SMS and WhatsApp notices

The community can send notices by SMS and WhatsApp: the event reminder, the declined payment, the review cycle task, a workflow step. Only people who consented and verified their phone with a code receive them. E-mail is still the main channel; SMS and WhatsApp are the nudge the person sees in time.

Both channels work the same way: each one is turned on separately and has its own cap, quota and consent. WhatsApp has two differences: every message goes out in an approved template, and Memberfy sends on its own the platform messages the community keeps on.

#For the team

#Turning the channel on

Role: owner or admin.

In Administration › Settings › E-mails and notifications, the SMS and WhatsApp cards:

1. Turn on Send notices by SMS (or Send notices on WhatsApp).
2. Set the Daily message cap, from 1 to 50,000 messages a day. It is required: without it the channel does not turn on. Past the cap, the rest goes out the next day at 8 a.m.
3. Save.

Which plan has each channel. SMS comes from the Growth plan up, and WhatsApp is on the Business and Scale plans. On a plan without the channel, the card says "WhatsApp is available from the Business plan up.", with See plans, and the channel doesn't turn on. See the quotas in Plan and extensions.

Each card shows the Usage: This month, against the plan's quota ("of N this month"), and Today, against the cap. On an annual plan, what's left adds up until renewal ("N available until 03/31/2027 (accumulates on the annual plan)"). The SMS quota and the WhatsApp quota are separate, and phone verification codes do not count. The SMS card also shows the parts used: a long message, or one with accents, takes more than one part.

Turning the channel off also applies to what is still queued: those sends are skipped.

#Sending rules

Every SMS starts with the community's name ("[Running Club] Your training starts in 1 hour.") and ends with the opt-out link.

#WhatsApp only in approved templates

On WhatsApp there is no free text: every message goes out in a template approved by WhatsApp, with a button that opens the right page of the community ("See ticket", "Update payment"). In-person event templates carry the place and a second button, See on map. Memberfy fills in the person's first name and the community's name; the other fields come from what happened (the event, the time, the amount).

The WhatsApp card shows, under Approved templates, each Memberfy template with its status (Approved, Under review, Rejected…), its type (Service or Marketing) and what it is for. The templates are fixed and approved in Portuguese. A template not approved yet doesn't go out: the send is skipped.

In a workflow, the Send WhatsApp block picks the template and fills in its fields; for a message that has no template of its own, use Community notice, which carries your text. See Send SMS and Send WhatsApp, with the list of templates a workflow can use.

#Marketing templates

WhatsApp classifies some templates as marketing, even with service wording: Community notice (both versions), Feedback received (both versions), Purchase not completed, Mention and New content. The card shows each one's type under Approved templates. These templates only reach people who accepted news on WhatsApp; for everyone else the send is skipped ("no WhatsApp consent"). If WhatsApp reclassifies a template later, the stricter classification applies.

In a workflow with one of these templates, add a Send email for whoever didn't get it: after Send WhatsApp, a "Variable" condition with {{steps.<block>.result}} equal to skipped leads to the email. That way everyone gets the message, on one channel or the other.

#Platform messages on WhatsApp

With WhatsApp on, Memberfy sends on its own, without a workflow, the messages for the moments below to people who can receive. Under Platform messages, on the WhatsApp card, the community turns off what it doesn't want to send; each person turns theirs off in My Account › Notices, under What comes by WhatsApp. They all follow the sending rules: the Business or Scale plan, quiet hours in the recipient's time zone, the daily cap, the per-person limit and the quota. Each one goes out only once per occurrence.

Event messages go only to people who registered or have a ticket, at most 3 per event. The ones off by default only reach people who turn them on in My Account › Notices ("Only for people who turn it on in My account › Notices").

#The test

At the bottom of each card, Test to my phone (or Test to my WhatsApp) and the Send me a test button: a notice to your verified phone, under every rule. It counts toward usage, like any message. The channel must be on and saved.

The answer says what happened:

• "Test queued: it arrives in a moment."
• "Test queued: it goes out at …", because of quiet hours or the daily cap.
• "Test not sent: …", with the reason (no phone, phone not verified, no consent…). When the reason is on your side, the Fix it in My account › Profile link takes you to your account: the number is confirmed in My Account › Account and the channels are turned on in My Account › Notices.

#Where the notices are used

• Workflows: the Send SMS and Send WhatsApp blocks, in the Messages category. See Send SMS and Send WhatsApp.
• Platform messages (WhatsApp): the moments in the table above.
• Reminders (SMS): with SMS on, the event reminder (1 hour before), the PDI cycle reminders and the 1:1 reminder also go by SMS. See Reminders that also go by SMS.

#Each member's consent

On a member's profile, the owner and the admin see each consent in force, per channel: "SMS (notices): consented on 10/27, origin sign-up". The origin is sign-up, login, import, My account or declared by the team. With no consent, "SMS: no consent".

