Getting Started with Push Notifications

Push notifications are a powerful way to reach your community with timely, relevant messages. Push notifications have higher engagement rates than emails, which makes them a popular way to communicate with people who have downloaded your app.

Push vs Text: The Difference

Push messages are sent to anyone who has downloaded your app and opted to receive push notifications, while text messages can be sent to anyone who has given you their phone number and opted into text notifications. Push messages are always free. You are limited to the number of free text messages you can send each month, and any excess text messages incur a cost. Learn more about text messages here.

Ways to Use Push Notifications

• Broadcast Push Messages. Send a message to everyone who downloaded your app and opted to receive app notifications. Great for all-church reminders and updates!
• Tag-targeted messages. For example, send a message about volunteer opportunities to people who have expressed an interest in volunteering and have opted to receive communications about volunteering.
• Content-targeted messages. For example, schedule a message that opens up to your live stream video inside of your app. No need for people to search through the app to find the content - you can link straight to it with the push message!

Schedule a Broadcast Push Messages

Broadcast push messages to Everyone will go to everyone who has downloaded your app as long as they have opted to receive app notifications, regardless of whether they are part of a tag. 

1. Go to the Messaging > Schedule a Message page in your portal,

2. Under Audience, leave it as Everyone, or open the dropdown and select one or more Tags.

3. Check the Push Message checkbox, so it turns purple. The portal shows you the number of people who belong to the selected Tags.

4. Enter the Message you want to send.

5. Select the Send Date and Send Time. You can send the message now, or you can select a date and time in the future.

6. Select how often you want to send the message. You can send the message just Once, or you can have the message go out Every Day, Every Week, Every Two Weeks, Every Month, or Every Year.

7. If you want the message to go out more than once, select the End Date on which to stop sending the message.
   *Note: You will only be able to select valid end dates relative to the frequency: for example, if you schedule a recurring monthly message, then the first available end date will be a month after the start date.

8. Click the Schedule Message button to schedule the message.

Manage Push Messages

After a message has been scheduled, you can view it on the Messaging > Sent Messages page in your portal. 

• The Date column shows the date and time that a Scheduled message is scheduled to go out, or the date and time that a Sent message went out.

• Under the Status column, you will see either Sent if a message has been sent, or Scheduled if the message is scheduled for a later date and time. 

• The Frequency column show how often the message will go out or has gone out.

• The End Date column shows the last date that a scheduled recurring message will go out.

• The Audience column lists the Tags (with a maximum length of 79 characters displayed) to which the message is addressed.

• The Type column shows what type of message it was.

• The Message columns shows the text of the message,

• The Target Feature column shows a link to the app feature if the message includes one.

• The Total Sent column shows the number of people to whom the message was sent. This can vary from the number that the portal shows on the Scheduled Message screen, if people joined or left the selected Tags since you scheduled the message.

To cancel a scheduled message before it goes out, click the three dots on the far right-hand side of the message to open the Actions menu.

• If the message is scheduled to go out once, you can cancel it.

• If the message is scheduled to go out more than once, you can cancel the next scheduled message in the series, or you can cancel all the remaining messages in the series.

Learn More about Push Notifications

• Read this article to learn more about content-targeted push notifications.
• Read this article to learn more about tag-targeted push notifications.

If you have any questions or need help, send us a note at communitysupport@factsmgt.com!