Sending SMS from MagManager

MagManager allows you to send and receive SMS text messages directly from within the system. There are a few steps that you need to perform in order to enable this function. These are outlined in this document.

MagManager have chosen to integrate with ‘Text Marketer’ (www.textmarketer.co.uk) in order to provide the link between MagManager and the 3G/4G mobile phone network.  You will need to set up an account for your company with ‘Text Marketer’ and purchase a bundle of text messages in order to send messages (you will get 10 free messages when you sign up).

If you would like to receive SMS text message replies back into MagManager you will also need to subscribe to a ‘txtUs’ mobile number. 

SECTION 1: Setting up MagManager to send SMS messages

Once you have completed this process you will be able to send text messages to your customers directly from within MagManager.

1. Visit http://www.textmarketer.co.uk
2. Click the ‘Sign Up’ link at the top right of the screen.
3. Complete the details. Make sure your mobile number is entered correctly and that you have it with you because Text Marketer will send verification links to this number.
4. Once you have signed up, Text Marketer will immediately send you a verification code to your phone. Enter the code into the Text Marketer website.
5. Once verified you will receive another text message containing a link, as well as a username and password.
6. Click the link – or go to http://messagebox.textmarketer.co.uk
7. Enter the username and password that you received in the text message. Then press login.
8. You should now see the following screen:

   

9. Hover your cursor above the icon circled in the screenshot above, this will then show a drop-down menu shown below. Click on ‘Account Settings’ as circled below.

10. Your account details will now be displayed. You now need to click the ‘API Config’ tab circled below:

11. You should now see a screen that has ‘API Gateway Username and Password’ with a Username and Password displayed, as shown (blanked out) in the below screenshot. THESE VALUES ARE VERY IMPORTANT. Make a note of both the Username and Password (NOTE: these values are different to the details you used to login to Text Marketer).

12. In another window login to MagManager.

13. Go to settings by pressing the cog in the top right menu bar.

14. Click on the ‘System Defaults’ section. This screen has a section for your SMS Settings:

15. Fill in the Username and Password that you noted in Step 11 – the VERY IMPORTANT ones!

16. If you only want to send text messages and don’t intend to receive replies, then you can put the name of your company, or a shortened version, in the ‘Reply Number’ field. This field cannot contain spaces and must be no longer than 11 characters. If you do wish to receive text messages into MagManager you will need this field later, but for now just type in the name of your company (with no spaces). Whatever value you choose here will appear as the ‘From’ when you send a text message from MagManager.

17. Press ‘Update’ and return back to MagManager.

18. You should now be setup to send text messages.

 

SECTION 2: How to send an SMS from MagManager

Before sending messages to your clients you will want to check that you have set it up correctly.

1. In MagManager go to any client or a test client if you have one.
2. Go to the Details tab and change the mobile number for the Primary Contact to your mobile number (make a note of the original one!).
   
   When testing please make sure that the mobile number you are using is NOT associated with any other clients in MagManager and is NOT included in any User / My Details settings.  If it is please remove it before testing and replace it afterwords.  Or use an alternative mobile number not connected to MagManager.
3. Press Update.
4. The client screen will refresh and your mobile number should be displayed at the top of the screen.
5. Click on the mobile phone icon. If you’ve got the configuration steps correct you will see a screen similar to the following:

If you receive an error message you need to go back and check the username and password that you configured in Section 1 – Step 11.

6. The Credits value should be 10. This is because you get 10 free credits when you first sign up to Text Marketer. MagManager will always give you a real-time update of how many credits you have left. Once this reaches 0 you will not be able to send texts and you will need to purchase a bundle of texts from Text Marketer.
7. Type in your text message in the ‘message’ box. Press Send. You should see a green bar telling you that the text message has been sent successfully.
8. Messages normally arrive within seconds and will appear to be from the ‘Reply Number’ that you completed in the earlier configuration steps.
9. If everything worked OK – you can now repeat these steps to send text messages to your customers.

SECTION 3: How to buy more text messages

You will run out of your free 10 messages fairly quickly. You can buy additional messages from the Text Marketer service.

1. Go to the Text Marketer messagebox: http://messagebox.textmarketer.co.uk
2. At the top right of the screen you will see a purchase button, circled below:

3. Clicking purchase will bring up the following screen:

4. You can either purchase a bundle or a specific number of messages. Just click how many you would like to purchase and follow the instructions that appear.
5. Once you have completed your purchase; when you attempt to send a message from MagManager the ‘Credits’ value should reflect your additional purchase.

SECTION 4: Setting up MagManager to RECEIVE text messages

Your customers can also reply to text messages that you send them. In order to do so you have to buy a txtUs number from TextMarketer. The number you buy is then associated with your company in MagManager. When your customers reply to texts you will receive an alert, an email and a timeline entry for the customer.

Once you have completed this process you should be able to receive text messages from your customers into MagManager.

