The standard platform Bulk Send is limited to 1000 messages per CSV send, this is done for a number of reasons however if you are wanting to bulk send a bit more than that you can use our Google Sheet integration to send up to 50000 messages. If you wish to send more than 50000 please get in touch with us.


How it works

The integration requires us to first setup a dedicated SMS Number which will act as your start/stop trigger. You will need to create a Google sheet with the required parameters and load the SMS you wish to send into the sheet.


When you wish to start the bulk send you will SMS 'Start' to the relevant number we provide to trigger the bulk send.


The integration will fetch the data out of the Google sheet and format it for sending via our Rest API, the messages will then be scheduled for send out at a rate of 10 messages per second. We will load the the schedule back into the relevant Output Sheet so you can check the schedule as well as the status/errors of the messages as they send.


If you opt-in for replies, you can SMS 'Replies' to the same number in order to fetch all replies for the property in the past 7 days and input them into your Google Sheet, note that this will overwrite any existing data in the Google Sheet on each query.


Example Input Sheet


Example Output Sheet containing a Schedule and a Status


Example Replies



Setup & Settings

On Setup you will need to authorise your FoneDynamics Credentials if not done before as well as authorise Google Sheets:


You will be asked to sign in via an oAuth flow and give access to our third party authentication app, once linked you can click 'Next' to go to the settings page.



These settings can be altered at any time, we will ask you for a number of items:


  • PropertySID - The Property you wish to allocate the messages to send from.
  • Google Sheet ID - Found in your Google Sheets URL e.g. '54eXamPle1986SprEaDsHeEt1938975ID' will be your spreadsheet id for this URL (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/54eXamPle1986SprEaDsHeEt1938975ID/edit#gid=688327299).
  • Google Sheet Input Name - The name of the sheet where your messages will be extracted from.
  • Google Sheet Output Name - The name of the sheet where your message schedule will be output to.
  • Replies Output Required - Optional yes or not parameter for replies.
  • Google Sheet Name for Replies - The name of the sheet where your replies will be output to.



Formatting your Google Sheet

Your Input sheet must contain 3 columns with the following headers, messages should start from row 2:


From

To

Text


You must have at least 1 message in the sheet. The output sheet must be created but does not require any headers, if replies are also requested you will need to specify the reply sheet but likewise does not require any headers.


Triggering a Send

As mentioned above, once you have setup the integration and you have a sheet of data ready you will need to get in touch with us to create the send trigger, we will add a dedicated mobile onto your project which will act as the trigger.


Start - Will trigger the send out, only send once.

Replies - Will trigger the retrieval of any received messages for the Project.


Troubleshooting

Double-check the sheet names and sheet IDs are correct, otherwise get in touch with us to troubleshoot the integration.