We recently updated the presentation of each contact's profile page with the aim of aggregating all contact activity - past and future - to one location. As you may know, TextIt comprises two key ingredients: outbound events - in the form of messages, campaign events and workflows - and inbound events sourced from your contacts. Representing past and future events allows us to highlight one of our most powerful features, campaigns, by bringing each contact's individual schedule to the forefront. Here's a guide to the updated layout:

Contact Fields

Contact fields now appear directly beneath the contact's name, phone number and groups:

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Scheduled Events

If the contact is scheduled to receive a scheduled event such as a campaign event, scheduled message or scheduled flow, it will appear under the "Upcoming" header with a description of its schedule:  

Event History

A contact's message history is now displayed beneath any upcoming messages:

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The events that populate this section are displayed in order of occurrence, with the most recent event showing first. Note that you can hover over the date to reveal the time at which the event occurred.

Iconography

Hovering over each of the icons listed below will reveal the channel used to initiate the event the icon denotes. Here's a description of each:

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The "delivered" icon denotes a delivered message, and is followed by the text of the message.

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The "sent" icon denotes a message that has been sent but hasn't returned a delivery receipt. Some carriers and channels aren't able to provide delivery receipts. These messages should be considered delivered unless they're present within the "Outbox" folder in the messages tab.

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The contact icon denotes a message received from a contact, and is followed by the text of that message.

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The broadcast icon denotes a message broadcast, and is followed by the number of contacts targeted by the message as well as its contents.

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The caution icon denotes a message that has failed to send, and is followed by the text of the message.

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The branch icon denotes entrance into a flow, and is followed by the name of the flow.

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The clock icon denotes a campaign event, and is followed by the content of the event - either a message or flow - and the contact field around which it's scheduled.

Accessing Contact History

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If your contact has a long history of events, you can view their previous history by clicking the "Load More" button on the bottom of the page.

What are your impressions?

Thank you for your continuous support! If you have a question or comment regarding this update, send us a note at support@textit.in, or shoot us a message through our support widget.

The quality of an election process serves as an important indicator of the nature of the resulting government. As such, non-partisan election observation provides citizens around the world the integrity and tools necessary to promote accurate representation, transparency, accountability and democracy within their governments. TextIt's flow engine and Surveyor app enable anyone to monitor elections intuitively, efficiently, and thoroughly from a mobile phone - with or without a connection. 

Governments, NGOs, and other organizations can pair a messaging workflow similar to the example pictured above with an SMS channel or the TextIt Surveyor app to collect and analyze risk data, and record the results of actions taken within an electoral context to build their capacity to understand electoral risk factors and design prevention and mitigation strategies.

How it Works

TextIt allows observers to immediately transmit their findings from polling locations to headquarters, painting a picture of the election in real-time. These results help observation projects to instantly determine if an election is credible. Beyond data collection, TextIt includes features for managing data-centered field work, including: 

• versatile workflow design
• workflow standardization
• real-time and customized data analysis
• multiple channels of data transmission
• multilingual translation
• the ability to broadcast messages to observer teams across a country.

The Surveyor Advantage

The TextIt Surveyor app allows observer teams to collect data using any Android phone - without internet access or a cellular connection. Utilizing the chat-based flow engine that a respondent might normally receive via SMS, observer teams need simply open the app, tap the appropriate workflow, and begin interacting. Check out the video below to see just how instant and intuitive the process is: 

TextIt makes quantitative data gathering and analysis increasingly simple, immediate, efficient, and powerful. Get in touch with us at support@textit.in to learn more about how your organization can utilize TextIt in the field to collect data and foster positive change, or sign-up for a free account to give it a try. 

A peer-reviewed research article, published on PubMed, analyzed the efficacy of 9 text message interventions across 8 studies to determine which approaches yielded the most favorable results.

Background

The authors of the study, Finitsis et al., sought to determine the effectiveness of text-messaging interventions to promote adherence to antiretroviral therapy given: 

1. the failure of many patients to adhere at high enough rates to maintain health and reduce the risk of transmission, and
2. the global growth of mobile phone use. 

Methods

The paper, Text Message Intervention Designs to Promote Adherence to AntiRetroviral Therapy (ART): A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials, complied and analyzed studies that: 

1. targeted antiretroviral therapy adherence in a sample of people living with HIV, 
2. used a randomized-controlled trial design to examine a text messaging intervention, and 
3. reported at least one adherence measurement or clinical outcome.