1. Go to the Text Marketer messagebox: http://messagebox.textmarketer.co.uk
2. At the top right of the screen you will see a purchase button:

3. Clicking purchase will bring up the following screen:

4. You need to buy a ‘txtUS’ number (the middle section). Click on the drop-down and choose a number that you like (this will be the number people can text MagManager on).
5. Press the subscribe button.
6. There are no discounts for purchasing multiple months, so we’d recommend just choosing a subscription period of 1 month to start with.
7. Go through the payment process and press the ‘Menu’ button at the top left of the screen:

8. From the main menu icons – choose ‘Message Control’ as shown below:

8. You will now see the following screen, click on the ‘Received Messages’ tab as circled below:

8. The first item in the Inbox section (highlighted in the screenshot below) shows your newly purchased number. WRITE THIS DOWN AS IT IS DISPLAYED WITHOUT THE BRACKETS. NOTE: Do NOT write down the number that has (free) against it.

11. Now go back to MagManager and go to Settings -> System Defaults.
12. In the SMS Settings section you will see the following:

13. In the reply number field enter the number exactly as it appears in text marketer.  The one you noted in step 10.  It must be in the format 447800006596 and NOT 07800006596.
14. Highlight the text that is displayed in the Email field and copy it to your clipboard (Ctrl-C or CMD-C); you will need to paste this value in the next few steps.
15. Go back to the Text Marketer site. You should still be on the same page as step 10.
16. Make sure that the mobile number you purchased is highlighted in the ‘Inboxes’ section on the left hand side.
17. Press the ‘Configure’ button circled in the screenshot below:

18. There are 3 tabs to the popup that appears: Ensure that they are configured with the switches as below:
                   

PASTE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS FROM STEP 14 INTO THE ‘Email’ FIELD.

NOTE: the magmanager.space email address is specific to each MagManager user.  If you have multiple users on your MagManager account, the user who sets it up will receive the text notification as an email from Text Marketer.  If you want the email to go to a generic email address you will have to set that email address up as a user in MagManager and add the email settings from that user to the email field in Text Marketer.

                         

 

19. Once you’ve checked that you have these set – click OK.
20. That’s it – you should now be able to receive SMS text messages from your customers.

SECTION 5: How to Receive an SMS into MagManager

Before receiving messages from your clients you’ll want to check that you’ve set it up correctly.

1. Send a text message from MagManager to yourself using the method described in SECTION 2.

2. It should appear from the number you set up in SECTION 4.

3. Enter your reply and click send just as you would with any text message.
4. If you’re logged in to MagManager as as Admin user, you will see a popup notification in the top right of the screen and a SMS Received message will appear in your notifications.  Non Admin users will not see the popup or SMS Received in notifications.

5. The text message will appear in the timeline for the customer. This is easier to see if you have the timeline in tabular mode (press ‘View as List’ on the right).

 

    From the client timeline tab > Click the SMS Received line to display the clients reply message.

6. In addition, an email containing the contents of the text message will be forwarded to you from Text Marketer - it can only go to one email address. If you require the email to go to multiple users, you would need to set up forwarding on your email account.
   
   

SECTION 6: Sending an SMS Mailshot in MagManager

Once this has all been set up, you will be able to bulk message customers via SMS in MagManager. This is done by creating an SMS Mailshot, and is fairly simple as outlined in the steps below.

NOTE: Only admin users have permission to send mailshots from MagManager.

1. Go to the Reports screen and select ‘Create Mailshots’. This will bring up a grey box explaining what this feature does. Click on this box to be taken to the Mailing screen.
2. Now in the Mailing screen, you will be able to select your communication method from the drop-down menu. Select ‘SMS’.
3. For more information on the Search criteria, check the Mailshots in MagManager notes.
4. Once you have completed your search, you can either individually select the clients you want to send an SMS to, or send to all of the selected clients.
5. Select ‘Create Message’ on the top right of the screen. This will bring up the message content box.
6. Once you have completed your message content, press ‘Preview and Send’ – this will bring up the Preview SMS box.
7. You can choose to either ‘Send All Messages’, ‘Skip and Next SMS’ (this will not send the current message that is displayed and will go on to the next in the queue) or ‘Send and Next SMS’ (this will send the current message that is displayed and then go to the next one in the queue – useful if you want to double check each message first).
8. Once all of the communications have been processed, they will be added to the Client timeline.

SECTION 7: Costs

Please note that all purchases of text messages or mobile numbers using Text Marketer are completely outside of the MagManager environment and are therefore completely outside of our control.

At the time of writing (March 2024) you are likely to incur the following costs for sending text messages:

 

NOTE that Text Marketer will double your initial credit for less than 10,000 messages providing the purchase is made in the first week of signup. This takes the effective message rate to 2.5p (excl. VAT).

In order to receive texts, you will need to purchase a txtUs number. This will add an additional cost of £10 per month. There are no further costs for receiving text messages into MagManager.

 

Links to Text Marketer's Own Help Guides:

On 29th January 20201 Text Marketer reset the API usernames and passwords on all Text Marketer accounts - below is a link to their help guide.

Changing Your API Details