True Messaging: Getting Started
True Messaging is the messaging center built into TIPS Tools. Texts to your business numbers land in a shared inbox your team can see, claim, and answer, instead of on one person's cell phone. The same place also handles group sends, scheduled messages, and voice and email broadcasts to your contact lists.
True Messaging has replaced the Mass Notify Tool. Text, voice, and email broadcasts, distribution lists, scheduled sends, and public sign-up pages all live in True Messaging now. The standalone Mass Notify Tool has been retired, and old Mass Notify links (including opt-out links in messages you sent before the switch) forward to True Messaging automatically.
Popular uses: front office triage, attendance and pickup questions, appointment confirmations, school closings and weather alerts, and short one-to-one conversations that used to happen over personal cell phones.
Where to find it
Sign in to TIPS Tools at https://tools.trueipsolutions.com/ and look for Messaging in the left navigation. It expands into these pages:
- Inbox: every conversation on every number you have access to.
- Contacts: your shared contact directory and your distribution lists.
- Scheduled: text, voice, and email sends queued for later, plus a log of what has already gone out.
- Settings: keyword automations, canned reply templates, and away messages. Anyone can view; Office Managers make changes.
- Contact access: who in your organization can view and edit contacts. Only Domain Admins see this page.
Who can use it
Anyone who has access to at least one text-enabled number can open the inbox and start replying. A number owner, or an Office Manager, decides who else can see a number; see Managing Access to Your Numbers. Editing contacts is controlled separately on the Contact access page; see Office Manager - Contact Access.
Standard and Plus
True Messaging comes in two plans.
- Standard: send and receive texts and photos, the shared inbox, one-to-one messages (including scheduling a single text for later), automatic STOP handling, and an away message on your own number.
- Plus: everything in Standard, plus canned replies, custom STOP and JOIN keywords, sharing numbers with coworkers, CSV contact import, distribution lists and public sign-up pages, the Scheduled page for group sends, voice and email broadcasts, away messages on call queues, and district branding.
Plus features stay visible on a Standard account but are grayed out with the label This feature is included with True Messaging Plus. If you see that label and need the feature, contact your TIPS representative.