Use an SMS broadcast service to send bulk SMS messages (similar to email blasts, but on a different channel) to all your contacts simultaneously. Through SMS broadcasts, you can reach thousands of people who will read your messages and act on them. These messages can be informative, educational, or promotional as per your business or organisational needs.
How to browse SMS Broadcast
Step 1: Select CAMPAIGN >> SMS >> SMS BROADCAST within the Menu pane of the Admin Portal.
Step 2: Select "SMS Broadcast" from the menu. The user will be able to access the page to create/manage SMS Broadcast (SMS Broadcast Dashboard).
SMS Broadcast Dashboard Definitions:
| Dashboard Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
| Auto Refresh Interval | This determines how frequently the SMS Broadcast dashboard will be refreshed. The default refresh time is 1 minute. Based on business needs, this refresh interval can be set between 10 seconds and 5 minutes. Auto Refresh interval also refreshes the Report pop-up when opened as per selection. |
| Broadcast Name | The logical name that is given to the SMS broadcast by the authorised user while creating a broadcast. This helps to clearly identify the broadcasts from the list in the dashboard. |
| Start Time | This field captures the time when an SMS Broadcast starts processing. |
| Running Status |
Waiting: This status will be seen when the broadcast has not started processing yet. Running: Status is shown briefly while the system starts processing the SMS broadcast. Failed: This is updated only when all the SMSs sent to the contacts in a broadcast have received failure status. Processed: Broadcast is marked as processed when the system is done with processing the SMSs to all the contacts in the broadcasts. |
| Total Message (s) | The total number of valid contacts to whom the SMS broadcast was triggered. |
| Delivery Status |
Delivered: The total number of contacts for whom the SMS Delivery report is received. This can take up to 48 hours to be updated depending on the Service Provider. Failed: The total number of contacts for whom the SMS Delivery report came as a failure. If no status is received within 48 hours, the system will update the Status as Failed. |
| Status |
Active: When the broadcast is waiting to be run or has been processed, the status is Active. While creating/editing a broadcast, if the user selects the Save and Launch button, the status is set to Active. Draft: While creating/editing a broadcast, if the user selects the Save as Draft button, the status is set to Draft. Inactive: Status is set to inactive only when a broadcast is set to Inactive by Toku Admins on request of the authorised user. |
| Action |
Edit: The system will enable the Edit button only when the user has saved the broadcast as a Draft to be updated later and is not launched yet. More details can be found in the chapter "How to Search, Edit, Reuse, Check Reports, and Delete an SMS Broadcast". Reuse: In a use case where a new Broadcast is similar to one executed earlier, the existing broadcast can be reused. The user will still be allowed to make changes to necessary fields, like contacts, SMS Body etc. More details can be found in the chapter "How to Search, Edit, Reuse, Check Reports, and Delete an SMS Broadcast". Reports: A click on the reports button will open up a pop-up window giving insight to the overall performance of the selected broadcast. More details can be found in the chapter "How to Search, Edit, Reuse, Check Reports, and Delete an SMS Broadcast". |
Here are details on how to read Running Status and Status together from the dashboard.
| Running Status <> Status | Definition |
|---|---|
| Waiting <> Active | This signifies that the broadcast is active but yet to be triggered/processed, likely because it is scheduled sometime in future. |
| Waiting <> Draft | Status is waiting and it is likely that the user might need to make some changes to the broadcast and launch it later - until then it is saved as a draft. |
| Waiting <> Inactive | Once the broadcast is marked Inactive, this means it will never be processed by the system. |
How to Add an SMS Broadcast
Step 1: Users can click on the highlighted button in the image below to create/add a new SMS Broadcast.
Step 2: Click on the "Add SMS Broadcast" button, and the 'SMS Broadcast Campaign Details' page will open. There are a total of three pages for the campaigns - Add Recipients, Create Message and Add Information.
