Tenancy - SMS

Modified on Tue, 28 Jun 2022 at 03:03 PM

The SMS button on the Tenancy screen can be used to send a single SMS to your Tenant. You can send an SMS to a tenant if you:

- Have an account created with a 3rd party SMS provider, and

- Your tenant has a valid mobile number entered into Chintaro on their client screen.

This solution details how to:

Create and send an SMS to an individual tenant
Create a bulk SMS message to send to multiple tenants
Set up an account with a 3rd party SMS provider
Handle issues you may encounter with sending SMS's

Create and send an SMS to an individual tenant

To send a Tenant an SMS, open the Tenancy screen and click the SMS button:

The SMS Tenant pop up box will appear:

Field	Description
Create Client Note?	Ticking this box will automatically record a note with the contents of the SMS. The Create Client Note box can set to ticked as a default via the Create Client Note preference, in System Maintenance> Preferences> Tenancies Rent> Create Client Note.
Mobile Number	Will default from the Client screen. The mobile number can be overwritten in this field if you do not want to send the SMS to the Mobile Number listed in Chintaro.
Note Title	A short description of the note which will appear in the Note Title section.
Message	The text you want to send the tenant in to the Message field. NOTE: You are limited to a maximum of 160 characters per SMS which is a limit set by Telecommunications Providers.
Sender	Is who the SMS will appear from when the tenant receives it. This will usually be your Organisation’s name and is limited by the telecommunication providers to 11 characters. The default for the Sender Name can be set in System Maintenance> Preferences> SMS.

When you are ready, click Send SMS .When clicking Send SMS, a pop up box will advise you that the SMS was successfully sent, and a note was created if you had the Create Client Note box selected.

Create a bulk SMS message to send to multiple tenants

To send an SMS in bulk to your tenants, from the Home Screen, click Tenants, then click Tenancy SMS:

Begin by sorting and/or filtering the screen so that it displays only the tenants you want to send the email to (EG by Property, Primary Tenant, Tags, etc). For more information on sorting and filtering columns in Chintaro screens, click this link.

Then, enter the message you want to send your tenants in the Message field. As you begin to type, you'll see the number of characters left decrease - 160 characters is a limit set by the telecommunications companies.

The Sender field can be updated by your System Administrator in System Maintenance> Preferences> SMS and should be your organisation's acronym.

You have the option to choose to Create a Client Note to add to each tenancy screen to record a note that the SMS was sent, and if you choose to add a note, enter a brief description in the Note Title section.

When you're ready to send the SMS, select who you would like to send it to, by clicking either Select ALL, Select NONE to remove the ticks in the Include boxes, or individually select which tenants to include by ticking their Include boxes on the left hand side of the screen.

Once you have selected your tenants, click the Send SMS button and Chintaro will advise you that the SMS’s have successfully/ unsuccessfully sent and notes will be created if you selected the Create Client Note box to be ticked.

Set up an account with a 3rd party SMS provider

If you are trying to send an SMS through Chintaro and you get an error message, it is probably because your SMS account is not set up correctly. You will need to set up an account with a Third Party SMS Provider to use the SMS functionality in Chintaro. SMS Providers that are compatible with Chintaro are as follows:

3^RD PARTY SMS PROVIDER	WEBSITE
SMS Global	www.smsglobal.com
SMS Broadcast	www.smsbroadcast.com.au
Direct SMS	www.directsms.com.au
Burst SMS	http://www.burstsms.com.au/ http://www.burstsms.co.nz
Telstra Integrated Messaging	www.tim.telstra.com
My Net Fone	www.mynetphone.com.au/
Message Media	www.messagemedia.com.au
Bulletin Messenger	www.bulletin.net/

For more information on Setting Up SMS Functionality, please click this link or contact support@chintaro.com.au.

Handle issues you may encounter with sending SMS's

If your SMS message is cut short to around 70 characters please check for special characters rather than plain text. The most common special characters that can cause a problem are:

The curly apostrophe (or single quote)
If you prepare your message in a word document you may find that your apostrophes are the curly type which is a special character from an SMS point of view. As a precaution, if you paste text with apostrophes into the SMS text pane, always delete and replace them within the textbox and they will be replaced with the correct 'straight' type.
The M dash (or long hyphen)
If you type two successive dashes in a word document it may replace the plain dash with the M dash. Always replace these with a normal plain dash in your SMS to ensure your full message is sent.

Your SMS provider may have more information about other special characters to avoid.

To send bulk SMS’s to Tenants, click the Tenancy SMS function from the Tenancies Sub-Menu.

Type the message you want to send your Tenants in the Message field.

Choose to

, and add a Note Title for the Notes section of the Tenancy record.

This screen works in the same way as the previous Bulk functions, where you can sort and filter the screen to the Tenants you want to SMS.

Click the Send SMS button to send the SMS’s to your Tenants.

Chintaro will advise you that the SMS’s have successfully/ unsuccessfully sent.

Notes will be created if you have the Create Client Note box ticked.