Legal Requirements

1) Every message must identify the sender. The best identification includes “UNITE HERE” in the sender name because that matches the name registered on our account.

2) You must include this boilerplate phrase in your Opt-In Path or any first message to a new number, including welcome messages:

Recurring Msgs. Reply STOP to quit, HELP for info. Msg&DataRatesMayApply

Mobile Commons provides this content as a placeholder for your convenience.

3) You must include the boilerplate phrase “Recurring Msgs. Reply STOP to quit, HELP for info. Msg&DataRatesMayApply” when sending a message to an existing Group that you’ve updated if you aren’t subscribing new phone numbers through an Opt-In Path that contains the boilerplate.

4) Every message must include a version of this phrase:

Reply STOP to quit

“STOP” must be in all-caps.

5) Neither “HELP for more info” nor “Data&MsgRatesMayApply” is required after a subscriber gets their first message.

Naming Convention

When creating a Broadcast, label it with the Local, city (if applicable), a brief description of the message, and the date it will go out, e.g.:

Local 23 - Indy - Welcome Test Message - 20200304

Use this naming convention for Broadcasts, Attachments, Groups, Opt-In Paths, and tracked links.

Send 160-Character Messages

Messages without image attachments must have fewer than 160 characters (including spaces), but using so-called special characters or emoji can require your messages to be even shorter. Click here for the full explanation of special characters and emoji.

Here are 4 great tips for keeping your messages in line.

1) Rewrite

The easiest way to keep your message to 160 characters is to cut out unnecessary information. Instead of this:

Try this:

2) Use a Link

Text people a link to read more online. This is great for complex information, like health care. The link can go to the information posted on your Local's Website or even social media. For best results, use Mobile Commons's built-in link tracking. Go to the Link Tracking section for detailed instructions.

3) Use MMS

Another trick for avoiding multipart SMS is creating an image with the text you’d like to send. You will need both image and text to use this technique; Mobile Commons won’t send an image without any text. You can use canva.com or screenshot the notes app on your phone.

4) Add a Message

Use “Add a Message” and ask recipients to respond if they want more information. Anything they respond will send the next message, so be careful that the next message sounds right coming after the common responses you usually get.

Special Characters

Certain accented letters, non-Roman alphabets, and all emoji are labeled “special characters” and take up an additional 90 characters that you can’t see, reducing your overall limit to 70 characters. (This is a problem with the international standards for handsets and will not go away for a long time.)

Roman letters that are not affected:

à

Å

å

Ä

ä

Æ

æ

Ç

é

É

è

ì

Ñ

ñ

ò

Ö

ö

Ø

ø

ß

ù

Ü

ü

Examples

Using non-special characters, Mobile Commons recognizes the word “union” is 5 characters and the message has 155 characters left.

Spelling "unión" in Spanish uses special characters; the “ó” is 90 characters and the remaining letters (u, n, i, and n) are each one character for a total of 96 characters. That message will only have 65 characters left.

Once you use a special character in a message, subsequent special characters take up the expected number of characters. For example, the message “unión unión” with two special characters takes up 101 characters (96 + 5) and the message has 59 characters left.

Note how the definition of special characters affects different common Spanish words: the word “unión” takes up 96 characters but the word “español” takes up only 7 characters.

Emoji

Mobile Commons does not recognize all emoji. Test your emojis on emojipedia.org to see how they look on phones with different kinds of software. Reminder: emoji also limit your character count to 70 characters.

Links

Use Mobile Commons’s built-in link tracking so that any tracked link is a maximum of 25 characters. Otherwise, links take up the full number of characters in the URL: https://unitehere.org is 21 characters but longer URLs, like links to Facebook, will take up more characters. 

Resources

Check how many characters your texts have: https://www.lettercount.com

Test your emojis: https://emojipedia.org

Test how your message will split into multi-part SMS: http://chadselph.github.io/smssplit/

Avoid Multi-Part SMS

Do not send Broadcasts as multi-part SMS unless absolutely necessary. These messages fail to deliver more often, are unnecessarily costly to the union, and you cannot control how Android phones split the message into 160-character chunks, which can make your Broadcast unintelligible.

