The “Group Manager” tab
Use this tab to add new groups and update existing groups. Click on the “Add Group” button to add a new group, giving the group a unique name and a description.
A default group is created for you when the JOT plugin is first installed. This and all of the groups you’ve created are shown in the table below the “Add Group” button.
The are a number of group action icons shown next to each group listed:
– will allow you to delete the group and all of its members.
– will open up the “member list” tab, allowing you to add new members.
– will allow you to download the members of this group into a CSV file.
– will open the “messages” tab, selecting only the members of this group. Useful if you have many large groups.
Clicking on a group within the table, will display this groups details below the table.
The group details are shown in three tabs:
Group Details
This tab allows the existing group name and description to be updated.
You can select whether this is an “auto-add” group. Subscribers who send you an SMS will be automatically added to “auto-add” groups.
You can also specify an “opt out” keyword. Subscribers can send an SMS to you Twilio number including this keyword to opt-out from receiving SMS messages.
The choice of keyword you select is important, as some words are reserved. For example, if you use STOP as the opt-out keyword and a customer opts-out by sending STOP to your Twilio number, then no messages can be sent to that customer.
If you choose a word other than STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, and QUIT, for example LEAVE, then JOT will just remove the customer from all groups where LEAVE has been configured as the opt-out keyword, but the customer will remain in any other groups, where LEAVE is not the opt-out keyword. Meaning that customers can choose to opt-out of some groups and remain in others and receive messages pertinent to those groups.
Subscribers can text the following opt-out options:
{the group keyword}– to be removed from all groups using this keyword.all= to be removed from all groups.- When a subscriber has decided to opt-out, an SMS message is sent to them confirming they’ve been removed from the group or groups. The contents of the SMS is specified in the “Group Opt-out reply” field.
To use the opt-out functionality, you must configure Twilio’s “A Message Comes In” field. This should be automatically configured on the plugin’s Messaging-Settings-Twilio settings page.
Alternatively you can manually configure your numbers an Messaging Service from your Twilio account.
This tab allows:
- New members to be added to the group.
- For updates of the name and number of existing members
- For the deletion of existing group members.
To add a new member, enter their details into the top row of the table and press the + button.
To update an existing member, update their details and press the ‘floppy disk’ save button, next to their details.
To delete an existing member, press the X button next to their details.
To add more than one new member at a time press the “Bulk add members” button. This takes you to a screen containing a large text box.
You can either:
- Uploading a text or CSV file into the text area. Press the browse and upload buttons to find and upload your file.
- Cut and paste your new members into the text area.
- Manually enter your new members into the text area.
The format of each new member record is:
 {name},{number},{email},{address},{city},{state},{zipcode}.
Enter one member on each line. Only name and number are mandatory.
For example:
Ian Botham,07790343234,Ian@email.com, Boycott Street, London, Middlesex, Zip0001
Geoffrey Boycott,07732066554,,,,,
Freddie Flintoff,07775444433,Freddie@email.com,,,,
Press the “Add members” button to process the list. Any duplicate phone numbers will be rejected.
The status of the bulk update will be shown in the table at the bottom of the screen.
From the “Group Invite” tab you can construct a form which you can place on your website, to invite your website visitors to subscribe to SMS/voice message updates.
You can also use this tab to specify a subscription keyword, used to subscribe new members using inbound text message, rather than using the web form.
You can choose whether to send the subscribes an SMS message containing a welcome message.
The HTML for your form is provided on this tab or you can choose to use the shortcode [jotform].
Specify a keyword
You can also use this tab to specify a subscription keyword. When a text message is received containing this keyword, by your Twilio number, the sending number is added into this JOT group.
You must have configured Twilio to route inbound messages to the plugin. To do this configure the “Number URL” and “Messaging Service URL” associated with your number in your Twilio account. See the Settings tab documentation for details.
Select phone number for ‘welcome messages’
If you have multiple Twilio numbers, you can optionally chose which number the ‘welcome messages’ will be sent from. If you don’t select a number here, then the default number selected in the Settings-Twilio Settings tab will be used.
If you have enabled “Messaging Services“, then the numbers in your number pool will take precedence over the “group number” set here.
Subscription confirmation code
On each group’s Group Invite tab, there is an option to send out a confirmation code, which needs to be entered during the [jotform] subscription process.
When you enable this setting, for [jotform] will include a ‘Get Confirmation Code’ button, which when pressed, will send a 4-digit code to the subscriber’s phone. To complete the subscription, the correct confirmation code has to be entered into the form.
Tailor the subscription form
In this section, you can construct a new form containing a description and two entry fields:
- Text for description field. The description is displayed at the top of the form.
- Text for name field. Here you can specify the label for the name field.
- Text for number field. Here you can specify the label for the number field.
Send welcome message. Check this box if you want to send an SMS message to new subscribers (i.e. people who have entered their name and number into your form to subscribe to your group).
Enter welcome message. If you’ve clicked the option above, then enter your welcome message here. You can use the special tags shown below in your welcome message:
- %fullname% or %name% – when the message is sent, this tag is replaced by the message recipients full name.
- %firstname% – this tag is replaced by the recipients first names (i.e. everything but their last name)
- %lastname% – this tag is replaced by the recipients last name.
- %number% – the tag is replaced by the recipients phone number.
- %optout% – If you’ve specified an opt-out keyword for this group, this tag is replaced with the keyword.
- %jot_groupid% – the id number of the group a member has subscribed to.
- %jot_groupname% – the name of the group a member has subscribed to.
- %jot_groupdesc%Â – the name description of the group a member has subscribed to.
Send Welcome Message When. You can choose to send a welcome message when an administrator:
- Manually adds a new member to this group, from the Member List tab or through the Bulk Add screen.
- Manually moves a member into this group from the Member List tab.
- Copies a member into this group from the Member List tab.
Redirect to. In this field you can specify a web page that you new members will be redirected to, after they’ve successfully subscribed. The page can be a full URL or the name of a WordPress page slug (e.g. /shop/).
HTML for your invite form. This field contains the HTML needed to construct an invitation form, based on your input above. Place this HTML on your website where appropriate.
Invite form shortcode. If you’d prefer, use the shortcode shown in this field to create your tailored invitation form. This will display a basic form with name and number entry fields.
[jotform id={group id].
A variation of the shortcode is available, if you do not require the subscribers name to be entered, then you can use the shortcode :
[jotform id={group id} name=no].
If you want to capture additional information from your subscribers or give your subscribers the ability to join more than one group, then please take a look at the the documentation and the and at the FAQ.