You can send SMS messages to either the primary customer contact or members of a customer contact list, by using the Conversations feature.
Here's How to Use It
To message a single contact, you can either select the recipient's profile directly from your contact database or from a contact list within a company profile, like this:
When you open the contact or company profile, you'll see a button at the top called Conversations. Click it to open the Conversations window:
This will open the Conversations window - which looks like this:
Here's what everything is:
1. Send to number - the contact number you're sending the message to. You can choose other numbers saved for this contact by clicking the down arrow and selecting from the drop-down.
2. Conversations tab - this is what you're looking at right now.
3. Files tab - click this to see a list of all files you've sent and received in this conversation.
4. Scheduled Messages tab - click this to see a list of all your scheduled messages for this contact.
5. Header - you can create a header for every message you send to this contact (e.g. "Hi John").
6. Footer - you can add a footer (a.k.a signature) to every message you send to this contact.
7. Sender ID - if you want to change the sender ID, just use the dropdown arrow to choose one from the list. You can configure your sender IDs from the MessageMedia Hub.
8. Templates - click this to choose a saved template to use in your message.
9. Merge Fields - when writing messages, this is where you can select from a range of fields associated with the contact (e.g. First Name).
10. Unicode alert toggle - toggle this switch to highlight any Unicode characters in your message to help you manage your SMS cost.
11. Message content field - this is where you write your message.
12. Character counter - use this counter to track how many characters your message is using.
13. Attach file - you can attach images (jpg, png) or gif files (max 410kB) to your messages by clicking this button and selecting a file from your device.
14. Schedule button - use this button to schedule your message to send at a later time/date.
15. Send button- this button will be greyed-out until you populate the message content window, once you've typed your message (or selected a template), you'll be able to click this to send your message.
16. Slide-out preview - if you want to see how your message looks while you're typing it out, click this icon and a phone preview will appear.
Here's an example of the Conversations panel in action:
If you choose to schedule your message, here's what the scheduler looks like:
As you can see, it's pretty straightforward - just choose your preferred sending date and time and click Schedule Message.
Viewing Files
By clicking on the Files tab, you'll see an arrangement of all sent and received files in the conversation. You can also download these files by clicking the Download link:
Viewing Scheduled Messages
By clicking the Scheduled Messages tab, you'll see a list and previews of all your scheduled messages due to send to this contact. Once the messages have been sent, they'll disappear from this view and appear in the conversations window. Click on the meatball menu to Cancel the scheduled message or Change the time. You can also download the file by clicking the Download link under the attachment:
Once the messages have been sent, they'll disappear from this view and appear in the conversations window.
SMS Credential Prioritisation
When sending SMS via the API, SMS credentials are prioritised in the following order:
1. Individual credentials
2. Global credentials