Set up a Group management system with this activity using free Missed Calls. Missed Calls received on your FrontlineSync connected Android phone trigger an action in this Activity that can be used to add senders of the Missed Calls to a Group. The purpose of this Activity is to:
- Subscribe contacts to Groups: This Activity can be used as a direct way of adding contacts to Groups without the need for SMSs to be written by the user.
- Manage Missed Calls: You can use it to send automated responses to any Missed Calls, add the callers to a Group, contact them later and remove them from the group once contacted.
Interesting ways to use Subscribe to Groups via Missed Call:
This Activity is a versatile way of using Missed Calls to manage various interesting activities such as:
- Listener list building for radio stations: Build a list of listeners and followers for your community radio project that by having listeners call in and added to community groups, at no cost to the listener.
- Sign petitions and run campaigns. Allow people to join your next campaign by asking them simply to “flash this number to get involved - it’s free!”. People can become part of your community with a simple Missed Call to your Android phone.
- Invite participants to events: This is great for communities (for example a co-working space, a church or a learning institution) that would like to send out periodic invites and notifications to their members. Have those interested to simply call an Android phone’s number and they will be notified that they are subscribed immediately via a return SMS.
- Schools and communities: Adding your community to your SMS newsletter group.
Using this Activity in conjunction with other multiple Activities that can run parallel with each other to manage contacts. Two Activities that work very well with this are:
- Subscribe to Groups via SMS
- Contact Data Update via SMS
The welcome message that this Missed Call triggered Activity sends can provide instructions for completing registration using the Contact Update Activity e.g. “You are now subscribed to the Newsletter Group! Reply with NAME and your name to complete your sign up.” This NAME reply will then trigger the other Activity.
In the same way the Subscribe via SMS Activity can handled the opt out of the group where this Missed Call Activity handles the opt in e.g. “You are now subscribed to the Newsletter Group! If you want to unsubscribe simply reply with LEAVE at any time and we’ll remove you.” This LEAVE reply can then trigger your other Subscribe via SMS Activity
How this Activity Works
- A Missed call is received on the phone with the FrontlineSync installed
- The details are sent to the FrontlineSMS workspace
- Your instance of this Activity is triggered by the Missed Call
- The Activity first checks if there is a Contact record for the sender of the Missed Call
- If there is it then checks if the Contact is already in the Group
- If the Contact does not exist, or exists but is not in the Group then the Contact is added to the Group
- If the Contact is added then the welcome message is sent out as an automatic SMS.
- If the Contact is already in the Group then no message is sent out and no membership change is made
Working with this Activity requires an active connection between your FrontlineSMS workspace and FrontlineSync our Android App. This app needs to be installed on the phone that will be used to sync the Missed Calls with FrontlineSMS. This cannot be done using a web aggregator.
Working with Groups
A Group is a used to organize people so as to be able to work with sets of Contacts and message and manage them. A Contact can be in one or more Groups and a Group is simply made up of its Name and its list of Contact members.
When setting this Activity up you can use an existing Group or create a new one:
- New Group: If your Group does not already exist it is as simple as entering the name of the Group.
- Existing Group: If you want to use a pre-existing group ‘Newsletter’, then you must type in group name exactly. If you include extra characters such as ‘News Letter’ then the Activity will create a new Group named ‘News Letter’ instead of using the pre-existing ‘Newsletter’ Group. A list of existing Groups can be found under the People section listed on the left side of the page.
Filling in the Activity Details
Filling in the details of the Activity is as simple as giving the Activity a Name and entering a Group name that the senders of the Missed Call will be added to. Then simply enter the welcome text you wish to return to the users to confirm that they have been added to the Group with any further instructions they might need.
Managing the Activity
When you have the Activity there is reporting and some statistics that explain what the Activity has done and what it is set up to do. It will show the number of Subscribers that have sent in Missed Calls and the number of the messages that have been sent out as Autoreplies. It also summarises the settings of the Activity. To access this reporting click on the Activity that you have created from the Activities page and you will see the Activity view page:
FrontlineSMS also shows exactly what happens when a Missed Call is received and a subscriber is added to the Group. Below is an example of what happens when a Missed Call is received. You can see the contact “Steve” calls and is not a member of the group yet. Steve is then added to the Group and receives an SMS reply. You can see this view by clicking on any Missed Call in your Inbox and selecting “View this Interaction's Activity actions and other details”:
Activity events in interaction details page where a contact Nancy is added to the Group
This is useful when checking to see what messaging and experience a particular user has been through from your Activities. Below you can see when “Nancy Pauline” leaves a Missed Call she does not receive any SMS from the Activity because she is already in the Group:
Image of activity events in interaction details page where a contact 'Nancy Pauline' is already in the group and so does not receive a (what would be redundant) welcome message
0 Comments