Is Member Signal a system that requires a fee? We would like to be able to have the option of sending text message event reminders to those who have registered; seems more members are using text messages than emails for such reminders.

@Nissan 4x4 - If you are active in the Wild Apricot Grove FB page - you will find me there. Then friend me and we can DM or even switch to email or do a Zoom session

@Robin: That sounds very interesting.. looking to have something similar. Ideally would like to be able to select who to communicate with (WA contacts, groups..) and then write up the sms message, which then invokes Integromat & Twilio. Just secured $520 in Twilio credits via their non profit option, which would suit the club well.. any chance you could share a bit more on how you set up your Integromat scenarios? I am new to this, and just starting to work my way through this...

@John,
I have been using MessageBird for sending text (SMS) messages to my membership now for several years.
Initially I started out by exporting my WA member details and then uploading that as a CSV to MessageBird. Then sending my SMS messages from the MessageBird web console.
Then when WA introduced the mail CC feature I plugged each members mobile number into a field as 123456789@messagebird.com (sorry may not have the exact domain there). Then to send a SMS message - enabled that field as a CC field - sent the email with a totally blank template and then turned off the CC feature again.
Then along came the magic of Integromat and now I have a couple of scenarios there to send messages to different selections of members. When I want to send a message - I open the selected scenario on Integromat - edit the message text as desired and run the scenario.
There is plenty of potential to do a lot more with the WA/Integromat/MessageBird integration process depending on what sort of messaging to want to send out, to what sort of audience and if it needs to be manual or automated.
Whether MessageBird will send to an Australian mobile or not - I cannot say for sure. But I have successfully sent SMS messages to Canada (where I am located), UK, Italy, India, Philipines, South Africa, Germany and israel. It does support the USA, but for the USA (like Canada) you need to purchase a private virtual number to send there so I have not tested that. I believe that you can also send messages through that interface to WhatsApp as well. You can send your messages through Integromat and MessageBird either by sending an email to the user mobile@... address or by calling the MessageBird module in Integromat.

If you would like to test if it can send a message to a mobile in Australia - just send me a phone number to send to. Needs to be a complete number as would be dialed by someone calling you from another country.
If you do not want to post a number here - you can find me in the Wild Apricot Grove FB page. Friend me there and then you can DM me the number

Thanks Katerina,
However we are in Australia and it looks like "Member Signal" only works in USA and Canada. Can you confirm if it will now work in Aus.

Our organization is looking to be able to send a text message out to our members also!

Text messages have higher readership than emails. Great idea

Hello,

It is my pleasure to announce the "Member Signal," a text messaging service for Wild Apricot.

Member Signal helps to:
- Send text messages to your members
- Reach those contacts, who do not open emails
- Use saved searches, membership levels and groups to target audience
- Send notification to event attendees

The service integrates with Wild Apricot, so you do not need to transfer data between systems manually.

Learn more and start using it at https://membersignal.com

This has been one of the largest asked for features for our members. This generation seems to look at text messages far better than email messages.

If you are looking for direct member to member chat type messaging I actually think that requiring that a member be on the WA site is a disadvantage.

Consider setting up a Slack account for your organization (both free and $$ versions are available - their site will give you the differences).

Then you simply invite all your members to join Slack (those who are interested in using this chat feature). Within Slack you can set up multiple channels, eg complete organization, just the executive team, various committees and so on. Access to these channels can be managed. Slack also supports 1/1 (private) chats and adhoc group chats.

You can use Slack with any of the following:

Through your web browser
A Windows desktop client
A smartphone App

Slack has integration with Integromat (as does WA), so you could easily use that integration to add/invite members to Slack, automatically send Slack messages based on event activities etc

Sending text messages should be enabled like e-mail: automated (e.g. 3 days before event) as well as manual text messages (e.g. "Campground temporarily closed during tree removal")

YES!

There is another thread / wish related to this. This is a must have for users trying to communicate / remind members about meetings, etc... Yes, there are email reminders (which we use), but have found less and less members checking their emails on a daily basis.

Under the event tab, there is event list and event emails.

You can set up a number of reminders for each upcoming event.

Event reminders would be great! We are trying to move away from MeetUp because MeetUp members are not accessible to us since they are not our members. Event management in WA is pretty good but needs to be able to send out automatic reminders for upcoming events.

For what it is worth - I am now using Integromat to pick up events from my GMail calendar and then pulling applicable list of members from WA and integrating with MessageBird to send the desired SMS message.

Hi.

Under SEND MESSAGE, it would be cool to enable text messaging as an option.

Hope that helps.

Thank you.