Text messaging

We had an ice storm today and church was cancelled via Facebook. Home teachers and others were asked via text messaging (and probably by phone for the few without messaging) to contact their families.

We really need to have access to text messaging lists in much the same way an email list is generated. Then we could sen group text messages.

I know that in LDS Tools, if you have set up lists in there, you can send a text to the whole list.

For example, I have a Ward Council list that has everyone in my ward council on it. Makes it really easy if there's something I need to shoot out quickly to the whole ward council.

Most cell phone service providers / carriers don't allow sending a text to more than 10 recipients at a time, so you would need a special system (or a lot of patience) to text a message to the whole ward.

Text messages can be sent by email. I doubt the ten text limitation applies to messages received from email. I would think each address would be received individually. Here is an article explaining Addressing for email to text.

https://20somethingfinance.com/how-to-s ... -for-free/

There are services to look up carriers based on phone number.

Then thee's going back to things that are being discontinued, like the Newsletter. Our ward leaders were really interested in the Newsletter until they found out it had no push mechanism. Something I wished the church would implement was a "communication preferences" for notifications about various things. They kind of have a start for it with the email message preferences from the church. I figured there could be more categories, like all the Newsletter categories and a "Message from the Bishopric" category for Send a Message. Members could choose for each to receive email, text, or both (or if we want to get into more expense, voice and printed mail delivered). Actually, I think text messages might cost the church money per message, too, unless they want to create their own service. There are different text messaging platforms to which you can integrate and I think one we had integrated our software with at a company did have a per message charge of some sort. Actually, the voice messaging systems are a lot more inexpensive now to send messages than they used to be. Some schools use them to blast messages voice messages to parents (such as an ice storm).

Overall, I find it more convenient when I can choose how I want to receive a particular message. And if we had something integrated with church systems, it would help us have correct phone numbers and emails for members. Now all the organizations manage their own email lists and updated emails don't necessarily make it to the member's record, which is an unfortunate side effect of pushing us to use other systems besides what the church provides.

I too wish that wards and stakes had access to a text messaging service. Currently both CES and mission offices have access to sending text messages via computer.

Here are some lessons learned from being the one who set up a text message system for one of my wards. Gmail had an easy interface to make a new email address and send from there. We used the email suffixes we found online.

Note: AT&T needed to use the MMS instead of SMS so it didn't look like a new sender with every text. Also, after 9ish months T-mobile started blocking all the messages. We could never get them to lift the block even with members calling saying that our email was a safe sender. Some providers do not allow emailing a text message but these are usually the cheap pay per minute discount phones.

Because you have to know the member's cell provider, it was easy to ask for the provider and gain permission to send texts at the same time. We also had specific lists that we would use for different types of texts.

bballrob wrote:I know that in LDS Tools, if you have set up lists in there, you can send a text to the whole list.

For example, I have a Ward Council list that has everyone in my ward council on it. Makes it really easy if there's something I need to shoot out quickly to the whole ward council.

Is this still true? I found a way to email, but not to text.

Yes it is. I just tried it.

This may be something that is OS specific. There are some differences between iOS and Android.

russellhltn wrote:This may be something that is OS specific. There are some differences between iOS and Android.

Good point. It works on iOS.

I see the option to text a custom list or an organization list on both Android and iOS. On Android, it's an icon that looks like a rectangular speech bubble, with three lines.

I found the red button (on Android). Thanks.

Now I testing to see if I can get more than 10 in the group. I realize this may be a limitation from my device and SMS client. One downside I think I see. If the user has no personal phone number (only at household level) then they don't get the text, no phone number transfers to the texting app. Can that be confirmed?

I send mass texts through the List function on LDS Tools. It's on the bottom of the screen. Click Lists> click "+" button on top right corner > add those you want to send texts to.

I sent a text to over 100 people the first day our ward moved to a new building this new year, and we had a mass turnout; however, there were some who didn't receive.

I use an iPhone.

Samual Bradshaw, I heard that the church has setup some new texting system is that true, would help now that we are in hurricane season? Carrie Carree

carreec wrote:Samual Bradshaw, I heard that the church has setup some new texting system is that true, would help now that we are in hurricane season? Carrie Carree

Hi! I haven't heard about that. I know you can text individual people or small groups of people using the Member Tools app, just with your own cell service.