2 - Sending settings
Sending settings
The Sending settings link appears in the Message Express interface and opens a panel where transmission options can be modified; all changes are automatically saved.
To avoid forgetting to configure certain elements in Message Express, when you first use it via a new client circuit, the three means of communication offered to send messages are activated by default (Voice, Text and Email), as shown above. You can uncheck at least two of the three depending on your sending preferences (remember: one of the three communication methods must always be selected).
In the control panel, all changes are saved automatically. You can leave this section by clicking on the Send settings again, or the Close button.
In order to avoid oversights and errors, the Sending settings are displayed each time a new message is sent and you can modify them, if necessary, before continuing with the mailing. While no suboptions are available when sending a message by email or text, vocal messages offer a few additional vocal options.
Choosing a reading voice
The recipients who answer the phone will have the message read to them by the synthetic voice you have chosen. In English, we have Jill and Tom. In French, the readers are Julie and Félix. By choosing a voice in the Send settings, you determine which voice will be the default.
When writing a message, you can listen to it by clicking on the play button. When doing so, as shown below, you can choose the other voice (the one that is not selected by default) but it will only be applied to the current message. For future messages, the default voice will automatically be selected.
Urgency level
For each message, depending on the nature of the message, you will need to choose the level of urgency. This is usually left as Regular, but in case of danger or a disaster for example, don't hesitate to choose Urgent.
Recipients
This option is not directly related to automated voice calls. However, depending on the choice made here, the following option can be accessed and allows the use of a conference call (Transfer).
You can choose the type of recipients that will be displayed in Message Express when sending communications. These can be Contacts (Citizens) or Users of your client circuit.
It is important to remember that there are two types of Message Express recipients:
1- The users of your client circuit, the ones who are able to authenticate themselves to Message Express and use the interface (ex. your colleagues).
2- The contacts are the ones who can subscribe to your messages using the widget provided for this purpose (ex. citizens).
If you were to send a message to Users in your client circuit (to your colleagues, for example), you could display the users here. It is important to understand that by changing this setting, the recipient list in the Message Express interface will be replaced by the user list (instead of a contact list). As a result, the predefined groups in Contacts will also give way to the existing user groups.
At the same time, geogroups and geolocation will not be able to be used to select recipients to send a message to, as the system was not designed to save the geolocation of users.
Transfer
By default, this feature is not available unless you request it. It lets you invite recipients to join a conference call by pressing 9 after the message has been read to them.
This option is intended for users (e.g. employees of the municipality, in case of a crisis). As it is not desirable to invite all contacts (i.e. citizens) of a municipality (several hundred citizens or even thousands of them) to join a conference call, this option disappears if the message is intended for contacts.