How to Use SMS

What This Feature Does

SMS lets you send text messages straight to your team's mobile phones — shift assignments, schedule changes, site updates, and one-off broadcasts — and receive their replies in a shared inbox. It's built for the field, where not everyone checks email but everyone reads a text.

Key capabilities:

• Broadcasts — send the same message to a group or a hand-picked list of team members in one go
• Two-way conversations — replies land in a shared Inbox so your office can answer back
• Templates — save reusable messages with personalised variables like {first_name}
• Groups — reusable recipient lists (e.g. "Site A Crew") so you don't re-pick people every time
• Scheduling — queue a broadcast to go out later
• Credits & usage tracking — see what you've sent, who's sending, and top up when you run low

SMS is currently a Beta feature. You'll see a "Beta" badge in the SMS navigation. Your Account Manager needs to provision a sender number for your account before you can send anything — if you see "SMS not provisioned", reach out to them to get it set up.

Before You Begin

Make sure you have:

• The SMS menu item in your left sidebar (requires the sms.view permission on your role)
• A sender number provisioned for your account by your Account Manager (Australia, United States, or Canada)
• Available SMS credits (a monthly free allowance plus any purchased top-ups)
• Recipients who have opted in to SMS — this is a legal requirement, not just a setting. See Consent & Regulatory Requirements below.

⚠️ Consent & Regulatory Requirements

This is the most important section. Read it before you send your first message.

Mobile carriers and regulators (under frameworks such as the A2P 10DLC programme) require that every person you text has expressly agreed to receive messages from your company. Assignar Pay enforces this for you — but you and your team still need to understand how it works.

The golden rule: a phone number is NOT consent

Having someone's mobile number on file does not mean you're allowed to text them. Consent is recorded separately. If a team member has a number saved but hasn't opted in, the system will automatically skip them from every broadcast, and you'll see them counted in a "skipped — not opted in" notice.

How a team member opts in

Each person opts in for themselves from their own profile — you cannot opt in on their behalf:

1. The team member goes to Settings (their personal account settings)
2. In the Mobile number section, they enter their mobile in international format (e.g. +61412345678)
3. They tick both consent checkboxes:
   • Box 1 — SMS consent: "I agree to receive operational text messages from my company through Assignar Pay (shift assignments, schedule changes, site updates, broadcasts). Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out or HELP for help."
   • Box 2 — Terms: "I accept the Terms of Service & Privacy Policy."
4. They click Save mobile

Only when both boxes are ticked and saved is consent recorded. A green status line confirms "SMS will be enabled when you save." If they save with only one box (or neither) ticked, their number is stored but they will not receive messages — the status line will say so.

Consent must be a genuine, voluntary act by the individual. Saving the number is deliberately not blocked on ticking the boxes — this prevents "forced consent", which carriers reject. Never pressure team members into opting in, and never tick the boxes on someone else's behalf.

How a recipient opts out (STOP / HELP)

Recipients can opt out at any time, directly from their phone, with no action needed from you:

• Replying STOP to any message opts them out (a carrier-standard keyword)
• Replying HELP returns help information
• A team member can also withdraw consent by going to Settings and clicking Clear on their mobile number — this removes the number and revokes their opt-in

Once someone opts out, they're skipped from future broadcasts automatically.

What the system enforces for you

• Broadcasts skip anyone without recorded consent, and show you how many were skipped and why
• Replies to a known team member are blocked if that person hasn't opted in (you'll see "This recipient has not opted in to SMS broadcasts" in the conversation)
• Required disclosures (message frequency, "message & data rates may apply", STOP/HELP instructions, and links to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy) are built into the consent checkboxes
• Message retention — message history is automatically purged after your account's retention window (default 12 months) to limit stored personal data

Day-to-Day Usage

How to Send a Broadcast

1. Click SMS in the left sidebar to open the Inbox
2. Click New message (or open Compose from the SMS navigation)
3. Click Open compose dialog
4. (Optional) Choose a Template to pre-fill the message body
5. Type your Message. To personalise it, use Insert variable to drop in tokens like {first_name}, {last_name}, {account_name}, or {sender_name} — each recipient gets their own values substituted at send time
6. Pick your Recipients:
   • Select one or more Groups, and/or
   • Hand-pick Individuals
   • A summary shows the total unique recipients
7. Review the live counter: characters used, message segments, and credits per recipient plus the total credit cost
8. Check the credit balance indicator — it tells you whether you have enough credits, and offers a top-up link if you don't
9. Review the skipped recipients notice if shown (no mobile, invalid mobile, or not opted in)
10. Click Send now — or toggle Schedule for later to pick a future date/time, then Schedule send

You'll get a confirmation toast: "Broadcast sent to X recipient(s)" (or "scheduled").

