General
Please open a support ticket (support@rubi.works) if you need any assistance with managing users in Rubi Space.
We are working on making this functionality available.
To request new user - please send us:
- Full Name
- Email Address
- Branch (if multi-branch)
To deactivate user - please send us:
- Email address
TLDR
- Sparkle message length can be as long as Twilio limits (1600 characters). We try to keep all sparkle configurations to 2 segments (306 characters)
- Shout messages length is controlled by us and set to 2 segments (306 characters) by default. Please open a ticket with us change the segment limit.
Character counts for text messages are calculated by segment.
1 segment = 160 characters
2 segments = 306 characters (2 x 153)
3 segments = 459 characters (3 x 153)
Technical Stuff
The character limit for a single SMS message is technically 160 characters. However, most modern phones and networks support message concatenation: they split large messages into individual SMS messages (called "segments") and then re-create the large message at the receiving end.
Twilio's platform supports long messages up to 1600 characters across all Programmable Messaging channels, including SMS. However, for SMS messaging, Twilio recommends sending messages that are no more than 320 characters to ensure the best deliverability and user experience. See this article for details.
When you send an SMS message containing more than 160 characters, the message is split into smaller messages for transmission. Large messages are split into 153-character ‘segments’ and sent individually, then re-assembled by the recipient’s device. For example, a 161-character message will be sent as two messages: one with 153 characters and a second with eight characters.
More from Twilio here:
https://www.twilio.com/blog/2017/03/what-the-heck-is-a-segment.html
https://www.twilio.com/docs/glossary/what-sms-character-limit
Rubi Works uses your Twilio account and service for message delivery - the account is yours and all Twilio costs are your responsibility.
For region specific pricing:
- USA - https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing/us
- Canada - https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing/ca
- Australia - https://www.twilio.com/sms/pricing/au
Sample Calculation
Please refer to pricing links above for up-to-date pricing for below calculations. Pricing in the sample scenario may be out of date.
- Cost to maintain Twilio number number - $1 or $2 (888 numbers) per month for each phone number
- Cost per message - US and CA is $0.0075 per segment (160 characters) + carrier fees (variable). It ends up being around $0.01 per segment.
SPARKLES MODULE
We are making an assumption of 100 visits per day and a single Sparkles configuration - let's say visit reminder.
100 visits / day365 days / year
1 segment per message (less than 160 characters) *
$ 0.01 per message = 100 * 365 * 1 * 0.01 = $365.00 per year for 100 visits a day notifying 100 employees every day about a visit coming up
- Add another reminder - if you have a 24 hour in advance, then an 1 hour in advance - double up the cost.
- Add a late clock in alert - assuming that 10% of employees do not clock in on time, add another 10% based on $365.00
It's all driven by the number of visits per day / month / year that the agency has and the number of sparkles configured to notify someone about those visits.
SHOUT MODULE
For the Shout module (free form text message blast) it depends on how many recipients you are sending to, how often, and how many segments per message.
Breakdown calc:
- Recipients per blast - 200
- Segments per message - 2 (200 characters is 2 segments)
- Messages per day - 1
- Cost per segment - $0.01
- Cost - 200 x 2 x 1 x $0.01 = $4 a day
- $1460 per year
If you cut the message to 1 segment (160 characters) it would be half of that, for example:
- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi id tincidunt ligula, sed ullamcorper velit. Sed id orci nulla. Ut eget imperdiet felis nec commo.
⚠️ Please use the response below during the upgrade process if requested from Twilio.
What Twilio products do you plan on using? Please outline your use case or what you intend to build with Twilio.
Twilio is being used to facilitate the use of Rubi Space
- Rubi Works, software developer of Rubi Space, requires each agency to maintain their own Twilio account. They are added as administrators on the project to deploy the above services.
Notification Service
- Mass messaging employees for company relevant updates
Messaging Service
- Sending employee responsibility reminders
- Employee Visit Notification sample message:
- Sending clients upcoming visit reminders
Hello John Smith, you have an upcoming client visit at 1:00PM tomorrow. Please reach out to <COMPANY NAME> if you have any questions.
Studio
- Auto-respond to employees/clients with a No-Reply message
- No-Reply sample message:
NO REPLY: If you wish to reach <COMPANY NAME>, then please call <PHONENUMBER> or email <COMPANY SUPPORT EMAIL>. To opt out of alerts, reply STOP
Will you be using Twilio for personal or professional use?