Should I send this as multi-part SMS or MMS?

First, learn your own best practices by tracking which kind of message tends to fail more often with your audience. Also, consider how vital every part of the message is to the whole sense, since you can’t guarantee anyone will get all the parts of a multi-part message or get them in the right order! Consider adding an image if any broadcast would get split into more than two parts (count characters and divide by 160 or use the SMS split tool). In those cases you may also reconsider sending all the content via text and can send people the information via a trackable link instead.

Mobile Commons Basics

Send a Broadcast

Go to Text Messaging-->Campaigns. Find your campaign and click “New Broadcast,” then follow these five steps.

1. Name
2. Conversation
3. Recipients
4. Review & Schedule
5. Broadcast Report

Step 1: Name

Name your Broadcast according to your Local’s naming convention, including your local number or campaign, the subject of the message, and the date (e.g. L2_HyattAction_2-5-15). Click “Save & Continue.”

Step 2: Conversation

Click in the first green bubble where you see the legal boilerplate phrases and write your message. Every Conversation must comply with Legal Requirements, so use this placeholder text for your convenience.

From this screen, it is possible to send three types of messages: SMS, Multi-Part SMS, and MMS. SMS messages are 160 characters (including spaces) and can include Web links. Multi-Part SMS messages are more than 160 characters long (including spaces) and can include Web links but do not contain images. MMS messages are 2,000 characters including spaces, can include Web links, and include an image. You can tell which kind of message you are sending by looking at the character counter to the bottom right under any green bubble or in Step 4: Review & Send. Send only SMS or MMS; see "Send 160-Character Messages."

OR

To add an image to your message, scroll down to Attach Media at the bottom of the long green menu on the right that appears when you click in the first green Conversation bubble. Select the image you uploaded to Attachments (see "Attachments" below).

You can add additional messages to your Conversation by clicking “Add a Message” below the sample response bubble. When you are satisfied with your message, click “Save & Continue.”

Note: The long green menu to the right of the Conversation bubbles offers a number of advanced features that you will likely will not use; see "Other Things You Can Do" for more information.

Step 3: Recipients

NEVER click the box to “Send Broadcast” to an entire list of subscribers for a campaign. If you need to send a broad messages, have a master group for everyone in the local or campaign. See "Group Management."

Select the Group or Groups to whom you will send your message by typing a few letters of the name of the Group in the box with placeholder phrase “Click here to Target Groups” under the phrase “Also include the following groups.”

Mobile Commons will filter for Groups with names that match your selected text and show you a list of possible Groups; click the name to select the correct one. You can add more Groups by clicking in the box again.

You can also suppress multiple Groups from being targeted by clicking in the box with the placeholder phrase “Click here to Suppress Groups” and typing to filter for the name of your Group. Mobile Commons’s computer logic first targets all selected Groups and then suppresses all selected Groups, so if the same person is in a Group that is targeted and a Group that is suppressed, they will not receive the message.

Once you have targeted and suppressed the Groups you want, click “Save & Continue.”

Step 4: Review & Schedule

Re-read the message for any errors and be sure you attached the right image, if any. Ensure each message in the Conversation will only be sent as SMS or MMS (not Multi-Part SMS) and that MMS messages have suppressed SMS failover.

Look at the names of targeted Groups and make sure the number of Estimated Recipients is consistent with what you expect. Use the links at the top to go back to any step that needs correction.

To start sending your Broadcast, click the radio button to the left of “Send Now” and then “Schedule” and then “OK.” 

To send the message later, click the radio button to the left of “Send at” and select the year, month, day, hour and minute in each drop-down, and then click “Schedule” and then “OK.” 

Note that times are listed in 24-hour or military time. To send a message at 6 PM, select 18 in the hour drop-down, not 6!

Step 5: Broadcast Report and Failures

Check the Broadcast Report within 30 minutes of message delivery and at least once more the next day. There are two ways to retrieve the Broadcast Report:

Go to the list of Broadcasts for your Campaign and click Report.

