Sending SMS Messages with Admissions+
To see a video of these instructions, click here…
Admissions+ can now send SMS messages out to students, in addition to sending them emails.
To accomplish this, we have partnered with a company called Esendex, who already provide many schools with SMS messaging capabilities.
The details:
- Firstly, to use this, your school will need to open an account with Esendex, and put some SMS credits in the account. You can click on this link to go straight to Esendex to open an account with them, if your school does not automatically have one.
- Once you have a login ID, password, and account number, you’ll need to enter them into the Admissions+ application. To do this, in A+, go to: Settings / School Settings / Integrations:
- Click on the ‘edit’ button at the top right to enter the correct details. If you have entered everything correctly and ‘saved’ the details, you will see a green banner underneath your details showing you how many SMS credits you have left in your Esendex account. (See image below.)
Now, we will be adding more and more places inside A+ from where you can send SMS messages.
For now though, you can find the ‘Send SMS’ feature wherever you see a list of students.
For example, let’s assume you have clicked on one coloured rectangles that shows you students in a particular group that you have set up, and you have chosen at least one student to view.
At this point, you should see a number of buttons at the top of screen, including one labelled “Communications”.
If you click on the ‘Communications’ button, you will an option to send an SMS to these students. Click on this option…
The Composition Window:
This window allows you to create the message content you wish to send out via SMS.
At the top, you can see how many messages you have remaining in your Esendex account. If there isn’t enough credit to send messages to everyone you’ve selected, it will appear in red.
Underneath where it says how many recipients you have selected, we show you the count of recipients who have a valid UK phone number registered in A+ against their name.
You can see how many characters you have remaining in your SMS message underneath the message composition box. Should you to beyond the normal character limit of 160 characters, you can continue to add text, but Esendex will break your message up into two (or more) texts, which will cost you more credits. To help you know how many SMS your message will take, look next to where it says ‘SMS Count’.
To the right, we show you how the message will appear when split across two different SMS’s.
Using Templates:
You can predefine some templates to use in your SMS messages, and you can also use “mail merge” type fields when doing so. To make a new template, first go to:
‘Communications & Events’ using the menu at the far left. Then, choose ‘communications’ and ‘manual meetings’. Then finally select ‘SMS’ from the menu on the left. From here, you can add a new template that can also contain “mail merge” fields, which we call ‘personalisation tokens’. The ‘subject header’ box won’t actually add a subject to your SMS (they can’t have one!), but it can be helpful to create it as it will help you identify the message when reviewing sent messages later on.
If you name the template, you will be able to see, and add it, when normally selecting the SMS message route of sending messages in A+.
Troubleshooting:
- INVALID ESSENDEX CREDENTIALS - Once you have created an account from Essendex, the next step would be putting it in Admissions+ - Integration area (Settings > school settings > Integration)
If you've seen the message below written in yellow font color which says, 'Credentials are not valid. Please check your credentials at https://www.esendex.com/profile and update the username/password and try again.' - Kindly follow through the steps below:
1. Go to https://www.esendex.com/profile
2. Login using your Essendex Credentials you've set up when you first created an Essendex Account
Note: If the below viewing is different from what you are seeing in your Essendex accounts - you will need to contact Essendex support for further assistance
3. After you've provided your email address & password, it will ask you for a verification code from the Google Authenticator (or any similar app)
4. Once the code has been provided, you will be logged into your main dashboard
5. Click on 'Administration' located on the top right of the page
6. Then from the accounts area, you'll click on the icon from the right corner of the screen and click on 'edit user profile'
7. Lastly click on 'Generate new API password' under Change API password
Note: Once you saved the password generated, it will not be shown again, therefore you'll need to save it elsewhere just in case you missed it before proceeding.
8. Tick 'I understand updating the API password means the current password will become invalid and that this can't be undone' then click on 'SAVE'
9. Lastly, if you go back to your Admissions+ account and kindly navigate to (Settings > school settings > Integration) - You'll have to put the new API password you have generated;
If you have entered everything correctly and ‘saved’ the details, you will see a green banner underneath your details showing you how many SMS credits you have left in your Esendex account. (See image below.)
Should you have any further concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our support line at the following number: 0208 762 0882.