Create a Texting Action

As of July 5, 2023, customers must register to ensure successful text delivery. Failure to register may result in decreased deliverability. Standard messaging rates still apply. Find out more here. Get registered here.
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Creating a texting action is the first step to getting volunteers started on sending texts. Text messages are sent from one click per text once the action is published.
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Texting can be accessed from the sidebar panel by hovering over Field and selecting Text.

Texting is accessible in two forms 'Broadcast' and 'Peer-to-Peer'. Broadcast allows you to send a group text to multiple people inside an organization, mainly used if you have an opt-in list for your organization.

The average customer has access to only Peer-to-Peer texting. Peer-to-Peer is one volunteer sending a text to someone else outside the organization for voter contact. Begin creating your action from the bottom action bar of Field > Text and select Create New > Peer-to-Peer.

Choose between SMS and MMS. SMS stands for Short Message Service and allows for text messages with basic text and links. MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and allows for texts to include images and videos up to 20 MB.
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Enter in a title for your texting action. We recommend naming it something relevant to your audience or message.
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Select either a Saved Audience or Saved List. The top box is for audiences, the bottom is for lists.
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Saved Audiences: Lists built from Basic, Advanced, or Map Search

Saved Lists: Lists built from Contacts Management

Choose the date range that you'd like the action to be active for. When volunteers are assigned to the action, it will only appear to them within this range.

Set a start time and end time. By default, texting is available from 9am to 9pm local time zone. In states with multiple time zones (ex. Texas or Michigan), the range defers to the most conservative time zone. As an example, texting in Texas will be available from 9am MT to 8pm MT or 10am CT to 9pm CT.
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Select up to three area codes that you'd like texts to send from. Phone numbers are generated by a third-party services and area codes will be prioritized based on availability.

Choose which state you're sending to. This should match the audience that you created.
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Choose users and volunteers to assign the texting action to. These individuals will have access to send texts one-by-one after the action is published.

Volunteers must be assigned to P2P permissions to be able to send texts from i360text.com.
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Rules surrounding text messaging are constantly changing. To view our most up-to-date information on texting guidelines, please review our Best Practices guide.

Messages can contain up to 286 characters. Options such as merge fields and emojis are likely to take up additional characters. At this time, Opt-Out language is automatically included in your message.

To add a line break to your message, you can press shift + enter or enter. Alternatively, you can draft your text in a note editor (please do not use Microsoft Word as your editor, as it carries over hidden HTML characters) with line breaks and copy and paste it into the text window and the line breaks should transfer over.
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Choose the image icon to add an image to upload or by URL.

Upload an image: Select ‘Choose File’ and pick an image from your computer. Select ‘Upload’ to insert the photo into the text box.

Upload by URL: Insert the image URL into the pop-up text box and select ‘OK’ to insert into your message.

Images that are too large may not appear in texts. We would recommend shrinking the size of your image to ensure that they appear in test texts. The current limit is 20 MB. Images and videos above 500KB will be compressed in size due to carrier requirements.
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Send a reminder message automatically for individuals who opt-in to your text. We recommend continuing to include Opt-Out language in follow-up messages. Decide when the reminder goes out by setting a date and time.

See what a text will look like by entering your number in the section for 'Send Test'. Adjust your message accordingly. (Must save as a draft before sending a test text)
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Once happy with your progress, save as a draft or head to the 'Set Tags & Responses' page.
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Setting Pre-Approved responses allows you to create responses for the people who have responded to your texts. First, you need to create 'Tag Categories' and 'Tags'. You can find a walkthrough here.

Once you have your tags prepared select the ones you have created in the Tag Category and Tag Dropdowns. Once you have the appropriate tags you can use the Response textbox to choose the response you want to send when someone responds to a text.

Once you are finished with filling in all the information you want click 'Publish' in the bottom right of the screen to complete the texting action publishing process. Once your audience has processed, your volunteers will be able to access your the texting action and begin sending messages.

Texts are sent from Field > Send Text Actions. More information on that process is available here.
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