OR

Go to the Broadcast and click Report in the Broadcast Actions menu on the right.

Scroll to the bottom of the Broadcast Report to find a table of the different kind of responses. Just above the responses table is a link that lists the number of messages sent (5,933, shown in a red rectangle in the example). The links indicating the count of Opt-Outs (4 in red circle in the example below) and the count of Replies (70 in red circle the example below) will take you to lists of those responses. You can also get a list of who clicked the link, and what time, and how often (in red circle below).

If a worker's phone plan rejects messages from a short code like 877-877, Mobile Commons will try to send them the message again from the number 1-786-800-5067.

Some people did not get the message, despite being opted in and targeted to receive the message. To find out who didn't get the message at all, click the link that lists the number of messages sent (5,933 in a red rectangle in the above example) and in the next screen click “Failed” in the Status list to filter for messages that failed. The Failed filter is correct even if the table text indicates a message was sent (marked with a red line below). You can download a list of who didn't receive the message by clicking the "Save as CSV" button in the upper right. 

You can try to text a small number of failures manually from your phone or have another worker forward the text to them. Unfortunately, we don’t always know why a message failed. Factors include the member’s wireless carrier, their phone plan, and even their phone handset. If you see an unusual number of failures, email support@unitehere.org so we can work with Mobile Commons to improve deliverability.

Do these things after you pull a Broadcast Report

1. Forward relevant opt outs, replies, and message failures to the organizing team.
2. Respond to questions people text back.
3. Opt out people who ask to be removed from the list. Mobile Commons opts people out automatically based on certain words, but we are legally liable to double check and unsubscribe people who ask to leave the list.
4. Learn what kind of messages are not getting delivered, and who is not getting them. Track your failure rate and pay attention to Broadcasts that deviate.

Texting Tips

• Send messages between 9 PM and 9 PM. Don’t “automatically adjust for time zones” when sending messages because it doesn’t always work. Messages sent very early in the morning have higher opt-out rates.
• Make a group with just your phone number so you can send yourself test messages.
• Try a conversational tone in your messages so people feel comfortable engaging.

Attachments

To send an image with your message, you first have to upload the image to Mobile Commons.

Go to the left menu. Click “Text Messaging” and then “Attachments.” 

On the top right, click “Create New Attachment.”

Upload the .png .jpeg, .jpg, or .gif file. If you have a .pdf or .doc file, the quickest way to convert it is to take a screenshot. You can also create a compatible image on canva.com. Remember to name your file according to the naming convention.

Click in the green bubble of the message to which you want to add the attachments. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the green menu. Click “Attach media,” find your file, and click the name to add it to your message. You won’t see the image in your message until Step 4.

You cannot send video attachments through Mobile Commons. If you have a video, post it on Facebook or elsewhere online and text people the link. You can only send one attachment per message; if you have multiple images to send, use canva.com to create a collage.

DO NOT remove the check mark from the box to the right of the phrase “Suppress SMS Failover.” Unchecking this box will make your message more likely to fail.

After you’ve sent a message with a media attachment, archive the attachment to reduce clutter. You can restore archived attachments by selecting Archived as the type of Attachment to show on the main Attachments screen.

Link Tracking

Use Mobile Commons link tracking to know exactly who clicked, control the number of characters in your message, and as a tool to get people more information. 

First, click the link icon on the side menu, then click “Links.”

Then in the right-hand corner, click “Track Web Clicks.”

Give your link a name (following the naming convention), paste the link in the box labeled “Destination URL,” then scroll to the bottom to click “Create.”

Your link is now available to copy and paste. To look at link clicks and other data, click “View Record.”

Uploading People and Groups 

Use the Mobile Commons template

Download or type the list of the new numbers, making sure all phone numbers have 10 digits (or 11 if there is a 1 at the front). Copy and paste the relevant data into the Mobile Commons template (attached). These are the columns in the template in which you must put data:

Broadstripes ID, TIMSS ID, or Se Puede ID

YOU MUST INCLUDE AT LEAST ONE OF THESE ID NUMBERS IN EVERY PROFILE.

