Sending Group Messages or Closing Messages

To send messages (text, voice, and/or email) to a group or subgroup of contacts, or to send a closing message to contacts with appointments, follow the instructions below

Start with one of the two options below:

A. To create a new message, navigate to the Dashboard and select Send New Message, or navigate to the Messages page and select Create Message, Group Message.

B. To edit/send a previously created message, navigate to the Messages page. Select the previously created draft message to review it first. Press Send next to a saved message draft to send this message (see below for more details on recipients page).

1. Create the Message Properties

1. Enter a message Name: This is the label you use to describe this message group.
2. If needed, add/ change languages: Use the “Add Additional languages” button to add new languages you would like to create for this messages group.
3. Message Types: Choose any combination of Voice, Text or Email messages. You must select at least one type.
4. Select Next on the bottom right to create a messages group based on these settings

2. Create your Message(s)

1. Type your message in the Main Message field. If a message exceeds the number of characters in that text message (160 Characters for English) it will be counted as multiple text messages.
2. Selecting Add Merge Tags will allow you to add certain key tags to the message. Tags correspond to fields in your recipient/contact data, and can be used to include personalized or dynamic content in your messages.
3. Select send test message to enter a phone number and have a test message sent. 
4. Save and Exit to exit to the messages page
5. Back to return to the previous page
6. Next to create/edit the next content type or progress to the recipients. Note: depending on which messages types and languages you've chosen, you may be creating more than one message.

3. Send or Schedule Messages

1. If you sending a Closing message, select this option. See next section for details. 
2. If you are sending a Group message, select the recipient group(s) you would like to send to. Optionally create a new group and upload a new Excel/ CSV file to this group.
3. if you have multiple clinics/site and don't want to send to contacts associated with all of them, select clinics and then contacts within certain sites.
4. If you want to filter further, Sub-Groups allows you to send to a sub-group based on certain field criteria.
5. If you'd like to send to contacts individually, enter their names or phone numbers in the "add contacts" section (their contact information must already be in the system to be added).
6. The number of recipients is calculated here. Press the refresh button on the right to refresh this after adding groups, filters or contacts if you want to see the total number of recipients.
7. Select Send to schedule messages to be sent now. Select Schedule to schedule message to be sent later, then select a later time/date and select "send" to schedle the message.

Details on Closing Messages

For Closing Messages, messages will only sent to recipients with appointments within the time and date range selected. Sending these will also immediately cancel any appointment reminder message within the specified time and locations.