Findings

Their analyses found that interventions are most successful when: 

1. they were sent less frequently than daily,
2. they supported bidirectional communication, 
3. included personalized message content, and
   
4. were matched to participants' treatment schedules.

Applying these Principles

These principles not only highlight best practices in mobile intervention design, but TextIt's core functionality as well. Our campaigns feature, a product of our participation in a study conducted by Odeny et al., enables anyone to apply these principles using TextIt, while our array of channel options allows for instant deployment at any scale. 

Send us a note at support@textit.in to learn more, or sign-up for a free account to put these principles to action. 

A number of our users have identified bridging the gap between automated and direct communication (directly communicating with a client after collecting information through an automated workflow) as a point of interest. While TextIt offers some powerful actions to facilitate such a process, such as forwarding information collected within a workflow through SMS & email, we'd like to bring attention to an integration that makes more sense each passing day:  TextIt + Slack.

An increasing amount of teams across every sector are coordinating their projects with Slack. Slack provides a messaging platform that integrates with and unifies a wide range of communications services such as Twitter, Dropbox, Google Docs, Jira, GitHub, MailChimp, Trello, and Stripe. We use it, and for the most part love it. We're not the only ones - organizations ranging from The New York Times to Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's IceCube Collaboration use it every day. 

Why it Makes Sense

Slack allows teams to create a number of channels, from #general to #socialmedia to #support - the latter of which this article will focus on. Dealing with people is a challenge every outward-facing organization encounters, especially if it's selling a product or providing a service. Support interactions can be automated by various workflow products like TextIt, but situations will arise in which direct communication is more appropriate. The challenge then becomes building a workflow that brings clients to support at the appropriate time - an easy proposition for TextIt's flow logic. If your team uses Slack, you've got a perfect environment for receiving and managing these requests. 

Integrating TextIt with Slack

Build your Pipeline

Enabling Email Notifications

Adding the email integration to your team is simple: just pick the channel to which you’d like to send the email messages and you’ll be given a secret email address that will route directly to that Slack channel. That’s it—repeat as necessary.

How To:

1. Choose the Email option shown on your Slack Integrations page.
2. Select a channel the email will post to, give it a label, name and an icon, then click Save Integration.
3. Copy the generated unique Slack email address (tip: post it to the channel itself as a Pinned Message if you’d like others to use it too), and add that email to any service you’d like to send emails into your channel, and you’re done.
4. Repeat the process on as many channels as you’d like to send messages into, letting each instance generate a new special email address.

If you haven't already signed-up for TextIt, you can try this integration and others for free at textit.in :)

Create your Contact Creation Flow

In the sample flow below we've created a questionnaire that asks for the contact's default attributes - their name and phone number: 

After the active contact enters those values for the new contact they're creating, they reach a Start Someone Else in a Flow action. This action is unique in that it allows you to start the yet-to-be-created contact - represented by their phone number (the @flow.phone variable) - in the next flow, which we'll modify to update their name. Once they exit the flow, they're added to your account: 

Creating the New Contact

We've placed an Update the Contact action in the next flow, Create New Patient, which will update the new contacts' names with the values we collected in the previous flow (@flow.name).

Because this flow is connected to the previous flow through a Start Someone Else in a Flow action, we're able to call the flow variables collected by the previous flow by giving them the @parent prefix, e.g. @parent.name:

That's all there is to it. Once the new contact's default phone field (URN) is given a value, they're added to your account. 

In 2013, a handful of Code for America fellows presented the ambitious, compelling realities they're working to create for government services across the United States. The following article details a giant step in that direction, powered by industry-leading products Twilio, TextIt, Front and Slack.

This week, we’re eager to bring attention to one of many ground-breaking civic reform initiatives taking place around the United States, GetCalFresh, and the outstanding organization behind it, Code for America (CFA).

A Timely Approach 

CFA's overarching mission is to build a 21st century government, and they’re doing so by evangelizing an approach characteristic of some of the most successful, ubiquitous tech products and services available today: user-centered design. This is the first step in a proprietary process that includes such goodies as community engagement, iterative development, data-driven decision making, open government, team building, and informed procurement.