Choose one and be consistent. Broadstripes ID has three letters, a hyphen, and three digits; TIMSS ID has two letters and six digits.

Phone

Don’t worry about formatting.

First Name and Last Name

Postal Code

Columns you may want to use

1. Email
2. Language
3. Company or Property. This must be written exactly the same for everyone in your campaign for Filtered Groups to work.
4. Local: input as a number without the word “Local.”

You can ignore all other columns

Add to an Existing Group

If you have more numbers to add to a group you've already created, use “Upload More People” instead of creating a new group. Do this in the list of Groups:

Or click the name of a Group and select “Upload More Profiles” from the Group Actions menu on the right.

Upload your prepared CSV file by clicking the "Choose File" button (circled in red) and then click "Preview Changes" (circled in blue). By default, your upload will "Create/Update Profiles."

If the upload is only for targeting and the complete profile already exist in Mobile Commons, you can choose the radio button called "Segment Only" instead of "Create/Update Profiles" and you can also just paste the phone numbers into the box above the radio buttons. ONLY DO THIS if the Profiles already exist, or you’ll have mystery people in your Campaign and you won’t know what information to send them later.

You can use this same procedure to remove people from a Group. Choose the "Remove Profiles" option and upload the people you want to remove.

Create a New Group

1. Home-->Groups-->Make New Group
2. Name your group, starting with your local number (e.g. “L2_HyattFishermansWharf”)
3. Click radio button “Uploading a CSV file” and click Create
4. Browse to upload your .csv file and click Preview Group
5. Make sure the preview looks ok and click Create Group

Subscribe to a Campaign or Opt-In Path

Whenever you upload more people to Mobile Commons, you must subscribe them to a Campaign or Opt-In Path. Select Subscribe to Campaign from the Group Actions menu you can see on the right-hand side of the page that loads after you've uploaded people (or when you click the group name)…

From here, you'll see a long list of campaigns and opt-in paths (these are  and denoted by a hyphen and listed under the campaign to which they belong). Select the campaign or opt-in path and then click Subscribe…

You'll get the warning below reminding you that subscribing someone to a campaign will not automatically send them a message, but subscribing them to an opt-in path will automatically send them the message associated with that opt-in path. You may want to, for example, have an opt-in path that sends a welcome message with the required legalese.

Group management

Notice that you can also rename the group or remove Profiles in the Group Actions menu. You can delete a group or add or remove Profiles from the list of Groups. Rename and delete groups for your own sanity. Always use your naming convention.

Troubleshoot delivery problems

The T-Mobile Problem

If a member receives no message or an error code if they try to use a keyword, they will have to call T-Mobile to fix it.

1. Gather your account information (account number, primary contact for account changes) and have these ready for your call.
2. Call T-Mobile Customer Service at 1 (800) 866-2453. 
3. Tell the customer service representative you want to get messages from a 6-digit number (877877) and ask them to enable “short-code texting.”
4. Once enabled, text HELP (or one of your Campaign’s Keywords) to 877877 to make sure it works

Other Things You Can Do

Most of the messages you send will be pretty simple, but Mobile Commons has other features.

Ask to Call In

Also known as an mConnect or click-to-call. Email support@unitehere.org if you want to use this digital action. There are additional costs.

Trigger an mData

The mData feature lets people text into a database, like when you text your bus stop number to the transit authority and get the next two buses scheduled to arrive. UNITE HERE does not currently use this feature; email support@unitehere.org if you want to set it up.

Advertise a Keyword

Enables people to opt themselves into another Campaign.

Tell a Friend

Enables people to invite their friends to opt themselves into your Campaign

Multiple Choice Question

A poll-by-text feature that tabulates results.

Save Response As

Lets you ask a question and save their response in their Mobile Commons profile. Be careful with this: the information is saved exactly as they send it, and Mobile Commons is a worse place to store information than Broadstripes or TIMSS.

Language support

Know what language someone speaks and send them only that message

Ask if they want a message in a particular language and then give it to them

Data Tips

Target in your database, not in Mobile Commons.

Manage data in your database, not in Mobile Commons.

