After you've set up your texting information in Shepherd's Staff, you're ready to send out text messages. Sending out texts from Shepherd's Staff can be accomplished by clicking the send email button on the Shepherd's Staff Central Toolbar (Envelope with lines coming out of it). If you only need to send to one individual, you can do that from their person record, by clicking the cell phone icon inside of their Person or Contributor record. After you click thone of these buttons, follow the steps below.
- Click the "To..." button and click the "Cell phones" button in the window that appears.
- In the "Who" field, select the group of people you want to be able to select from.
- Select from the listed options to filter which people and emails you see in the "Unselected" box.
- In the Unselected box, click on the person you want to add, and then press the Add button. If you want to select multiple people at once, hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard as you click on each person. To add all people in the Unselected box, click the "Add all" option. To search for a specific person, type in the person's name in the search box above the Unselected box and press the search button (Magnifying Glass)
- To remove people from your selected box and click Remove. If you want to select multiple people at once, hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard as you click on each person. To remove all people from the Selected box, click "Remove all". to search for a specific person, type in the person's name in the search box above the Selected box and press the search button (Magnifying Glass)
- Click Select to confirm your selections.
Next, you'll need to fill in your message:
- Fill in the Subject line of your Message in "Subject"
- Click the Attachments button (Paper Clip) to open the Add Attachment(s) window. In this window, you can add attachments to your email. Click the add button (Paperclip with a green + sign) to open your file explorer. You can then browse your computer and select the file you want to add by double clicking on it. To remove an attachment, select it in the "Attachments selected window" and click the remove button (Paperclip with a red x) to remove the selected file. You can click the button with two red minus signs to remove all attached files
- Click the Save icon to add your attachments to your email.
- Type in your message in the message box and press Send to send your email to your email client. Within your email client, you will need to press the Send button to send the message.
Note: Most email services have restrictions on the number of email addresses and total file size of your attachments. While Shepherd's Staff will not restrict how many numbers you include on a text message, or the size of file you choose to attach, your email service will automatically reject your message if you exceed these limits. Check with your email service provider for more details.
You may also want to create templates for messages that you plan to send out frequently. For this, we offer a message library.
- Access the Message Library by pressing the button to the right of the BCC field with the multiple envelopes stacked on top of each other
- Click the + sign in the next window to add a new message.
- Type in the name of your message in the Name of Message field. When you save your message, this is what the message will show up as in the "Messages Available" field. Then, fill in the Subject and Message Text. When finished, click the save icon. This will add the message to the Messages Available field.
- To delete a saved message, select it in the "Messages Available" field and click the delete icon (Trash Can) to delete the message.
- After you have selected your message, click the box with the checkmark in it to use that message for your text message.