An Antiquated Program

The CalFresh program, federally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), issues monthly electronic benefits that can be used to buy most foods at most markets and food stores. Its impact cannot be understated; it distributed $631,249,251 among 2,380,169 Californians (~80% of which are in families with children) in September 2015. It’s state economic impact in 2014 was $7.4 billion in the green, producing $1.74 of economic activity for every $1 issued. In addition, SNAP’s national error rate - comprising of an overpayment and underpayment rate - is lower than it’s been in 25 years. These stats represent a program on the rise, of great benefit to those participate, but they fail to address a monumental issue: after dogfooding the service, CFA found that obtaining food stamps is an arduous process weighted by poor design. In fact, 40% of people eligible for CalFresh aren’t receiving benefits (the second-worst participation rate in the country). You can view their annotated teardown of the CalWIN application portal here - it’s as educational and demonstrative as it is entertaining.

A Mobile Mission

CFA recognized that like most user-centric products today, GetCalFresh needed to be mobile. This is particularly important for those whose income is less than $30,000 per year, as they’re becoming increasingly reliant on smartphones as (1) their primary internet access touchpoint and (2) their primary method of communication.

After identifying the many pain points, they created a suite of tools to remedy them: 

(1) GetCalFresh.org, an easy to use mobile-friendly website that lets people apply for CalFresh in 10 minutes.  

(2) A Twilio/Front stack that allows CFA to track and send applications to CalFresh sourced from SMS interactions.

(3) A TextIt DRIP campaign that text messages CalFresh applicants:

• 1 minute after application, confirming their application, letting them know what to expect, and providing a communication channel in case they have questions.

• 10 days after application, asking if they’ve had an opportunity to complete the necessary steps.

• 20 days after application, following up on their previous message and providing assistance if needed.

• 25 days after application, asking if they’ve been approved, and soliciting a feedback call to fuel their next iteration.  

This approach meets applicants on the channel they prefer, mobile messaging, serving as both a user feedback pipeline and a measurement of the effectiveness of the application process they’ve designed.

The Utility of DRIP Communication

DRIP communication is a communication strategy that sends, or "drips," a pre-written set of messages to customers or prospects over time. Each of the following is true in a DRIP communication model:

(1) the timing of the messages follow a pre-determined course.

(2) the messages are dripped in a series applicable to a specific behavior or status of the recipient.

Building a DRIP Campaign with TextIt

Create a Campaign 

Add Campaign Events

Code for America

SMS-Sourced Feedback

An increasing number of organizations are turning to SMS as their preferred polling channel given its high engagement potential and low-touch nature. SMS is a particularly important channel for organizations who wish to engage low-income communities in the US, as 84% of adults with an income lower than $30,000 own a cell phone - 81% of which send and receive text messages (Pew Research Center).

Street Chat

A Great Nonprofits initiative, Citizen Insight’s Street Chat uses TextIt’s flow engine to build dynamic, automated, conversational surveys that engage low-income communities via SMS, providing actionable feedback for policy makers and nonprofits. Specifically, Street Chat seeks to give the underserved a voice, allowing change-makers to stay informed, identify trends, improve participation and ultimately improve social programs. This was the first social-media survey evaluating health insurance in California.

Affordable Care Act Case Study

Street Chat’s inaugural study, conducted earlier this year by Stanford’s Social Psychological Answers to Real-World Questions (SPARQ) program in conjunction with Great Nonprofit’s Citizen Insights initiative, gave voice to low-income people of color who are impacted by the Affordable Care Act. The chat-based mobile survey, designed using TextIt, was completed by 824 participants in metropolitan areas around Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose, who comprise 90% of those engaged.

Results

Results from those with insurance:  

• Access to care was not a barrier, with 86% of respondents saying it was "easy" or "very easy" to get an appointment

• About 69% used their insurance to see a doctor

• About three-fourths of respondents (77%) said insurance was affordable for them

• 93% said their co-pay charge was affordable

• 84% of respondents liked their provider

Results from those without insurance:

• 57% tried and failed to get health insurance

• Another 28% were still waiting to hear about their insurance status

• Of those uninsured respondents who applied online, 63% reported failure

• 87% of uninsured people who applied by phone reported failure 

Feedback

Nearly 100% of participants agreed to take future surveys, having the completed the survey within 2 hours of receiving the initial message.

Click here to learn about the study and get in touch with Citizen Insights.

Build Your Own

Click here to sign up for a free TextIt account to build and deploy your own chat-based mobile survey.

Introducing Surveyor

• Initiate polls or surveys that mimic the flow of live, chat-based communication.

• Collect data on an Android device and send it to a TextIt account when a connection is available.

• Aggregate the collected data on our servers and extract it for further analysis.

