InterCallTXT TextOnline User Guide

Transcription

1 InterCallTXT TextOnline User Guide 1. Messages Information Hotline (0) Reservations (0) NEW MESSAGE When you log into InterCallTXT, you will arrive at the New Message screen. This is where you compose your message, select your message recipients, select your message options, and then send or schedule your text message Message Body This is where you enter your message to be sent. A single text message will typically contain a maximum of 160 characters, with the number of characters within the message shown in the Characters box. However, it is possible to send a message of up to 918 characters which is broken up into message parts shown in the Messages box. The maximum number of message parts that can be sent is 6 but the account administrator(s) can limit the maximum number of parts to restrict the number of characters. Messages in excess of 160 characters will be charged in multiples of 153 characters. For example, a message of 337 characters in length will be charged as 3 text messages. There are three other options when sending a message: 1. Template - If you have set-up a message template (a message that is prewritten and stored for future, regular use), you can select the appropriate template to import into your message body from the Template drop-down menu. Once imported, you can amend the content of the message body by selecting the text to modify within the message box. 2. Validity - You have the option to specify how long you would like the phone networks to retry the delivery of a message, in the event that the first attempt to deliver the message is unsuccessful. When you send the message, an immediate, initial delivery attempt is made. If the initial delivery attempt is unsuccessful because the phone number is not recognised, then no further delivery attempts will be made. If, however, the initial delivery attempt is unsuccessful because the phone is temporarily unavailable (perhaps the phone is switched off or in a poor signal reception area), then the phone networks will continue to retry for the length of the validity period. The validity period can be set to between 1 and 72 hours. A low setting is relevant for time critical messages and a high setting is relevant for non-time critical message content. 3. Character Set - You can change the default character set used to create a text message. It is, however, unlikely that you ll need to use this option. A character set is a definition of which characters (letters, numbers, symbols, and punctuation) you can use when you compose a text message. Many character sets exist around the world to support different languages, and different language types. Some languages, like Chinese and Cyrillic, use ideograms rather than characters within their writing systems. Last modified Last modified on: 10/5/2011 on: 5/10/2011

2 The most widely used character set is GSM_3_38. This character set is used throughout Western Europe and supports most characters used within Roman English-based languages. This is the default character set for mobile handsets. A message that uses the GSM_3_38 character set can contain up to 160 characters. If an extended or concatenated message is sent, then messages over 160 characters are sent (and charged for) in parts of 153 characters. Most ideogram and symbol-based languages, such as Chinese, Hindi, Japanese and Cyrillic, use the Unicode character set to accurately send messages with native content. A message that uses the Unicode character set can contain up to 70 characters. If an extended or concatenated message is sent, then messages over 70 characters are sent (and charged for) in parts of 66 characters. If you wish to send a message using a different character set to the one you normally use, then choose the appropriate option from the drop-down menu Address Book There are two ways of sending a text message to contacts. Firstly, you can select a contact from a global or personal address book (situated under the words Select Your Contacts on the right-hand side of the screen). Secondly, you can just type the mobile phone number you wish to send the message to in the One-off Number area, situated beneath your address book. It is also possible to send messages to any combination of contacts from the Global Address Book, Personal Address Book and the One-off Number area. Select Your Contacts - The application has two address books: the Global Address Book and the Personal Address Book. 1. Global Address Book - The global address book will have been created by your account administrator(s), contains contacts and their mobile phone numbers and is available to all users, i.e. globally across your organisation. You cannot add, delete or amend contacts within this address book, unless you have been given administrator rights. On the right-hand side of the New Message screen, beneath the Select your contacts title, are one or more dark grey coloured bars with identifying tabs. The first bar will contain the name of your organisation. Subsequent lines will contain sub-groups of your organisation or other groups of people that have been setup by your Administrator within this global address book. By clicking the dark grey bar, a further list of contacts will appear on a white background. These are all members of your organisation to whom you can send a message. Each contact is displayed with their name and their mobile phone number. To select the contact(s) to send a message to, click the box next to their name and a tick appears, confirming the message will be sent to them. You can select as many contacts to send the one message to as you like. If you d like to send the message to all group members, simply click the Select All button beneath the address book group name. 2. Personal Address Book - The personal address book operates in the same way as the global address book by enabling you to select one or more contacts to whom to send messages. The personal address book appears as a light grey line. Please Note: You may not have the user rights to create a personal address book. If you do not have this option please contact your account administrator. Before sending a message from the personal address book you will need to create contacts and (optionally) groups of contacts. This is covered in section three of this guide. To send a message from your personal address book, first click on the tab associated with the group in which your contact is located, and select the message recipients (you can select as many as you like to send the message to).