#Consent declared by the team

When the community collected SMS or WhatsApp consent outside Memberfy (a meetup sign-up form, a signed form), the owner or the admin records that consent for people who are already members, through the API or the assistant. For new people, or a large list, use the spreadsheet import, which now also applies to existing members.

• The declaration is the community's. Whoever records it declares that the community collected the consent of each person on the list, and the responsibility for that declaration is the community's.
• What for: service notices, news (marketing) or both, on one channel or both. Optionally, when the consent was collected and how ("October meetup sign-up form").
• Up to 200 members at a time, each with their phone, if you want. The result comes person by person: recorded, already had consent, consent withdrawn, invalid number, not found.
• What gets recorded: each consent with the origin declared by the team, who declared it, when and how, and a line in the community log.
• The phone the team provides can receive right away. The phone the team provides when declaring the consent (here or in an import with the declaration) gets SMS and WhatsApp without the code verification.
• But it is not verified. Verification codes still require the person to confirm the number themselves, and they are the one who confirms the number, in My Account › Account, to turn a channel on.
• It holds while it is the profile's current phone. A number changed later does not inherit the declaration, and a number saved later without a declaration loses it too. If the person already verified another number, it stays.
• Anyone who left never comes back this way. Someone who left the channel (through the link, by replying STOP or with the Profile switch) or withdrew consent is not re-enrolled.
• The admin never declares for the owner, not even through the import. Only the owner can record consent for themselves.

The person can still leave at any time (including by replying STOP or SAIR), and the per-channel consent, quiet hours, caps and the other sending rules apply just the same.

#For members

#Consent

• At sign-up: the Mobile phone (optional) field and, next to the button, the service notice text: "By continuing, you agree to receive service notices from the Running Club community by SMS (reminders and pending tasks). To stop, use the link in the message." The WhatsApp text says the same, with "To stop, reply STOP." Creating the account accepts the service notices. The person turns the community news on later, with the channel's switch in My Account › Notices.
• At login: the same service text appears next to Sign in, once per community and per text version. Signing in is accepting; the text never blocks the login.
• At import: the person only gets SMS if the spreadsheet has the SMS consent column with a "yes" and whoever imports attests that the community collected that consent. It applies to people the import creates and to existing members. See Import members from a spreadsheet. On screen, the import does not give WhatsApp consent (through the API and the assistant, it does).
• By the team: the owner or the admin records the consent the community collected. See Consent declared by the team.

If the consent text changes, what the person accepted still applies to what it covered.

#My Account › Account and Notices: the phone and the channels

In My Account › Account, right below Phone, you find the phone confirmation; in My Account › Notices, the Phone: SMS and WhatsApp card ("Turn each channel on to get notices on your confirmed number.") has one switch per channel:

1. Save the phone. A number not saved yet shows "Save the number to confirm it."
2. With the number saved, "Phone not confirmed" appears with the Confirm number button. It sends a 6-digit code on WhatsApp, when the community uses WhatsApp, or by SMS, when it doesn't ("We sent a 6-digit code on WhatsApp to …"). The code is valid for 10 minutes and allows 5 tries; Resend code is available after 1 minute, and there are at most 3 codes an hour for the same number.
3. Type the code and click Confirm: "Phone confirmed." The same phone is used for SMS and WhatsApp.
4. Turn the channel on: Get notices and news by SMS and, below it, Get notices and news on WhatsApp ("Reminders, tickets, pending items and community news."). While the number is not confirmed, the switch is disabled ("Confirm the number first").

Turning a channel on authorizes, at once, the community's reminders, tickets, pending items and news on that channel, with the origin My account. Turning it off stops both the notices and the news on that channel. At the end of the box: "To stop, reply STOP or turn it off here." The choice applies only to the community you are in. A channel the community does not use yet has no switch.

After signing up with a phone, the Confirm your phone screen asks for the code right away. Not now leaves it for later, in My Account › Account. The number only counts on the account after the code; changing the phone undoes the confirmation.

#My Account › Notices

In My Account, the Notices section keeps only the topic choices:

• Notices from this community, with each channel's categories: E-mail (those of E-mails from this community), SMS and WhatsApp (under By topic);
• What comes by WhatsApp: each platform message, to turn on or off. The purchase-not-completed one needs the news ("Needs you to accept news on WhatsApp in My account › Profile.").

The switches to turn each channel on and off are in the same section, in the Phone: SMS and WhatsApp card. If the community does not send on a channel yet, the box says so.

#Stopping

Replying START (VOLTAR) undoes STOP, on the same channel. PARAR and CANCELAR also stop. To leave a single community, use the SMS link or the channel's switch in My Account › Notices: STOP applies to the whole number.