Have a Look

At its core, TextIt is a communication tool. It facilitates the creation and distribution of message-based workflows which you can send through a variety of channels. The importance of effective communication is immeasurable in any context, and it’s become a strong determinant of the success of a product or service in the digital age. Time and again we see that poor communication reduces quality, weakens a brand, and ultimately leads to a lack of trust, thus facilitating user detraction and plummeting completion rates. To that end, we recommend referencing this guide to the mobile communication process when designing your SMS service. 

The Communication Process

The communication process comprises the following components:

• Sender - You: the person, group or entity that initiates a message. The sender is responsible for the success of the flow, as they directly influence the content thereof.

• Receiver - Your contacts: the person, group or entity to whom the message is directed; also called the interpreter.

• Message - Content that must be encoded by the sender and decoded by the receiver.

• Channel - the medium through which a message is delivered. TextIt supports a variety of channels, including SMS, Voice, Twitter and Email.

• Context - the situation and setting in which the flow will be sent and delivered.

• Noise - factors that decrease the chances of successful communication but does not guarantee failure. The type of noise most applicable to mobile communication is semantic noise, which exists when the words that comprise the message are not understood, thus inhibiting the decoding process.

• Feedback - responses from your contacts indicating whether a message has been received as in intended.

Step 1:  Encoding

The encoding process requires you to condense your objectives into a flow. Are you pushing content, collecting data, directing users to resources, or otherwise complimenting your product or service’s workflow? When designing your flows, it’s just as important to base your content on what you can gather about your contacts’ knowledge and assumptions as it is to consider what information you want your contacts to have.  

Step 2: Transmission

The transmission step requires that you select a channel. The context of the interaction you’re designing and the characteristics of your messages will determine the ideal channel for your service:

• Is the information you’re conveying best presented in the form of an SMS message, Twitter DM, Email, phone call, or an SMS link?

• Which channels do your intended audience use most often?

• Is the content urgent?

• Is immediate feedback necessary?

• Is the content complicated, controversial or private?

• Is your messaging intra or inter-organizational?

• How literate is your average contact likely to be? What is the extent of your average contact's written communication skills?

Step 3: Decoding

Once you’ve selected the appropriate channel(s) and your messages have been sent to your receivers’ handsets, the decoding process begins. When the message is received and examined, your contacts interpret and assign meaning. The extent to which your contacts comprehend your flows will depend on their familiarity with the purpose of your flows upon receipt, and the extent and nature of the relationship between your organization and your contacts.

Step 4: Feedback

Feedback is a contact’s response - which allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your flow(s). Are they responding to your flow as intended, or are they consistently responding with uncategorized responses. Are they responding at all? A lack of response qualifies as a response. Feedback provides an opportunity for you to take corrective action to edit a flow - it’s a litmus test of sorts for communication barriers.

Next Steps

In addition to this guide, you may find the following articles helpful in designing and testing your service:

The Importance of Pilot Testing

Improve the Effectiveness of your Flows with A/B Testing

Are your Flows User Friendly? Find out with Usability Testing

Prior to constructing your flows, it’s a good idea to conduct a contact analysis to learn more about your intended audience. We’ve put together a checklist containing questions to help you analyze your contacts and ensure efficient and pleasant communication. This checklist can be applied at any point in the testing process.

The Checklist

1. How many contacts do you anticipate will interact with your service ?

2. What information do you have regarding the demographic makeup of your contacts (age, gender, education level, ethnicity), and how might you use that information to develop and shape your flows? Will it be necessary to build a multi-language flow?

3. What personal and professional traits do you have in common with your contacts?

4. Are there any cultural considerations that may influence how your contacts interact with your flows?

5. Will you need to targeting certain contacts? If so, what is your criteria?

6. With regard to your service, how much knowledge or expertise will your contacts possess?

7. Will your contacts recognize and implicitly trust your credibility or ethos, or will you have to earn their trust by immediately demonstrating value?

8. What preconceptions or biases regarding your service and/or channel might be held by some of your contacts?

9. In general, will your contacts have a favorable, unfavorable, or neutral attitude toward the subject and/or nature of your service?

10. What common misconceptions about the subject of your service will you need to correct during the course of your deployment?

11. In general, will your contacts recognize the value of your service, or will you need to generate interest and demonstrate value?

12. What expectations might your contacts have regarding the length of your flows?

13. What expectations might your contacts have regarding content of your flows?

14. To complete your flows, how much background information will your contacts need?

15. What key questions might your contacts have about your service?

16. Which tone or general attitude do you want to convey to your contacts - objective? authoritative? collaborative? supportive?

17. What do you want your contacts to know or do as a result of interacting with your flows?