SMS Messaging

[sethjeffery]

Some CRMs provide an SMS service to allow admin users to send text messages out to members.

If we could find a universal SMS provider that the app can interface its address book with to send out text messages, in the same way that we support MailChimp, it could be a big benefit for churches.

[rakess70]

👍 I love this idea because we have many people who do not use email as much as text

[rakess70]

CCB uses a combination of texting and twitter to accomplish this they call it a Twext

http://churchtechdump.tumblr.com/post/316931035/church-community-builder-introduces-twexting

Maybe way to do it that costs nothing might be

https://github.com/typpo/textbelt

[crossan007]

There is a ticket open for this already #98.

Twilio looks pretty promising. There are a few others that I was talking with some guys here locally about, but I forget the names.

[crossan007]

Check this out: https://www.nexmo.com/products/sms/

[DawoudIO]

How do we want the interface to work for SMS, as we are getting more and more requests for this... is it like send mail but the target is a SMS Number, if so which number is all mobile phone... do we need people to opt in and out of SMS messages... etc...

[Lochex]

Ok, here's what the Interface for SMS should look like.
The SMS page will have a textbox for entering the message to be sent (it should have a character counter just below the box as one SMS = 160 character)
The right-side of the box would have tabbed buttons for choosing between sending the SMS to all persons in church or selected groups.
If All persons is selected, the the user can go ahead to Send to all persons in church
If Groups is selected he could choose the groups (list of unchecked Group names) and then click the button at the base of the list to send SMS to the selected groups.

[rakess70]

I have been researching this more. we recently subscribed to "text in church" but find we are not using as much as I would have thought. The more I research I think twillo is a great option

[crossan007]

This has been moved to #2149