the notification to the people responsible for each team.
Auto Response allows you to automatically send a response to any incoming text.
If you are out of the office for a day, turning this on with a message that you’ll respond in the next business day might be super helpful! Or just providing a response about how thankful you are to be receiving the text could be a nice touch. This can be turned on for ONLY new messages, so every time someone adds additional messages to a thread, they won’t continue to receive the auto response.
15) Is there any way to delete my text history.
This will end up being a company decision, but currently, even though you cannot see your texts, they are still stored on the back end for data compliance purposes. Many organizations have an obligation to store text history, so that will be on them.
We will never share your data with other organizations unless required to do so legally. Your organization will always have access to the data being texted.
16) Are these texts encrypted or secure?
Within the application, yes. All data is encrypted in storage.
However, texts themselves are not secure when they are pushed outside the app to the mobile network. Always keep important data to a minimum when texting and be sure to ask your organization’s security team if you are wondering what information you can or should send in a text.
17) How can I see how many messages I have sent or received in the current month, or during any specific timeframe.
We have that data internally. It will be shown in the app in a future release (coming soon)!