You will need the Limited SMS permission to send a text message. To choose who receives replies, you will also need the Full SMS permission.
Texting is available almost everywhere you work with a list of people, and it behaves the same way in all of them.
Where you can send from
Messaging Center > Logs > Text Message - Click Send Text Message for a one-off message to a chosen audience.
A person's profile - Mobile numbers carry a message icon next to them. Anywhere that icon appears, clicking it opens a message window for a one-to-one conversation.
The people listing - Select people, then use Actions > Send text.
A group - Open the group, go to Members, select members or use Actions > Send text for everyone.
Event guests and sign-ups - For reminders and changes.
Form entries - To follow up with people who submitted a form.
Report results - Text whoever a report or query returned. This also needs the Reporting permission.
Workflows - The Notification task sends texts automatically. See Notification Task.
Check-in - Automatic notifications to parents and guardians.
Composing the message
Wherever you start from, the same window opens with these fields:
Recipients - Who will receive the message. Click Edit to add group members or other people.
Template - Pull in a pre-written message.
Content - The message itself. The counter updates as you type, so you can see the cost before you send.
Receive Replies? - Nominate who is emailed when a recipient texts back. That person can reply to the email and it goes out as a text.
Timing - Choose now or later. Scheduled messages can be set in 15-minute increments and appear at Messaging Center > Scheduled > Text Message until they send.
Once the required fields are complete, click Send.
Tip: Consent and balance are checked at the moment a scheduled message sends, not when you schedule it.
Who actually receives it
Starting from the audience you selected, One Church Software narrows the list in this order. Each step can remove people, and only the last one shows you an error.
People without a mobile number are dropped. The number has to be saved on the person's record with a type of Mobile — a mobile number saved as Home is not picked up.
Duplicate numbers collapse to one. Two family members sharing a number receive one message, not two, unless the message is personalized per person.
Numbers without consent are removed. Silently. No error, no warning, and nothing charged.
The balance is checked. If there is not enough and auto-recharge is off, the whole send is refused with a visible message asking you to top up.
Tip: If you selected 400 people and the message shows 137 recipients, nothing is broken. Step three is almost always the reason. Messaging Center > Delivery & Subscribers > Text Opt Ins tells you exactly who is reachable, and your public opt-in page is how you grow that list. See What is text messaging consent?
Personalizing a message
Type { in the message body to see the available merge fields, the most common being the recipient's first name. There is also a merge field that inserts a link to a specific event page.
Personalizing costs a little more: a merge field makes every message different, so family members sharing a phone each get their own message rather than one shared one, and a longer name can tip a message into an extra segment.
Message length
A plain message fits 160 characters in a single segment. As soon as it contains an emoji or certain special characters, the whole message switches encoding and a segment holds only 70. Messages are capped at six segments, so a message with an emoji runs out of room about four times faster — roughly 400 characters instead of roughly 900.
Emoji also double the price. See How much do text messages cost?
Warning: Never use a link shortener. Carriers block messages containing shortened links from bit.ly, tinyurl and similar services, because that is what spam does, and the message will be rejected. Paste the full web address instead.
Delivery is not instant
Sending queues the message. Dispatch to the carrier follows, and the carrier then delivers to the handset, with confirmation coming back afterwards. On a large send the delivery outcomes fill in progressively rather than all at once, so a message showing no outcome a few seconds after sending is normal.
Handling replies
When someone texts back, One Church Software finds the last message you sent that number and checks who owns replies to it. If the sender nominated somebody, that person is emailed the incoming message along with the original for context, and can reply to the email to send a text back.
Only messages sent in the last 30 days trigger a notification. A reply to something older is still recorded, but nobody is emailed about it.
If nobody was told about a reply, there are three likely reasons. The person who sent the original did not nominate anyone. The last message that person received was an automated one with no reply owner, so their reply attached to that rather than to the staff message before it. Or the message being replied to is more than 30 days old. In every case the reply is safe in the log — search Messaging Center > Logs > Text Message by name or number.
Tip: When replying by email, remove all text above the "##- Please type your reply…" line, including your signature. Keep replies within 160 characters to avoid sending multiple messages.
Finding a message later
All text messages are at Messaging Center > Logs > Text Message, with delivery outcomes and costs. Open a message to see per-recipient outcomes, each with a plain-English explanation of anything that failed.
Two permissions change what you see here. Without Full Read SMS Logs, you see only messages you sent yourself plus any where you are the nominated reply person — a banner on the screen says so. Text giving messages are hidden entirely unless you also hold Full Read Contributions. Two staff members looking at the same screen can legitimately see different messages.
Note: Texting in One Church Software is limited to people who have a person profile in the system. A text message by itself isn't enough, and it must be tied to an existing person record. This is why unmatched form submissions can't be texted from the entries list until they're linked to a profile.
Two exceptions:
Event invites — these can be sent to external people (no person profile required).
Form submission notifications — the automatic notification triggered by a form submission can also go to external people, independent of a person profile.