INTRODUCTION
Feature Summary: Text Alerts allow organizations using CourtReserve to send important, time-sensitive messages directly to players and system users via SMS. Whether it’s a last-minute court closure, event update, or registration reminder, Text Alerts ensure recipients are notified quickly—even if they’re away from email or the app.
Use Cases:
Last-Minute Schedule Changes: Notify players instantly about rainouts, canceled lessons, or sudden facility closures.
Event Reminders: Send reminders to participants about upcoming events, check-in times, or location changes.
Registration Announcements: Alert players when new programs or court reservation windows are opening.
Instructor Communication: Notify instructors or staff about shift changes, sub requests, or urgent announcements.
Waitlist & Availability Updates: Let players know when a waitlisted spot opens up or when new court time becomes available.
In This Article
If you're an existing CourtReserve customer looking to migrate to a new local phone number for text alerts, view the process here.
PREREQUISTES
Text Alerts are not included with the Start plan, but are available for the Grow, Scale, and Enterprise plans. See pricing details below.
Note: If you're in trial mode in CourtReserve, text alerts are not allowed.
SETUP REQUIREMENTS
Go to SETTINGS > ADDITIONAL FEATURES row > Additional Features to enable the Text Message Alerts feature. Once enabled by checking the box and agreeing to the terms, click the orange Setup button to configure the text notifications you want both players and system users to receive.
Local Phone Number for Texts
First Time Setting Up Text Alerts?
When a club enables text alerts in CourtReserve for the first time, a local phone number will appear in a blue information badge next to the "Text Message Alerts" section.
This number is automatically generated by CourtReserve and cannot be changed.
It serves as the dedicated number from which all your club’s text messages will be sent.
The number is assigned based on your club’s Phone Number, City, State, and Postal Code saved in: SETTINGS > ORGANIZATION SETTINGS row > General. Note: The system will first attempt to use your phone number's area code to set up the text alert number, so please ensure this information is accurate.
Already Using Text Alerts and Want to Switch to a Local Number?
If your club previously used CourtReserve’s universal text number and would like to switch to a local one:
Go to SETTINGS > ADDITIONAL FEATURES row > Additional Features.
Look for the "Text Message Alerts" section.
You’ll see a blue information badge with the message: "Switch to Local Text Number."
Click the prompt to confirm the change.
Once confirmed, your club’s text alerts will be sent from a local number based on your club’s location details (City, State, and Postal Code). The blue information badge will display the number.
Note: The assigned text number will also appear on the Notifications page, located under SETTINGS> NOTIFICATIONS.
Example shown below:
Filling Out the Fields
Text Country Code: Used to automatically add the country code when sending text messages if a phone number is missing the +country code prefix.
Organization Short Name: Set up an abbreviated name for your organization to conserve space, as text alerts are limited to 160 characters. Using a shorter name allows more room for your message content.
Notification: The table shows three types of notifications Email, Text, and Push. In this article, we'll focus on Text.
Text Active: Check this box to make the notification type available for Players or System Users to receive via text.
Text Subscribed: When this box is checked, Players or System Users will be subscribed by default to receive that type of text alert during initial setup. They can later manage their subscription preferences in their notification settings.
Opt-In or Out
When a player logs in, CourtReserve displays a Text Message opt-in pop-up. By default, the page enables all text message alerts.
The player has two options:
Leave one or both boxes checked, which means the player agrees to receive marketing and/or organization alerts.
Check the box to opt out of all text message notifications.
If the player agrees to opt in and receive one or both text message types, they must check the box to agree to the disclosure. The player clicks SAVE to record their decision on the platform.
Note: Players can also opt out of email, text, and push notifications by updating their preferences in the Member Portal or mobile app. They simply log in, go to their profile, navigate to the Notifications tab, and uncheck or toggle off the notifications they no longer wish to receive.
System Users and Instructors
System Users and Instructors can add a phone number to their profile to receive important text message notifications. Additionally, the specific text alerts they receive can be customized to fit their role or preferences.
To add/edit a phone number:
Navigate to SETTINGS > ORGANIZATION > System Users.
Locate and edit the desired system user’s profile and go to the Information tab..
Enter their phone number in the appropriate field and save the changes.
To customize notifications:
On the adjacent Notifications tab, customize which text messages and other types of notifications the system user should receive.
Check the Status of Text Alerts
In the admin panel, navigate to AUDITS > NOTIFICATIONS.
Click the yellow Filter button to open the filtering options.
Choose your desired filters, including statuses such as:
Delivered
Failed
Queued (indicates messages waiting to be sent)
You can review all text messages that have been sent, including any that failed due to issues like landline numbers or invalid phone numbers.
To view the content of a specific message, click the blue Details button.
Send a Bulk Text Message
In the admin panel, go to MEMBERS > BULK TEXT
Review Usage: At the top, you can view how many text alerts have been sent during your current billing cycle.
Apply Filters: Use the available filters to select the group of members you want to send a bulk text to.
Select Recipients:
Check the box next to each individual you want to receive the message.
If a Primary contact is set to receive email notifications for a child, they will also receive text alerts.
Add Additional Recipients:
You may also choose to copy System Users.
Note: If a System User is missing from the list, they likely haven’t added a phone number to their profile. See section above.
Compose Your Message: Keep messages concise—text alerts are limited to 160 characters. Review details on character limits below. Note: the organization name displayed is the "short" name configured in SETTINGS > NOTIFICATIONS > Player and/or System Notifications.
Send: Click Send Bulk Text to deliver the message to your selected recipients.
Text Pricing and Character Limit Details
Text Alerts are not included with the Start plan, but are available for the Grow, Scale, and Enterprise plans.
The first 500 are included, but any following would be an additional $5 per 500 texts.
All text messages are priced in arrears.
Understanding Character Limits, Segments, and Encoding: While text messages have a standard character limit of 160, messages that exceed this limit are automatically broken into segments. Each segment is counted and billed as a separate message—even though it may appear as one continuous message to the recipient.
CourtReserve provides insights to help you stay within your desired text limits.
Read on to learn more about what this information means.
Example:
A segment is a single chunk of a text message that fits within the allowed character limit of 160 characters. If your message exceeds the limit, for example:
A 161-character message becomes 2 segments
A 320-character message becomes 3 segments, and so on.
Each segment is sent and billed individually, even though the recipient sees them as one message.
GSM vs. Non-GSM Characters
GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) characters are the standard characters used in most text messages. This includes:
A–Z, a–z
Numbers 0–9
Common punctuation like
@,!,?,-,&, etc.
Non-GSM characters are characters not supported by the GSM-7 encoding. This includes:
Emojis 😊
Curly quotation marks (“ ”)
Accented letters (é, ñ, ü)
Some currency symbols (€, ¥)
Note: Using any non-GSM character reduces the character limit per segment to 70 instead of 160.
Examples of Text Alerts
If a player clicks See More within the text message, they’ll be directed to the CourtReserve login page, where they can log in to view additional details related to the notification.
VIDEO TRAINING
Click here to watch the section of the Communication: Overview video that covers the information in this article.
UPDATE: Text Messages (4.11.2023)
Text Message permissions on the USER side have been updated as of April 11, 2023 to meet industry legal standards for text messages. As of this date, all NEW customers to your organizations will be presented with a pop-up to confirm their subscription to your Marketing Alerts & Text Alerts.
Customers with this feature enabled before this date, will not see a change in this with their existing customers.
From an Admin side, an organization can no longer opt-in a player from text messages. It can only be enabled in the Player's Notification Settings on the member portal. An Admin can also not prevent a player from opting out. This setting has been removed.
