The Message Feed provides you with a real-time 2-way messaging experience within Salesforce, whereby you can quickly send outbound messages and view inbound responses.
Out of the box, the Message Feed works with the Lead, Contact, Account, Opportunity and Case Objects. It can be easily added to the respective page layout in Salesforce Classic or Lightning Experience. You can also configure the Message Feed to work with any Custom Object and make it available in the Salesforce Mobile App.
The Message Feed will display outbound messages as green boxes on the right-hand side of the Feed, and inbound messages as blue boxes on the left-hand side of the Feed.
The Message Feed operates in real-time so as soon as you click Send, your message will automatically appear in the feed. In turn, the recipient's reply will also automatically appear in the feed as soon as it's delivered. This allows you to have 1:1 chat-like conversations with your leads and contacts.
If the recipient has multiple phone numbers in their record, you can select which number to send to by clicking the dropdown arrow next to the Send to field:
You also have the option of selecting a Sender ID by clicking on the dropdown arrow in the From account field. The Sender ID will always default to the most recently used selection, for example, if you choose "Alpha Tag" to send a message, Mercury will default to this selection the next time you message the recipient:
Note - If you already have multiple Sender IDs for your account they will automatically be visible in the dropdown box. If you don't have additional Sender IDs but would like them, please set this up in the MessageMedia Hub or contact our Support Team for assistance.
To compose your message, just click anywhere in the message content field:
Note - if you wish to add merge fields to an SMS message, follow these steps:
- Select the Field type
- Select the Merge field
This will merge the correct merge field code into the message content field.
If you'd like to use a pre-defined SMS template, you can select from the template library by clicking on the dropdown arrow in the SMS Template field:
This will populate the SMS Template text into the message content field.
Lightning Experience
You can also add the Message Feed to Page Layouts for use in Lightning Experience. This requires the use of the Lightning App Builder. Below is an example page layout for the Lead Object using the Lightning App Builder.
To configure the above page for Lightning, go to Setup > Edit Page and click New. Select to create a new” Record Page” and then click next.
You can now build out the page using Lightning Components. In order to add the Mercury SMS Feed, drag the ‘Message Feed’ custom component onto the page and then Save.
Salesforce Classic – Embedded Message Feed
To have the Message Feed embedded into a Page Layout, you will need to add the Visualforce Page ‘mercuryleadfeed’ or ‘mercurycontactfeed’ etc. to the Page Layout for the specific object. To do this go to Setup > Customize > Leads or Objects > Page Layouts and click edit next to the desired page layout/s. This will bring you to the page layout editor.
Note: If you are wanting to use the Embedded SMS Feed for a custom object you will need to create the Feed Visualforce Page following the instructions in the Custom Object SMS Feed section before you can add it to the page layout.
From here, select the Visualforce Pages option from the selection section at the top of the page. First, we recommend you add a new section to your page by selecting the ‘Section’ option and dragging it to the page where you would like the feed to appear. Give the section a name (Message Feed) and select single or double columns.
Next, select the message feed Visualforce page (mercuryleadfeed or mercurycontactfeed etc.) and add it to your new page section.
Once the Visualforce Page is added, click the ‘Properties’ wrench on the Visualforce Page Component and set the Height value to 600 pixels then click ok and save your page layout. 
Once you have done this, you’ll see the Message Feed as per the below example.
Salesforce Classic – Pop Out Message Feed
To use the Message Feed in a separate ‘pop out’ window, you need to add the ‘SMS Feed’ Custom Button to the Page Layout on the Lead, Contact, Account, Opportunity and Case pages. Go to the Page Layout Editor, select Buttons and then select and drag the ‘SMS Feed’ button into the custom buttons section of the page and then save.
Once this is done, you’ll be able to click the button and it will open the Message Feed in a separate window for you to use as required.
Salesforce Mobile App Message Feed
The Mercury SMS Message Feed is available for use in the Salesforce Mobile App by adding the feed to the Mobile Actions bar in the page layout.
To add the SMS Feed icon to the Actions bar, you will need to edit the Page Layout of the relevant Object in Salesforce.com and add the ‘SMS Feed’ Action to the Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions section.
Note: For Custom Objects, you must first create the message feed Visualforce page and button and make it Available for Salesforce mobile apps and Lightning Pages.
Once the Feed has been added as a mobile action, you can access the feed in Salesforce1 as follows:
Custom Object Message Feed
To use the Message feed feature for Custom Objects, you will need to create a simple Visualforce page following the instructions below.
Step 1: Go to Setup > Develop > Visualforce Pages and Click New
Step 2: Complete the page details as follows:
| Field Name | Field Value |
| Label | mercury[ObjectName]Feed (e.g. mercuryBookingsFeed) |
| Name | As Above |
| Available for Salesforce mobile apps and Lightning Pages | TRUE |
Visualforce Markup:
<apex:page showHeader="false" standardStylesheets="false" standardController="[ObjectName]">
<mercury:mercuryFeed recordId="{!$CurrentPage.parameters.id}" ciRef="{!$CurrentPage.parameters.ci_ref}" ciHost="{!$CurrentPage.parameters.ci_host}"/>
</apex:page>
Step 3: Save the Page
Step 4: Add the feed to your page layouts for Classic, Lightning and Salesforce1.
For the Salesforce Classic Embedded Feed and Lightning Experience Feed follow the instructions for those sections.
For the Salesforce Classic Pop Out Feed and Salesforce 1, you will first need to create a custom button to add to the page as follows:
- Goto Setup > Create > Objects > Select Object > Scroll to Buttons, Links, and Actions and Click New Button or Link
- Configure the Settings as follows and then save
- After you have saved your button click to adjust the Window Open Properties and set the width to 300 pixels and then save as follows:
- Add the button to the page layout: Goto Setup > Create > Objects > Select Object > Scroll to Page Layouts > Click Edit
- Select Buttons – you will see the SMS Feed button you created in the previous step
- Drag the SMS Feed button to the Custom Buttons section
- Click Save
