View and Collect SMS Responses

Details

SMS responses are collected by the system when you use the default system number for sending. In this article, we'll look at how to locate responses on the SMS report, as well as how to collect SMS responses into a designated field.

How-to Guide

Viewing SMS Responses on the Report

The SMS report shows a number of statistics for the send - including deliveries, acknowledgements, bounces or failed sends.

1. Click Reports in the sidebar.
2. Open the report for your SMS send.
3. Click the SMS Responses tab. Any SMS replies from the send are shown here.
   

Save SMS Responses Into a List Field

1. Select Contacts from the sidebar.
2. Use the various dropdowns at the top to select the folder & list you'd like to work with.
3. Click the pencil (Spreadsheet View) icon, as shown. Your list data will now open in Spreadsheet View.
   
4. Click Add Field.
5. Scroll down and select Comment Field.
6. Click Add.
7. Give the field a name.
   Use an easily-identifiable name, like "SMS Reply" (or similar). This is the field where the responses to your SMS will be stored.
8. Click Save, then Close to return to your list.
9. Now that we've created our new list field for storing the SMS response, we need to tell the system to use this field for saving SMS replies. Start by selecting Lists and Forms from the sidebar.
10. Select your list and highlight it.
11. From the Actions dropdown, select Edit. The forms attached to the selected list will now appear - but it doesn't matter which form we're clicked onto for this guide.
12. Click Details.
    
13. Click the SMS Settings tab.
14. Click the Update Contact option.
15. In the left Available Fields section, locate and highlight the field you created earlier in Step 7. Click the > arrow to move your new field across to the right, in the Add Responses to section.
    
16. Click Save. The system now knows which field to save any SMS replies into.

We recommend setting up an SMS response field for each SMS send, otherwise the next response from your contact will override the existing data (response) stored in the field.