Manual SMS

Manual SMS

Manual SMS action is a valuable tool in your platform that you can use to queue contacts that need to be messaged.  

This article will show you how to set up a manual SMS action from start to finish. 

Navigating In Contacts

To begin, click “Conversations” in the left menu. 

And then click “Manual Actions” on the top menu.  

In this section, you’ll find all your previously-created manual actions. You can sort these by workflows or by the assigned user.  

Because we haven’t yet created any manual actions, we’ll need to set one up. 

Manual Actions in Workflows

Manual actions are set up in workflows, so the first thing you’ll need to do is click “Automation” in the left menu.  

Once you’re in automation, click “Workflows” in the top menu. Then, select “Start from Scratch” in the main view. Lastly, click the “Create New Workflow” button at the top right. 

Set Up Actions

Inside the workflow is where you can set up an action. Click Add an action and search for manual actions. There are two types of actions:

1. Manual Calls

2. Manual SMS 

In this article, we’re creating a manual SMS action, so we’ll select “Manual SMS”. Once selected, publish the workflow and click “Save”.  

Here you can add your SMS message text. Please note that this message can also be edited when sending. 

Publish the workflow and click “Save”.  

Now go to your main menu and select ‘Contacts’.  

Selecting Contacts

Inside the contacts section, select one or multiple contacts you want to add to the workflow by clicking the checkbox to the left of the contact’s name.  

For this example, we’re only going to select one contact. 

Once you’ve selected the contacts, click the “Add to Workflow” icon as shown below: 

In the pop-up that appears, click the “Ok, Proceed” button. 

This will open a list of all your manual actions. Now, select the manual action workflow you just created.  

Adding Contacts In Workflows

There are three ways to add contacts to your workflow:

1. Add all contacts at once

2. Add all at a scheduled time

3. Add in drip mode 

Once you’ve selected your desired option, click “Add to Campaign/Workflow”. 

Next, click “Conversations” on the left menu and Manual Actions.  

Here you can see the manual action we added for the single contact in our workflow: 

You can also see that our manual action is assigned to a user. This means that the manual action will show up on the dashboard of the assigned user to ensure they see it.  

Begin Manual SMS Action

To begin the manual SMS action, click “Let’s Start”.  

This will take you to the contact page and automatically populate the manual SMS content in the message box. Here you can edit the message if you want to.  

Manual SMS can be used to schedule an SMS during the contact’s time of availability, this assures a better chance of response.