3 One-off Number - To send a message to a one-off number, simply enter the mobile phone number for the contact in the box provided. It is important to enter the phone number according to the following format: 1. UK Mobile and Landline Numbers - Enter the number as you would dial it within the UK. You do not need to enter a country code. For example, (07876) becomes International Mobile Numbers - Enter the + symbol and the International Country Code. Then enter the main part of the phone number, without a leading zero, spaces or brackets, for example 0033 (408) becomes You can enter up to 50 mobile phone numbers in the One-off Number area, separated by semi-colons ( ; ). Please Note: You may not have the user rights to send messages to a one-off number. If you do not see the One-off Number box please contact your account administrator Reply Options You can choose whether to send your choice of 11 characters with the message (helping to identify you to the recipient), or send a phone number with the message (enabling the recipient to reply to your message). It is not possible to send characters and a phone number for replies. If you send your choice of 11 characters with the message, then the recipient will not be able to reply to your message. Choosing one of the reply options will send a phone number with the message, enabling the recipient to be able to reply to your message. Sending your own identifier - When sending a text message, you may wish to use the field that normally displays the phone number of the message sender to show any 11 characters of your choosing e.g. From David or ABC Ltd. This helps recipients identify you as the sender of the message. The default setting for this option is to send the first 11 characters of your organisation s name (as registered with us). You can change identifier by clicking in the box and entering your chosen 11 characters. Please Note: You may not have the user rights to modify the originator field. If you cannot click in the box and over type the default characters, then you do not have the rights to amend the originator. Please contact your account administrator for assistance. Sending your chosen number - To send your own number with the message, first set your number in the My Profile section, and then choose the Reply to my phone option. If you have not previously entered your own number in the My Profile section, then this option will be greyed out and not available to you. Enabling the recipients to reply - You can elect to give the recipients of your message the ability to reply to your message, with replies either coming back to your TextOnline inbox or to your inbox. If you would like replies to come back to your online inbox, then select the Reply to my TextOnline inbox option. If you would like replies sent to your given address, then select the Reply to my option. If you choose for replies to come back to your online inbox or an address, then the SMS system automatically adds one of our special mobile phone numbers into the message sender s phone number field (known as the Originator), when you send the message. This number will be seen by the recipient when they receive the message, with the message appearing to come from that mobile number. The recipient can then compose and send a reply, with the reply delivered back to you via your chosen reply function. The reply path remains open for the recipient to reply for approximately 7 days after the outgoing message is sent. Message replies will be kept and remain accessible for a period of 30 days after their receipt. Sending messages to UK landline phones - When sending SMS messages to UK landline phones, please ensure that you send a phone number with the message, and not letters. If an alpha-numeric field (such as "Acme Co Ltd") is sent with the SMS messages, then the messages will not be delivered and you will be charged for the failed messages. To send a number with the message, select one of the Reply to my Phone, Reply to my TextOnline Inbox or Reply to my options. To send your own number with the message, first set the number in the My Profile section, and then choose the Reply to my Phone option.