1. Add Recipients: This is where the user will add the recipient's details. The screenshot for reference is below:
Description of Add Recipients:
| Form Fields | Description |
| Line of Business | Select one of the Line of Business available in the dropdown as per the user's access. |
| Sender ID | A Sender ID is a unique name or standard mobile number that shows in the “from” field of text messages received on your phone. This field can be selected from the dropdown as per permissions. |
| Add Contacts |
Add existing contact: This section can be selected when the user has already added contacts under the Contact management of the Admin portal and wanted to reuse the contact while shooting the SMS campaign. The user is given the option to either select a contact individually (Single Contact) or an entire directory (Group Directory). Add new contact(s): This selection is when the user is looking forward to adding/uploading new contacts for the broadcast on the go. |
| Exclude Contacts | This is essentially an Opt-Out list or UnSubscribe list. A user can select Opt-Out Directory created under Contact Management. No contacts added to Exclude Contacts list will trigger an SMS even if they are part of the SMS Broadcast contact list. |
2. Create Message:
Description of Create Message:
| Form Fields | Description |
| SMS Template | List of created templates from the SMS Templates menu within the LOB selected. This is an optional parameter and can be used when the user needs to utilise an existing template. Once selected, the Body field will be updated with the template text. |
| Broadcast Start Time | The user will be able to select any Timestamp in future when they want an SMS Campaign to start running. There is an option to select NOW in the calendar popup, which will take the current time as per the Timezone settings in the user profile. |
| Body | This is the message the recipient receives on their mobile device. Free Text, Dynamic Tags, URLs, Unicode Characters etc. are supported in the message body as of now. This field will be auto-populated with a text if SMS Template is selected, still allowing the user to message the text populated by selecting SMS Template. |
| Encoding | Short messages are broadly put under GSM-7 or UCS-2 encoding. The system automatically shows encoding based on the message body. If any Unicode character is used in the message text, encoding will automatically change to UCS-2. |
| Character Count | The total number of characters in the message body is shown here. |
| SMS Required | The total number of SMS segments expected out of the message body. Message segments are typically 160 characters and 70 characters respectively for GSM-7 and UCS-2 encoding types. If there are Dynamic Tags used in the message body the values shown in the Encoding, Character Count, and SMS Required fields are not guaranteed as they are dynamically fetched from the customer uploads or contact directory. |
| Dynamic Tags | These are placeholders in the message body that are assigned dynamic values when the SMS broadcast is triggered. For e.g. if an SMS is sent to 100 people from the contact directory, and the SMS body has [FIRST NAME] dynamic tag placeholder, the system will pick the first name for each contact (if available) and send the custom SMS with their name. When there is no data available against Dynamic tags, SMS will be received without any data against the placeholder in the message, the remaining SMS will be delivered as it is. |
| Send SMS Test | If the user has a business requirement to test the SMS before triggering the Campaign, this option can be used. Once clicked, a pop-up will appear for the user to add one Mobile Number where a test SMS can be sent. |
3. Add Information:
Description of Add Information:
| Form Fields | Description |
| Name | The logical name that is given to the SMS broadcast by the authorised user while creating a broadcast. The name used here will be shown under the Broadcast Name field in Dashboard. |
| Description | Any additional information added to the campaign being created. |
| Save and Launch | The SMS broadcast campaign is initiated and dropped into a queue. Once the broadcast Date and Time is met, the system will start processing. The Status will be Active for entries in the SMS Broadcast dashboard. |
| Save as Draft | If a user is not done with SMS Broadcast and wants to continue editing at a later stage, this option can be selected. There will be a dashboard entry for this Broadcast with the Status as Draft and Edit option enabled. |
How to Search, Edit, Reuse, Check Reports, and Delete an SMS Broadcast:
Step 1: Click on the "Advanced Search" button as shown in the below screenshot.
Step 2: After clicking, you will see the below screen.
-
- Enter the "Keyword/name" of the Broadcast.
- Select the Status of the Broadcast from the dropdown menu: All, Active, Inactive, or Draft.
- Select the Running Status from the dropdown menu: All, Queue, Provision, Ready, Running, or Done.
- Select Line of Business and click "Search". Click clear to discard the search.
Step 3: You will see the search results below in the following format.
Step 4: You can only Edit the Broadcast which is in the draft. Search the Draft broadcast and click on edit to edit the fields. Below is the screenshot for your reference:
Step 5: To Reuse any existing Broadcast, search for the broadcast which you want to reuse and click on the Reuse Action button as shown below:
After clicking on the Reuse button, you will see the below screen:
By default, it will show you "Reuse-<Your Broadcast Name>" but you can change it as per your need and schedule it to a different date and time. Click Submit for Reusing it or click Cancel to discard the Reuse.
Step 6: To check reports, search for the broadcast which you want to check, then click on the Reports Action button as shown below:
After clicking on the Reports button, you will see the below screen with all the details:
Click on the download button to download the file in Excel format.
Step 7: To Delete the Broadcast, search for the broadcast which you want to delete and mark the checkbox as shown below:
The moment you check the box the delete button will activate and you can click Delete.
You will see a confirmation message as shown below. Click delete to delete the file permanently and cancel to discard the delete.