How to Read and Reply to Messages (Inbox)

1. Go to SMS → Inbox
2. Each conversation (thread) appears in the list; click one to open it
3. Read the message history in the conversation pane
4. Type your reply in the box at the bottom and press Enter to send (Shift+Enter for a new line)
5. The reply cost (characters, segments, credits) is shown before you send

If the person you're replying to is a known team member who hasn't opted in, the reply box will be disabled with an explanation. They need to opt in from their profile before you can message them.

How to Track Sent Broadcasts (Outbox)

1. Go to SMS → Outbox
2. See every broadcast with its status: Scheduled, Queued, Sending, Sent, Delivered, Undelivered, Failed, or Canceled
3. Click a broadcast to see per-recipient detail — delivery status, send/delivered timestamps, and credits charged for each person
4. To stop a scheduled broadcast before it goes out, click Cancel — this drops every still-scheduled message (already-sent messages can't be recalled)

Common Tasks

Creating Message Templates

1. Go to SMS → Templates
2. Click Create template
3. Give it a Template name and write the Body
4. Insert variables (e.g. {first_name}) — detected variables are listed for you, and a character counter shows length
5. Click Save template

Templates appear in the Compose dialog's template picker. Editing or deleting a template never changes broadcasts that already used it.

Building Recipient Groups

1. Go to SMS → Groups
2. Click Create group
3. Enter a Group name and select Members
4. Click Save group

Notes:

• Only members with a mobile on file can be added to a group
• Groups are capped at 500 members to keep sends within the per-broadcast limit and prevent spam — split larger lists into multiple groups and target them all in one compose

Managing Credits and Topping Up

1. Go to SMS → Usage
2. Review your Credit balance:
   • Free credits reset on the 1st of every calendar month (up to your account's monthly cap)
   • Purchased credits never expire and roll over month to month
   • Available now is your total spendable balance
3. View the monthly usage chart (free vs purchased), the by-sender breakdown (who's sending), and the History audit trail of recent broadcasts and purchases
4. To buy more, click Purchase credits, pick a top-up pack (500, 1,000, or 5,000 credits) or enter a custom amount, then Continue to checkout — you'll be redirected to Stripe to pay

One credit roughly equals one message segment. Longer messages and those using special/emoji characters (Unicode) use more segments, so they cost more credits per recipient. The Compose counter always shows the exact cost before you send.

Troubleshooting

"SMS not provisioned" / I can't send anything

• Your Account Manager needs to provision a sender number for your account
• Confirm you're in a team account, not a personal account

Recipients were skipped from my broadcast

Check the skip reason shown in the Compose dialog:

• Not opted in — the recipient hasn't given SMS consent; ask them to opt in from their Settings (see Consent)
• No mobile on file — they need to add a mobile number in Settings
• Invalid mobile — the number isn't in valid international (E.164) format, e.g. +61412345678
• No account — there's no matching account row for that user

I can't reply to a conversation

• The recipient is a known team member who hasn't opted in to SMS — they must opt in from their profile first
• You may be out of credits — check Usage and top up

"Not enough credits"

• Go to SMS → Usage and click Purchase credits
• Remember free credits reset monthly; purchased credits roll over

A team member stopped receiving messages

• They may have replied STOP (opted out), or cleared their mobile in Settings — both revoke consent
• They can re-opt in any time by re-entering their mobile and ticking both consent boxes again

My message looks longer/more expensive than expected

• Special characters and emoji switch the message to Unicode encoding, which fits fewer characters per segment
• Keep messages plain-text and concise to minimise credits

Tips for Construction Teams

• Run an opt-in drive first. Before relying on SMS, ask your crew to add their mobile and opt in from Settings. A broadcast is only as useful as the number of people who've consented to receive it.
• Use Groups per site or crew. "Site A Crew", "Concreters", "Supervisors" — far faster than hand-picking people each time.
• Templates for recurring messages. Shift confirmations, weather call-offs, and gate codes are perfect template candidates with {first_name} personalisation.
• Schedule early-morning broadcasts the night before so they're ready when crews wake up.
• Keep messages operational. Consent covers operational messages (assignments, schedules, site updates). Don't use SMS for marketing — it breaks the consent your team agreed to and risks opt-outs and compliance issues.
• Watch the by-sender breakdown in Usage to keep an eye on credit consumption across your team.

Best Practices for Compliance

• Never opt in on someone's behalf. Each person opts in themselves; it's their affirmative act.
• Honour opt-outs immediately — the system does this automatically; never try to work around it.
• Keep records. Consent timestamps are stored against each account; the Usage history provides an audit trail of what was sent.
• Only message people who opted in. The platform enforces this, but training your team avoids confusion about why recipients get skipped.
• Respect message frequency expectations. Your team agreed to "operational messages, frequency varies" — keep volume reasonable.

What's Next

After setting up SMS, you may want to:

• Set up SMS Groups to send messages to multiple recipients at once
• Create SMS Templates to reuse messages with personalised variables
• Track SMS Credits and Top Up your account