#Examples

Road race with a reminder on the phone. The organizers turn SMS on with a cap of 2,000 a day. Whoever registers for the race and verified their phone gets, 1 hour before, "[Running Club] Start at 7 a.m., gate 3.", together with the e-mail reminder.

Conference with attendees from abroad. On the Business plan, the organizers turn WhatsApp on. Ticket holders get the Reminder 24 h before the event with the place and the See on map button, and Event starting, 30 minutes before. The speaker from Lisbon gets them on Lisbon time: nothing goes out to them between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. there.

HR with a task on WhatsApp. The company turns WhatsApp on and keeps HR to-dos on: whoever has a pending self-review gets the notice with the button that opens the review. For a message of its own, a workflow uses the Community notice template with "{{member.first_name}}, the all-hands moved to 3 p.m." Since that template is marketing, a Send email right after reaches whoever didn't accept news on WhatsApp.

#Common errors and how to fix them

#Frequently asked questions

Is the phone required? No. Without a phone, nothing is sent by SMS or WhatsApp.

Does it work outside Brazil? Yes. Sending works for every country; for now, only SMS to the United States is left out. Quiet hours follow the recipient's time zone.

Do imported people receive them? Yes, with the consent column saying "yes" and the importer's attestation, and the spreadsheet's phone can receive right away, without the code verification. On screen, only SMS; through the API and the assistant, WhatsApp too.

I collected consent on a paper form. Can I record it? Yes, for existing members: the owner or the admin records it through the API or the assistant, declaring that the community collected it. See Consent declared by the team.

Why ask for a code? To confirm the phone is yours before the first message. The code comes on WhatsApp when the community uses WhatsApp, and by SMS when it doesn't.

I replied STOP and stopped getting SMS from another community. STOP applies to the number in every community. Reply START and, to leave just one, use the SMS link or the channel's switch in that community's My Account › Notices.

Can I write the WhatsApp text my own way? Only inside the Community notice template, in a workflow. WhatsApp doesn't accept text outside an approved template. That template is marketing: it only reaches people who accepted news on WhatsApp, so send the same message by email to everyone else.

Can I send a campaign by SMS or WhatsApp? No. Campaigns are by e-mail. On WhatsApp, only the purchase-not-completed message and the marketing templates, to people who accepted news.

A notice fell at 10 p.m. Is it lost? No: it waits until 8 a.m., in the recipient's time zone. Only the event, PDI and 1:1 reminders, which would make no sense late, are skipped on SMS (the e-mail goes out as usual).

#Through the assistant (MCP)

The owner and the admin read and change the channels (get_sms_settings, update_sms_settings, which also changes the per-person limit with person_daily_cap, get_whatsapp_settings, update_whatsapp_settings, which turns platform messages on and off with moments; turning on needs the daily cap), see the templates (list_whatsapp_templates) and send the test to their own phone (send_sms_test, send_whatsapp_test), which ask for confirmation because they send a real message. The team counts the parts of a text (count_sms_segments). Each person sees and changes their own notices (get_my_notice_preferences, update_my_notice_preferences, with the WhatsApp messages in whatsapp.moments and news in whatsapp.marketing), sees their own consents (list_my_contact_consents) and verifies their phone (request_phone_verification, confirm_phone_verification). The owner and the admin see a member's consents (list_member_contact_consents), never the IP, and record the consent the community declares it collected (attest_contact_consent, which asks for confirmation). See Tools · Community and Tools · Members.

#In the API

GET and PUT /api/sms/settings and /api/whatsapp/settings (turning on needs dailyCap, from 1 to 50,000; without it, 422 with param: "dailyCap"; personDailyCap, from 1 to 20, on SMS; moments on WhatsApp; availableOnPlan, blockedCountries and the quota meter on read), POST /api/sms/test and /api/whatsapp/test (202, with queued or skipped and the reason), GET /api/whatsapp/templates and POST /api/sms/segments (the parts and encoding of the text alone and as sent). Turning WhatsApp on in a plan without it: 403 whatsapp.notOnPlan. For your own account: POST /api/members/me/phone-verification and .../confirm, GET and PUT /api/members/me/notice-preferences (channels.email, channels.sms, channels.whatsapp, with whatsapp.moments and whatsapp.marketing) and GET /api/members/me/contact-consents. For the team: GET /api/members/{memberId}/contact-consents and POST /api/contact-consent/attestations (owner and admin: attestation: true, channels, purpose service, marketing or all, optional collectedAt and collectionMethod, and members, up to 200, with memberId and optional phone; the result has, per member, the status, phoneVerified and sendable, whether the current phone can receive). The consent texts: GET /api/contact-consent/texts. Sign-up and login accept smsConsent (service, marketing and whatsapp); the import, the smsConsent and whatsappConsent targets, with the attestation. See Order of creation › SMS and WhatsApp and Responses and errors.

#Related

• Workflows
• E-mails from this community
• Import members from a spreadsheet
• Plan and extensions
• Community settings