Texting people in Populi

Here's a look at Populi's texting features and common questions users have about receiving text notifications.

Who can receive a text message from my school's Populi account?

When you send a text in Populi, it will be delivered to active users with a verified texting number. These articles describe how users can set up a texting number and how to update it (and how you can help update it for them):

• How to Receive Text Notifications From Your School: This article describes how users can verify their texting number in Populi.
• How do I change my texting number?: If a user needs to enter and verify a new texting number, this article provides instructions.
• My verification code was sent to my old phone. How can I send it to my new phone number?: A similar issue to the previous one: phone numbers change all the time. Here's the quickest way for a user to update Populi when that happens.

Users who do not have a verified texting number will not receive texts from your school. Generally, Populi will send such people an email instead.

Where can I send texts in Populi?

Like email, texting is available all over Populi. The three basic areas where you can send texts are:

• Communications > Campus Notifications lets you text your entire school—staff, faculty, and students. It also lets you set up preset messages for regular communications.
• On nearly every report, you'll find an Actions menu with options like Text Students or Text Donors, etc. This lets you send a text to the group of people shown on the report at the time (this action respects your filter conditions).
• On each individual profile, you'll see a Send Text option (provided the person has a verified text number).

What numbers will texts be sent from?

Populi provides your school with a unique, dedicated toll-free number from which all its texts will be sent. To improve deliverability, your school will be registered as a verified business entity through the third-party service we use to handle texting; your number will be linked to your school's verification.

Within Populi, there are six texting Categories that indicate where in Populi a text message can be sent from. For example, the Admissions category covers texts sent from any of the reports in Admissions as well as applications and inquiry forms. A complete list of these categories can be found below.

If you need additional texting numbers, your school's Populi Account Administrator can request a new one in Account > General Settings > Text Messaging.

• In the request, specify which main category the number should be associated with (a more detailed list of categories is below):
  • General
  • Admissions
  • Academics
  • Donors
  • Financial
  • Campus Life
• Additional numbers can only be associated with one of the non-General categories. If you request a new number, it can only be associated with, for example, the Admissions category or the Donors category (not both of them). The General number can be associated with more than one category. So, if you get a number for Admissions, the General number will be used for General and the non-Admissions categories.
• New numbers take up to six weeks until they are Verified. Before they are verified, they are considered Pending. While a number is pending, your use of it will be restricted to:
  • Daily limit: 2,000
  • Weekly limit: 6,000
  • Monthly limit: 10,000

Texting Categories

"Categories" refers to the place in Populi from which you can send texts.

General

• Profiles
• Contacts > People, including Directory views
• Campus notifications
• Person SMS verification
• Mailing list (regular and one-time)
• Data Slicer
• Role and Tag pages
• Organization members
• Library patrons
• Automations

Admissions

• Inquiry SMS verification
• Application SMS verification
• Inquiries report
• Applications report
• Leads report
• Application status
• Inquiry response
• Application question
• Application question response

Academics

• Course instances (Text this section)
• Faculty profiles Text students
• Transfer credits report
• Advised students report
• Proctor start/end codes and test passwords
• Academic Term: Faculty, Students, and Waiting List reports
• Attendance report
• Enrollments report

Donors

• Donations report
• Recurring donations report
• Donors report

Financial

• Recurring payments report
• Academic progress report
• Aid Awards report
• Aid Applications report
• Current Balances report
• Pending Charges report
• Term Charges report
• Term Summary report
• nvoices report
• Unpaid/Unapplied Deposits report
• Unapplied Payments Credits report
• Disbursements report
• Disbursement batch
• Payment Deadlines report

Campus Life

• Consequences report
• Rooms report
• Students report
• Violations report