4 1.1.4 Schedule Options If you wish to schedule the message for later delivery, click the [+] symbol on the Schedule Options bar. There are two types of future-delivery messages: Scheduled - A message which is created and then assigned a particular date and time in the future for delivery to its recipients. Recurring - A message which is created and assigned a date and time for its first delivery, and then scheduled for delivery every time period (for example, hourly, weekly, monthly etc). To send your message once at a date and time in the future, click the One-Off scheduled message option. Once clicked, the Date and Time drop-down menus will appear for you to choose the delivery date and time of your message. To send your message at multiple times in the future, click the Recurring scheduled message option. Once clicked, the Date and Time drop-down menus will appear for you to choose the first delivery date and time of your message. You will also need to select the regularity of the message s delivery (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly), and whether the message should ever cease being sent. If you do not wish to schedule the message for later delivery, click the radio button for Not scheduled, send now Send Message By clicking the Send Message button, your message is sent. You will automatically arrive at a new page where you will see a confirmation that your message has been sent to our SMS Gateway. This message confirms that your message is being sent. From this screen you can either select any other left-hand menu option or select the on-screen Send Another Message button to return to the New Message screen. If you have a problem with the message not being sent, the most likely source of the problem is that the mobile phone number was entered incorrectly. Do check the format of the number outlined in section before re-sending. 1.2 INBOX If you selected the Reply to my TextOnline Inbox option when sending your text message, any replies to your text message will be available from your inbox Reading Replies Whenever you visit the New Message screen, TextOnline will automatically check to see if you have any new text message replies. If you have one or more new, unread replies, an envelope icon will appear next to the Inbox menu option. Simply click Inbox to see a list of your unread and saved replies, with the following details for each reply: SMS - An unopened envelope denotes an unread reply, and an opened envelope denotes an opened reply. From - This is the mobile phone number (or name, if the number is associated with an address book contact) of the person who sent the reply. Message - The full body of the reply text message. Received - This is the date and time the reply was received. View - Click the View button to see full details of the selected reply. Tick-box - By clicking this tick-box, you can then press the Delete button to delete the selected reply(s) from your account. If you delete a message you will no longer be able to access it. To view the full details of an individual reply, select the reply by clicking either the reply s mobile number/contact name or the word View. You will then arrive on a second inbox screen. The following information will be displayed for the reply you have selected: From - This is the name or number of the person who sent the reply to you. Reply Message - This is the reply content, followed by your original outgoing text message.

5 Sent - This is the date and time the reply was received. Original Message - This is the original outgoing text message content. To return to your inbox, click the Inbox button. Once you have read all of your messages, the envelope icon will disappear Replying to a Reply This function enables you to reply back to the person who sent you the initial reply. On the Inbox screen is a Reply to Message button. Selecting this will take you to the New Message screen. The mobile phone number of the recipient is automatically entered, by either having their contact entry in the appropriate address book ticked, or by placing their number in the One-off Number area. To send the message, simply enter the message body and click Send Message Forwarding a Reply This function enables you to forward a message reply to other mobile phone recipients. On the Inbox screen is a Forward Message button. Selecting this will take you to the New Message screen, with the content of the reply now being the content of the Message box. To send the message you will need to amend the text body, select the recipients and the appropriate message options. 1.3 SENT MESSAGES To review the delivery status of text messages you have sent, select the Sent Messages option from the left-hand menu Reviewing Sent Messages You will see a list of the messages you have sent, in reverse chronological order (i.e. the most recently sent message displayed first). The last 45 days worth of sent messages are displayed on pages of 25 messages each. Messages are automatically removed after 45 days, and cannot be seen from your online account. For each message you have sent, an abridged list of recipients (if the message was sent to more than one handset), the message body, and the date/time the message was sent, are shown. To view the actual delivery status of the message for each handset the message was sent to, click View. You will be taken to a new page with specific delivery information regarding your chosen message. To delete a sent message, click the far right tick-box on the rows of the sent message(s) you wish to delete. Once selected, click Delete selected. You will be asked to confirm your decision on a pop-up screen by clicking OK. To delete all of your sent messages click Delete all. You will be asked to confirm your decision on a pop-up screen by clicking OK. If you delete a message you will no longer be able to access it. Please Note: You may not have the user rights to delete sent messages. Please contact your Administrator for further information Forwarding a Previously Sent Message This function enables you to forward a previously sent message to other recipients. Having clicked View to review an individual message, you will see a Forward Message button. Selecting this button will take you to the New Message screen with the content of the previously sent message now being the content of the Message box. To send the message you will need to select the recipients and the appropriate message options.

