Skip to main content
BackedHelp Centre

Text messages (SMS)

Send a text beside some emails, choose and check each text, and see every text sent in SMS logs.

Last updated

Backed can send a text message beside the email for reminders, invitations and Milestone due notices. A text is extra: the email is always sent as well. Text messages are turned on for your organisation by Backed support. Until then Communicate > Email templates > SMS says Text messages are not turned on for this organisation and nothing on it is sent.

Choose which messages also go as a text

  1. Open Communicate > Email templates and select Text messages (SMS).
  2. For each message, turn on Send as a text too.
  3. Change the Text message if you like. It starts as the shipped text, and merge fields work as in the email.
  4. Select Save.

Each row shows how long the text is with sample values, for example 98 of 306 characters, 1 of 2 messages, and how long it can be at its longest, with every merge field full. A text is at most two messages: 306 characters, including the link Backed adds at the end. If the longest it can be is over 306, the row says so and you can't save it until it is shorter.

Select Preview to see the text as a person receives it, with sample values and a sample link.

Who gets a text

A person gets a text only when all of these are true:

  • your organisation has text messages turned on, and the message has Send as a text too on;
  • the person has turned on Text messages under My Profile > Notification channels;
  • the person has a verified mobile number in their Backed account.

Otherwise they get the email alone. Texts go to Australian and New Zealand mobiles. Australian texts come from your organisation's registered sender name, or from Backed until one is registered. New Zealand texts come from a Backed number.

The link in every text

Every text ends with a link. It opens a page that names your organisation and the record's number, with Open and Stop text messages. Selecting Stop text messages turns that person's texts off straight away; they still get emails. The link works for 30 days.

SMS logs

Communicate > SMS log, beside Email log, lists every text Backed queued for your organisation: the time, the mobile (its last three digits only), the message and its status. The words of a text are never kept. Each text has a status:

  • Queued, Sending, Sent or Delivered.
  • Not delivered or Failed: the mobile network did not take it.
  • Unknown — not resent: Backed could not tell whether it went, and never sends a text twice.
  • Opted out: the person replied STOP or stopped texts from a link.
  • Captured — not sent: written in a sandbox, which never sends texts.
  • Skipped — unsupported country: the mobile is outside Australia and New Zealand.
  • Skipped — no sender available: no sender was set up for the mobile's country.

See also

This page uses Backed's default terms, such as Funding Round and Application Template. An organisation may rename them, so read each as your organisation's own term if you've renamed it.