FAQ
Sending messages
Managing messages
Searching messages
1. FAQ
What is the Messages app and what does it allow me to do?
The Messages app allows you and your teammates to chat with anyone who has a phone number, by sending “texts” (SMS and MMS). We support both SMS and MMS messages which means you can do group conversations and add files in chats!
With the Messages app, you can do things like coordinate with field workers, answer prospective customers, get live updates from partners, all while using your computer in the comfort of your office, or on the go with your mobile phone.
How does it work?
The Messages app is part of My.Phone.com, so you just open up your favorite browser, and you go to my.phone.com url. Then, click on the Messages item in the left navigation bar.
Some key parts:
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- The orange dot on the left sidebar icon indicates there are new messages to look at.
- The “Send New Message” allows you to start a brand new conversation.
- The message list shows you all the conversations. You can scroll down to see more conversations.
- The black icon with a number on the conversations tells you how many new messages there are for that conversation.
- The conversation tab shows you the conversation and allows you to reply.
Why do I get a “Oops” message when I go to Messages?
If you have a Phone.com Classic account (learn more here), and your extension does not have a phone number pointing to it for SMS forwarding, you will get an error like the below.
Contact your phone.com admin user to get a number assigned to you, so you can send and receive text messages. If you are the admin, setup a phone number forwarding text messages to that extension, learn it via the control panel documentation or contact our support team to help as needed.
2. Sending messages
Starting a new chat
To start chatting with one of your existing contact (see here how to manage your contacts), do:
- Click on the ‘Send New Message’
- Enter part of a contact’s name or phone number, this will filter down the contacts
- Click on the number associated to the contact you want to message
- You can also just enter a phone number in full and click on “Send to” icon to add it.
- To start a conversation with multiple users, click on the To field to enter more than one user
- If you have more than one number you can text from, you can select which number you want to use for that new chat using the “As” field.
- Click the “Start Chat” button
Send a text message
To send a text message start typing into ‘Type your message’ filed, then click on ‘Send message’ green arrow.
Attaching a file and send media message
To attach a media file:
- Click on the ‘paperclip’ icon and select a file from a folder on your computer
- Drag and drop media file into ‘Type your message’ filed
- Copy (ctrl+c or command+c) your media file and paste it (ctrl+v or command+v) into ‘Type your message’ filed
The system will display uploading progress for each attached file. As soon as all files will be uploaded successfully, the ‘Send message’ button will be enabled and the user can send MMS or package of MMS.
We support the following formats: jpg, jpeg, gif, png, pdf, ppt, doc, xls, pages, numbers, zip, audio, video.
In case if the message was not sent successfully, the system will notify the user and prompt them to try again by clicking on that message.
See who is in a conversation
You can see who are all the participants by pointing your mouse over the list of names.
You can decide to send a message just to 1 participant by clicking the Message icon next to them.
Messages notifications
If the user allows notification permission in the browser, he will receive screen notifications from the browser notifying about the new message received. Click on the notification should open to the Chat with this new message.
Short Code phone numbers
We currently support sending and receiving text messages through our platform to 4, 5 and 6 digit short code phone numbers. Simply enter the short code number in the destination field and send out the message.
You must use a local phone number to send and receive messages from short code phone numbers, we do not support this feature using Toll Free Numbers.
Message limitations
MMS size: Be aware that the MMS size can’t exceed 2MB per file, a maximum of 3.5MB per message (multiple files). The system will notify the user if the attached file is bigger than 2MB or set of files is bigger than 3.5MB.
Number of files in 1 MMS message: Maximum number of attached files in one message is 10
Toll Free numbers: can only send SMS messages, so no group chats, and no attachments
3. Managing messages
New message notifications
If the user receives a new message, he will be notified by:
- Browser’s screen notification
- The chat with the new message(s) becomes bolded with the number of new messages in a black circle near the chat
- The orange dot near the Messages app link on the Left Navbar indicates the new/unread messages
- The orange dot near the phone.com thumbnail on the browser tab indicates the new/unread messages
Manage todo messages via read and unread status
By clicking on a selected Chat from the Chats list, the user can read all messages from this Chat, starting from the newest.
To read the older messages, scroll up the messages bubbles and dynamically load older messages.
To read the older Chats, scroll down the chats list and dynamically load older Chats.
After the user clicks on selected Chat, it becomes unbolded, which indicates its status as ‘read’. For the Chat with the status ‘read’ the ‘flag’ icon becomes available on the top toolbar and the user can mark the Chat as ‘unread’ by clicking on ‘flag’ icon (on hover it has tooltip ‘Mark conversation unread’).
Preview media attachments in media gallery
All the attachments under the same Chat could be reviewed in Media Player by clicking on any attachment in the Chat.
Media Gallery functionality:
- If you click on any of the most left 4 files it will load older files, if any
- If you click on any of the most right 4 files it will load newer files, if any (this can happen if you receive a message that includes 1 or more files while the Media Player is opened)
- If you scroll to most left it will load older files, if any
- If you scroll to most right it will load newer files, if any
- You can open another file:
- by clicking on it in the media gallery
- by clicking on the left/right arrows on the screen
- by clicking on the left/right keyboard arrow keys
- by sliding
- You can see details by clicking on the ‘i’ icon
- You can download the file by clicking on the download button
- You can hide/show the media gallery:
- by clicking on the small arrow on the top right side of it
- by pressing ‘f’ on the keyboard
- by pressing up/down arrow keys on the keyboard
Delete message or conversation
To delete a message, click on a ‘three-dot’ navigation icon near the message bubble and select ‘Delete’ option.
To avoid deletion by mistake, confirm your selection by clicking on ‘Yes’ button or cancel the action by clicking on ‘No’ button. If the user confirmed the deletion, the message will be deleted without the possibility to restore it.
To delete a chat, click on a ‘three-dot’ navigation icon on the top toolbar and select ‘Delete chat’ option.
To avoid deletion by mistake, confirm your selection by checking ‘I understand’ and clicking on ‘Delete’ button. The chat will be deleted without the possibility to restore it.
You can cancel the action by clicking on ‘Cancel’ button.
Responsive mode
The Messages app is fully responsive and could be used from any mobile device:
4. Searching messages
Search Tool
You can easily find messages by using the search field located at the top of the Navigation Bar. Simply select the search field and once the pop-up window appears enter the key word(s) you are looking for, if the system finds any message threads containing the words entered it will populate the results below as a list from most recent to oldest. It is important to note that the search feature does not search across different users, it is confined to the specific user for which you are currently signed in as.
Once the list of results appears they will be identified with the phone number or Contact Name (if number is saved to Contacts list) and if selected each result will take you to the specific message thread. If you need to perform a different search simply remove the keywords entered or select the ‘X’ to the right of the search field and type in your keywords. If you wish to leave the search altogether simply hit escape on your keyboard or select the ‘X’ located on the top-right corner of the search pop-up.
If the list exceeds 25 results you can scroll down to the bottom of the list and the list will then populate the next set of 25 results, keep doing this until you reach the end of the search results.
Once you find the correct message select it and you will be instantly directed to the message thread where that keyword lives.