6 1.4 SCHEDULED MESSAGES Selecting the Scheduled Messages option from the left-hand menu will take you to a screen where you can view a list of your currently scheduled (and not yet sent) messages. Messages that have been scheduled and previously sent do not appear here. These messages will appear in your Sent Messages area. For each scheduled message you will see the following information: To - A partial list of message recipients. Recurring - Confirmation of whether this is a one-off or recurring scheduled message. Message - The full message body. Date Added - The date and time the message was created. To view or edit a scheduled message, click the View/Edit button next to the relevant scheduled message to be taken to the New Message screen, populated with the details associated with your scheduled message. From here you can edit any of the details associated with your previously created, scheduled message. If you change any of the details, you will need to click the Send Message button. To delete a scheduled message, click the far right tick-box on the rows of the scheduled message(s) you wish to delete. Once selected, click Delete selected. You ll be asked to confirm your decision on a pop-up screen by clicking OK. To delete all of your scheduled messages click Delete all. You will be asked to confirm your decision on a pop-up screen by clicking OK. If you delete a scheduled message you will no longer be able to access it. 2. Templates A message template enables commonly sent text messages to be stored as templates and then imported when a new message is created. 2.1 VIEW TEMPLATES Select View Templates from the left-hand menu to view a table of your message templates with the following information: Name - The name associated with the message template. Template - The first 50 characters of the template s message body. To edit a message template, click Edit next to the required template. You will be taken to the Edit Template screen from where you can change the message template s name, character set, body and whether it is for global (account) or personal use. To delete a template, click the Delete tick-box next to the relevant message template and click Delete selected. To delete all message templates, click Delete all. 2.2 NEW TEMPLATE Select New Template from the left-hand menu to create a new message template. 1. Select a name for the template by typing in the Template Name box. 2. Select whether this is a Global Template (available to other account users) or Personal Template (only available to you). To create a Global Template you will need to have administrative rights. 3. Select the Character Set that this template will be created in and sent with. For more information on this option please see point 3 of section of this guide. 4. Create the message content by typing in the main message box. Below the box, you can see the number of Characters and Messages the template will use. 5. Click Add to be taken to a Review Changes screen where you can review the template you ve just created. Clicking Continue will create the new message template and take you back to the View Templates screen.

7 3. Address Book 3.1 VIEW CONTACTS From this View Contacts screen you can search for a contact using their First Name, Last Name, or their Number. The Search facility operates on both partial entries and full entries in each of these search boxes. Under the Contacts table, you can select whether to view contacts from all of your address books, or from a selected group, chosen from the Group drop-down menu. The contacts will be displayed in a table, with 25 contacts per page. Clicking the page number at the foot of the table will navigate you between pages. Once chosen, the contacts will be displayed with the following information: First Name - The first name of the contact. Last Name - The last name of the contact. Number - The full international mobile number of the contact. Address Book - The primary (Global or Personal) address book the contact belongs too. To edit a contact, click Edit Contact next to the respective user. To delete one or more contacts in the displayed list of contacts, click the far right tick-box on the rows of the contacts you wish to delete. Once selected, click Delete Selected Contacts. You will be asked to confirm your decision on a pop-up screen by clicking OK. To delete all of the listed contacts in the chosen group or address book (across the multiple pages of contacts), click Delete ALL Contacts. You will be asked to confirm your decision on a pop-up screen by clicking OK which will then irrevocably delete all of the contacts in the group or address book that has been chosen. 3.2 NEW CONTACT Here you can add a new contact to your Address Book by entering your contact s first name, last name and number, and then select the Address Book group to add the contact to. When entering the number for the contact, enter the local number for the contact if the contact s number is in the country that you are in (and which your Country parameter in My Profile is set to). The local format requires you to enter any leading zero (or other digit) that precedes the main number. For example, if your Country parameter is set to UK, and you are entering a UK number, then you would enter , i.e. you would include the leading zero. The system will automatically format and store the number in its full international format of If you d entered the number without the leading zero, then the system will reformat the number taking the first digits of the number to be the country code. For example, if you entered the number as , the system will format and store the number as Any message sent to this number will subsequently be sent to a handset in Russia. To enter an international number, the number needs to be formatted in its full international format. For example, to enter the local Singapore number , you would enter Once complete, click Add Contact to be taken to a new screen where you can either Edit the contact or Continue to create them. 3.3 VIEW CONTACT GROUPS Here you can view and edit contact groups in your Global and Personal Address Book. To edit a contact group name, click Edit Group. You will only be able to edit and delete groups from the Global Address Book if you have administrative permissions. To delete one or more group in the displayed list, click to check the far right tick-box on the rows of the groups you wish to delete. Once selected, click Delete selected. You will be asked to confirm your decision on a pop-up screen by clicking OK.