- Professional use
If for professional use, please provide a link to your website/app and your association with the brand/company.
- https://rubi.works/space
- Rubi Space integrates with Alayacare, our scheduling software.
- https://www.alayacare.com/
- The onboarding process of clients and employees includes a demographics gathering process as well as a communications consent. This data is stored in the Scheduling software, AlayaCare.
Registering for US A2P 10DLC
A2P 10DLC refers to a system in the United States that allows businesses to send Application-to Person (A2P) type messaging via standard 10-digit long code (10DLC) phone numbers. Carriers in the US consider all Twilio traffic to be A2P. Carriers’ A2P 10DLC offerings provide better delivery quality and lower filtering risk than long code SMS of the past, using the same phone numbers.
Instructions
- Understand What is A2P 10DLC? – Twilio Support
- Register using wizard - https://www.twilio.com/console/trust-hub/a2p-messaging/wizard
- Register Customer Profile (to be done by you)
- Register US A2P Brand (to be done by you)
- Register Campaign Use Case (Rubi Works can complete this if you open support ticket, otherwise see below)
- Use Existing Messaging Service - select each messaging service used (for each branch)
- Select use case - Customer Care
- Campaign use case description
- We use a service called Rubi Space (https://rubi.works/space) which connects to our AlayaCare (https://alayacare.com) scheduling system. Rubi Space sends visit notifications reminders to employees, late clock in and clock out alerts, and other visit related alerts to employees and clients.
- Sample Message 1
- VISIT REMINDER: You have an upcoming client visit at 1:00PM tomorrow - see details in AlayaCare app. Please contact the <Company Name> office if you have any questions.
- Sample Message 2
- LATE CLOCK IN: You have not clocked into a visit that started 10 minutes ago at 1:00PM - please contact the <Company Name> office if you need assistance.
Testing Rubi Space
Rubi Space never writes any data into AlayaCare - it only reads from AlayaCare's API. As such, the environment that Rubi Space connects to by default is production. This is because production will always have the most up-to-date and accurate setup of branches, groups, and service codes.
Rubi Space is by default in Test Mode prior to go-live. Test Mode makes sure that no client or employee facing SMS is sent.
Test Mode
Shout Module
- Messages send will go to either the user's test number (if configured) or to the branch test number. The location of the number is shown in the image below.
Sparkles / Launch Modules
- All SMS notifications will be sent to the branch test number
- All email notifications will deliver as normal
Turn Off / On Test Mode
Please submit a ticket and we will turn off / on test mode on your account.
Accessing Twilio Logs
Follow sms logs link https://console.twilio.com/us1/monitor/logs/sms
1. Login to your Twilio account. If you do not know your Twilio login, open up a ticket with us and we will try to help. 2. On this page you can select various filters (date range, status, from / to numbers) 3. It's best to download the log as CSV by clicking "Export to CSV"
Errors and Message Statuses
For more information about Twilio message statuses, go here https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223134347-What-are-the-Possible-SMS-and-MMS-Message-Statuses-and-What-do-They-Mean-
Common Errors
21610 - Sending to unsubscribed recipient
30003 - Unreachable destination handset (most likely not a valid number)
30004 - Message blocked (most likely unsubscribed)
30005 - Message Delivery - Unknown destination handset (most likely not a valid number)
30006 - Landline or unreachable carrier (most likely not a valid number)
30007 - Message filtered (message is being marked by carriers or Twilio as spam because it contains certain keywords, hashtags, etc.)
- Go to Security in left hand menu
- Enter current password
- Enter new password and follow password requirements listed on page
- Click change password
- If you do not know your password then please open up a ticket. We have not enabled self-service password recovery yet.
We can forward the phone number of recipients that have opted IN or OUT of messages. Please open a support ticket and provide the email address where you would like us to notify when this happens. We use a similar setup as What happens if someone responds to a message (SMS)?
TO OPT OUT
If they respond with STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT (more details here), they will be automatically removed from all future messages until they opt in.
TO OPT IN
After opting OUT, they can opt IN by responding with START, YES and UNSTOP.
Standard Reply
We issue a standard "no-reply" response and forward their message to an email of your choosing. By default we send the message to the same email address in your "no-reply".