Good tracking of opt-ins and opt-outs is a legal requirement.

Ask for mobile opt-in on every piece of paper or online petition

Try dues authorization forms, sign-in sheets, and petitions. There are legal requirements for this; see attached or check out this Box folder.

Some data we can ONLY get from Mobile Commons

• Responses
• Opt outs
• Whether a number is a non-textable land line, VoIP, etc.

Download data from Mobile Commons

In this example, you'll download everyone subscribed to your campaign to see opt outs and non-textable numbers.

Go to your Campaign and click the number of Subscribers

Then click the "Save as CSV" button in the upper right.

The button will turn dark blue once the file is fully processed. Click the button again and your file will download to your computer's usual downloads folder.

The "Save as CSV button" is available in many different areas in Mobile Commons and will generally download what you see on the screen. There's a wealth of information in here, though it can be hard to find. Email support@unitehere.org for help.

Definitions

1. Campaigns
   • Contain Broadcasts, Opt-In Paths, and Keywords
   • Profiles are subscribed to Campaigns and can be subscribed to multiple campaigns
   • Where to start a Broadcast
2. Groups
   • Contain Profiles (i.e. people). A Profile can be in multiple Groups
   • How we tell Mobile Commons who gets this message (“targeting”)
   • How we upload Profiles
   • How to perform simple queries (“filtered groups”—ADVANCED USERS ONLY)
   • There is no relationship between Groups and Campaigns
3. Profiles
   • The people on your list
   • Defined by a cell phone number. If one person has two opted-in phone numbers, that is two Profiles in Mobile Commons. If a person gets a new phone number, you need to create a new Profile.
   • A Profile can be in multiple groups at the same time. If a Broadcast targets more than one Group and someone’s Profile is in both Groups, that Profile will only get the Broadcast once.
   • Profiles are subscribed to Campaigns and can be subscribed to multiple campaigns
4. SMS, Multi-Part SMS, and MMS
   • SMS contains up to 160 characters, including spaces. That does NOT include many accented letters or emoji (see below)
   • MMS contains an image and up to 2000 characters, including spaces. That does NOT include many accented letters or emoji (see "Special Characters").
   • Anything else is Multi-Part SMS. Do not send Multi-Part SMS.

Advanced topics

Opt-in paths

Liquid

Filtered groups and static copies

Appendix A: Download and Prepare Lists from Broadstripes

1) We are only allowed to upload phone numbers that we can prove have opted in. An example Broadstripes search bar should look like this:

employer=="Horseshoe Baltimore" textopt=in

2) Click "Layout" on the right and choose "Modify layout…."

3) Include a column called "Opted In Phones" and remove any other columns of contact information.

4) Click "Apply layout" at the bottom, then select all records and go to Reports-->Spreadsheet (CSV)

5)When the next small window pops up, name your file and then UNCHECK “One row per contact” to create a fresh row for each opted in phone number (if someone has more than one). Click "Generate."

6) Open the report when it downloads and look through the "Opted In Cell Phone Notes" column to remove bad phone numbers. Sort the sheet by the "Opted In Cell Phone" column so all the rows with blanks (or email addresses) in the phone number field are at the bottom and delete them.

7) Change your column headings and upload to Mobile Commons.

Appendix B: Getting Mobile Commons to complete Action Network forms

This (invisibly) pushes Broadstripes and TIMSS IDs from Mobile Commons into Action Network! It requires two steps: one in Action Network and one in Mobile Commons

STEP 1) Go to Manage the Action Network action, and then click to Edit the action. On the first edit page, underneath the form users complete, there's a green button "Add Custom Form HTML." Paste this secret code into that field:

<input name="Broadstripes ID" type="hidden" />
<input name="TIMMSID" type="hidden" />

If you don't see that green button then email support@unitehere.org to fix your permissions.

STEP 2) Make your Mobile Commons tracking link and check the box "Add profile information to HTTP parameters." In the Remote Name box to the right of profile_broadstripes_id type Broadstripes ID …

and in the Remote Name box to the right of profile_timms_id type TIMSSID. Spaces and capitalization matter here!