8 To delete all of the listed contact groups, click Delete all. You will be asked to confirm your decision on a pop-up screen by clicking OK which will then irrevocably delete all of the contact groups. The contacts themselves will still be available within the higher level Personal Address Book group. 3.4 NEW CONTACT GROUP A Group is a collection of contacts that have been associated with each other. If you group a number of contacts together, sending a message to them all is much simpler and quicker. To create a new contact group, click the relevant radio button depending on whether you want the group to be set up in your Global or Personal Address Book. You then enter a Group Name and click Add Contact Group. You then click Continue to go to the View Contact Groups section. All members of a group are still members of your high level Personal Address Book group. When you add a contact to a group, the contact is also automatically added to your Personal Address Book. 3.5 CONTACT GROUP MEMBERS A contact can be added to a Contact Group by first selecting the contact to add to a Contact Group, then selecting the Contact Group to add the contact to, and clicking Add. To remove members of a Contact Group, highlight one or more members of the Contact Group, and click Remove. Use of the CTRL and SHIFT keys enables you to select multiple contacts to add or remove from a Contact Group. You can only move contacts between groups within an address book. You cannot move contacts between the Personal Address Book and Global Address Book. In addition, you can only move contacts between Global Address Book groups if you have administrative rights. 3.6 IMPORT/EXPORT CONTACTS This section is for adding (importing) new, named contacts into an address book, and for copying (exporting) the contents of your address book to a file. If you wish to send a one-off SMS message to recipients listed in a spreadsheet, then use TextCampaign, rather than adding contacts and using TextOnline Import Contacts Here you can import contacts automatically into your Address Book from a pre-prepared Comma Separated Variable (CSV) file. You will only be able to import contacts into the Global Address Book if you have administrative rights. The CSV file is generally produced from a spreadsheet or database application where you keep your contact data. It is critical to the success of the import function that the CSV file is structured correctly. The file must contain either 3 or 4 columns. The first three columns (first-name, last-name and phone-number) are mandatory, and the fourth column (the address book group to import the contacts directly into) is optional. Please note that no column headers are required. The format of the four columns is as follows: First-name - This is the first name of the contact. If you do not have this information then please ensure the column contains a single character, for example, the letter A. Last-name - This is the last name of the contact. If you do not have this information then please ensure the column contains a single character, for example, the letter B. Mobile phone-number - This is the mobile phone number of the contact. The number can be formatted in the following ways: a. Full International Format: (compulsory format for internationally registered phones) b. Local Format: c. Shortened Focal format: Contact Group - You can optionally specify the address book group that the contact should be directly imported into. To use this function enter the name of the group in column 4. The contact will then be added to the group, as well as appearing in the main address book.

9 The latter format of the Mobile phone-number is relevant when you are creating your CSV file from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. When you enter or have a field with a leading zero, such as a phone number in the format, Microsoft Excel will often automatically drop the leading zero. Our import facility will assume a number beginning with the numeral 7 is a Local mobile phone number, without you having to enter a zero before it. When creating a CSV file from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet there are two further considerations: 1. Saving the CSV file - To save your file as a CSV file, select the Save As option from the File menu within Microsoft Excel, selecting CSV (Comma delimited) as the Save As Type. 2. Ensuring you only have 3 or 4 columns - For the CSV import to be successful, the CSV file must only have the 3 or 4 columns mentioned above. Sometimes Microsoft Excel can add additional columns, albeit appearing to be empty, to a CSV file. To check this is not the case with your CSV file, check the contents of the file, as follows: a. Save the CSV file to your desktop. b. Open the file using the Notepad application by right-clicking the file and selecting Open With Notepad. c. Check to ensure that on your first line of data you have a first name followed by a comma, a last name followed by a comma and a mobile phone number. d. Ensure there are no commas at the end of a row after the mobile phone number. To upload your CSV file, click Browse... and locate and select your file to upload then click Open. Numbers outside of UK - By leaving this option un-ticked, your numbers do not need to be formatted internationally. Numbers can be formatted with or without the country code, and with or without the leading zero. If you tick the international campaign option, then all numbers in your file must be formatted in the full international format. This includes any numbers destined for your local country. To finish importing your contacts click Upload File. Please note that a successful status message after the import process has completed confirms that at least one contact was added to your list of contacts. Any contacts that could not be formatted correctly or already exist in the address book are rejected, and not added to your address book s contact list. Please view your contact list to check whether all of your expected contacts have been imported Export Contacts This function creates a CSV file of your contacts. For each contact, FIRSTNAME, LASTNAME and NUMBER are provided. Contacts can be downloaded from either your Personal Address Book or Global Address Book, if you have the appropriate application rights. When exporting contacts, your spreadsheet application may automatically format the mobile number column to include a decimal place for the number to fit the cell. To reformat the number so it displays in full, you need to follow the process specific to your spreadsheet application to set the decimal places to 0 (zero). STILL NEED HELP? If you have any other questions, please intercalltxtsupport@intercalleurope.com.