NO REPLY: If you wish to reach Homecare Agency please call (123) 456-7890 or email info@homecareagency.com.
Changes?
Please open a ticket if you need us to update the forwarding email address.
Shout Module
TLDR
First, the employee selection list is generated:
A - Branch and
B - Department (1 or 2) and
C - Groups (3 or 4) and
D - Employee Status (6 or 7) and
E - Employee Designation
Then, employees are excluded:
F - Exclude Groups (5)
Selection Filters
Shout filters follow how Alayacare's APIs are defined for listing employees. In order to achieve an accurate and current list of employees and provide flexible options - like exclusions, Shout needs to make multiple requests from Alayacare. This can sometimes slow down Shout (read more here Speed issues with Rubi Shout)
Branch (A)
Branches in Shout are either Alayacare branches or groups (depending on your setup):
- Only one branch can be selected at a time to request employees.
- Depending on your plan, branches have dedicated numbers that messages are sent from.
- Only branches that are under a subscription are shown
Department (B)
Every time a user logs in, Rubi Space gets the most recent list of employee departments. Selecting multiple departments will request all employees that are in either department.
Groups (C)
Every time a user logs in, Rubi Space gets the most recent list of groups. Selecting multiple groups will request all employees that are in either group.
- Groups as branches setup
- Groups that are defined as branches do not show up in this list
- If this group filter is used, an extra request is made to Alayacare and can slow down the listing.
Employee Status (D)
Selecting multiple statuses will request all employees that are in either status.
Employee Designation (E)
Only one employee designation can be selected at a time.
Exclusion Filters
Each exclusion filter is requested and applied separately after the selection list is generated. Current list of supported exclusion filters:
- Exclude Groups
- Exclude Status (coming soon)
- Exclude Department (coming soon)
After sending a message to employees, Shout will automatically place you on the "History" tab. This history tab has the following information:
- Branch that message was sent from
- Contents of the message
- User that sent the message
- Link to Twilio Details (if you are the Twilio admin for your organization)
This simple history review allows users to see what was sent from the branches that they have access to.
Purpose of the message
The first step is to decide what message you want to send.
Select Filters
- Select branch (if multiple branches / groups)
- Select appropriate filters: departments, groups, employee statuses and designations (How Shout Filters Work)
Generate SMS List
- Once satisfied with filters, you can generate employee list. This list can have multiple pages (bottom right of image)
- Use the checkboxes and select / unselect specific recipients. Note that recipients with invalid phones are not selectable. If you want to make sure those individuals receive messages, you need to make the correction to their number in Alayacare and regenerate the list. Clicking on the blue AC ID will take you to their profile .
- Use the search tool to look up specific people or job title or phone number.
- Checking / unchecking all recipients is page specific
- Once satisfied with adjusted list of recipients, you are ready to send!
Compose Message
1. Compose your message, review the number of recipients, message length, and estimated cost. 2. After everything has been reviewed, check the agreement box, and click Send SMS Notifications. There will be one more check to make sure you want to send! 3. Sending will send you to the history tab where you can review previously sent messages as well. That's it! Send away! 4. Note: we do not support sending of attachments or pictures.
Sending messages with the Shout module can seem fairly slow, this is especially true if you have the "groups as branches" setup rather than using Alayacare branches.
Why?
In order to build a current and accurate list of recipients, we have to make multiple requests to Alayacare. This is a limitation of Alayacare's API but is also intentional for the purposes of security.
Every agency and Alayacare user is different. We have found some common use cases that we would like to share:
- Hiring and referrals
- "We're hiring tell your friends! Get a bonus of $500"
- Important documents / announcements
- "New health insurance forms sent to your email"
- "Our office is closed tomorrow"
- "Bad weather possible this coming Monday"
- "PPE ready for pickup on Tuesday at the office"
- Shift offers (beyond what AC provides)
- "M-W-F 8am-4pm in College Park - reply Yes or call 123-456-7890"
- Thank you and praise
- "We want to thank you for being such great employees"
Sparkles Module
- To enable / disable the Sparkle, click on "Enable Sparkle" and confirm (1 above).
- To enable / disable a specific notification attached to a Sparkle, click on "Enable Notification" (2-4 above)
- Only enabled notifications will send when a Sparkle is enabled.
- Notifications are not sent when the whole Sparkle is disabled, even if a notification attached to the Sparkle is enabled.