Features

  • Send messages to ad-hoc or predefined groups.
  • Automatically respond to incoming messages that match keywords.
  • Track sign ups, questions, etc using keywords.
  • Manage access permissions - you can let anyone in you church have read only access.
  • Spending safety net - you can set a limit (in $) for each person. No individual SMS can be sent that will cost more than this.
  • Block auto replies to specific contacts.
  • Receive daily digest emails of incoming messages.
  • Live “wall” - curate and display incoming messages on a big screen. Great for a Q&A.
  • Post all messages to a slack channel.
  • Import contacts (CSV or Elvanto).
  • Usage overview dashboard
  • Sign up and login by email or with a Google account

Keywords

All incoming messages are expected to start with a keyword. This allows for custom replies to be sent back and is useful for tracking things like event sign ups or questions for a Q&A.

Special Keywords

There is a small set of reserved keywords, some by Twilio and some by apostello.

  • Twilio’s reserved keywords can be found here.
  • apostello also reserves the keyword name. Any SMS that matches name will be parsed for a name and used to update the name associated with that contact. If the parsing fails, then the contact is sent another message asking them to try again.

Custom Keywords

You can create as many keywords as you like, and each keyword comes with the following features:

  • Custom response
  • Number of response tracked
  • Ability to mark each response as “Requires Action” or “Dealt With”
  • Archiving of old responses
  • Activation time and a too early custom response
  • Deactivation time and a too late custom response
  • Ability to lock a keyword to certain users (staff users can always see all keywords)
  • Daily email digests - send digest of today’s responses every night
  • CSV export of messages

Keyword Matching

A case insensitive greedy match is performed on the start of every incoming message up to the first space in the message (none alphanumeric characters are also ignored if they begin the message). For example, the messages connect John Calvin, connected John Calvin and “connect” John Calvin would all match the keyword connect, but only the second message would match the keyword connected.

There is an additional check when creating new keywords - you cannot create a keyword that cause a match collision. For example, if connect is a keyword, you will be unable to create con, conn or connected, etc.