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Contacts Contacts is your mobile address book where you create folders, Groups and add and edit details of people you are keeping in touch with
What is a Group? As you do with the documents and folders on your computer, FrontlineSMS allows you to file your contacts into different Groups of your own choosing, making them easier to maintain, manage and select when you want to send text messages. Contacts can be grouped in any way you like (for example, by topic or geographic location, or project), and Groups can be made inside other groups. For example, you may decide to create a Group for a village, and then inside that Group have separate Groups for doctors, nurses and midwives who live or work in that village. Grouping them this way means that you can send specific text messages to all the doctors, nurses or midwives working in that village When you start FrontlineSMS for the first time, it only has one entry in the Groups window [1]
To create a new 'top level' Group (in the example above, this would be the name of the village), highlight All Contacts in the Groups window [1] on the left. Click on the New Group button [2] and type in the name for your new Group. Your new Group will appear in the Groups window. You can have as many 'top level' Groups as you like - just remember to create these under the All Contacts Group. To create 'sub-groups' (in the example above, these would be Doctors, Nurses and Midwives) simply highlight the 'top level' Group you want to create this new Group under (in this example, that would be the name of the village) and, as before, click on the New Group button [2] and enter the name of the 'sub-group'
If you no longer need a Group for some reason, you can remove it by highlighting it in the Groups window [1] and clicking the Delete button [3]. If there are contacts within the Group, FrontlineSMS will ask if you want to keep these contacts, or also remove them. If you choose to keep them, they will be moved into the All Contacts Group (you can then move them into other Groups - see the "Editing a Contact" section below)
Once your Group is created, you can add new members into the Group. To do this, select the name of the Group you want to add members to from Groups window [1] on the left and then click on the New Contact [4] button. You will be presented with a new window, below:
Enter the details for your new Contact, and then click Save. The only information that you must enter is a name and mobile number - the rest is optional. Selecting Active or Dormant determines whether or not the Contact will be included when you send messages to the whole Group. This feature is useful if someone is travelling and does not want to receive messages while they are away, or if someone has temporarily left the Group
Once Contacts have been created, you can edit any of their details to reflect any change of name, number or email address, or if they become Active or Dormant. To edit a Contact, highlight them in the Contacts window [7] and then click on Edit [5] to make changes. You make edits in the same window as you used to add the Contact originally (see above). If you want to delete the selected Contact, click Delete [6] with the Contact highlighted instead
FrontlineSMS maintains a comprehensive history of all messages sent to each of your Contacts, and any messages they send to you. To view the message history for any Contact, select the Group they belong to in the Groups window [1] then look for them from the Contacts window [7]. Right-click on their entry and select Message History from the menu
Once your Group is created and you have added your Contacts, you can send a text message to every 'Active' member of that Group. To send a message, select the Group you want to send the message to in the Groups window [1] and click Send SMS [10]. In the Compose New Message window that appears, type your message and hit the Send button. That's it
To send a single text message to just one Contact, select the Group that person is a member of in the Groups window [1] and then select them from the Contacts window [7]. Now click Send SMS [9]. In the Compose New Message window that appears, type your message and hit the Send button
FrontlineSMS can help you estimate the cost of sending out messages to your Groups before you send them. This can be useful if you are running to a budget, or using a pre-pay SIM card in the phone and want to verify that you have enough credit before you begin. Using the Cost Estimator (see bottom right of the screen) enter what you pay on your mobile plan per message in the /SMS field. Now, when you start typing a message you want to send, FrontlineSMS will tell you how much credit you need to send your message to all 'Active' members of the Group. You can then decide whether to proceed or not TIP: At the
moment, FrontlineSMS cannot automatically check your airtime balance. To
do this you will need to make a balance enquiry on the phone itself, as
per the instructions provided by your network operator
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