title: “Text Alerts (SMS)”

This guide covers the Text Alerts module. If your gallery has not switched it on (the Owner does that in Settings → Extensions), this page will not match what you see — skip it for now.

Text Alerts (SMS)

For gallery staff. Text Alerts sends opt-in text messages to your members about their shifts, their sales and urgent gallery news. Members sign themselves up in the member portal; this guide is about your side of it: the Settings → Text Alerts tab.

The one rule to hold onto: CartonCrew only ever texts a member who signed up on the form, and it stops the moment they reply STOP. Nothing on your screen can override that. The switches described here narrow what goes out; none of them widens it.

Before you start

Text Alerts is an extension. Studio Ops includes it; Studio Web does not. If your gallery is on Studio Ops and there is no Text Alerts tab under Settings, the Owner turns it on under Settings → Extensions → Text Alerts → Enable; nothing is switched on for you. On Studio Web the card says it is included in Studio Ops — use Support to ask about changing your plan. Turning it on does not send anything: until CartonCrew support has registered your gallery with the carriers and assigned it a sending number, the tab shows Not configured and every send is refused and logged as a failure.

The status card

The top card says whether the gallery can send at all.

• Connected — a sending number is assigned and the account behind it is set up. Messages can go out.
• Not configured — one of two things is missing, and the sentence beside the badge says which: either the credentials are not in place yet, or no Messaging Service or sender number is assigned to this gallery yet.

Under the badge are three read-only facts: the Messaging Service, the Sender number, and the Account. Every gallery sends from its own Twilio sub-account under CartonCrew’s master account, so a provisioned gallery reads This gallery’s own Twilio sub-account; CartonCrew shared account (not yet provisioned) means support has not finished setting yours up. You cannot change any of these here, and there is no form that would try: the sub-account and its carrier registration (A2P 10DLC) are created outside CartonCrew and provisioned by support. If any of them looks wrong, tell support; do not look for a hidden edit button.

The carrier registration points reviewers at three public pages, all readable without signing in: the sample opt-in form at cartoncrew.online/legal/text-alerts-opt-in-sample, the Text messaging (SMS) section of the Privacy Policy at cartoncrew.online/privacy (members’ mobile numbers and consent are never shared, sold or rented for marketing, and go only to Twilio to deliver the messages), and the Text messaging (SMS) program section of the Terms of Service at cartoncrew.online/terms (the three kinds of message, frequency varies, message and data rates may apply, STOP and HELP, carriers not liable, consent not a condition of purchase or employment, and the support address). The only way a member joins is the form in the member portal; texting the gallery’s number does not sign anyone up.

Your gallery’s own Terms and Privacy pages. Your gallery’s registration can point at your own website instead: a Terms & Conditions page with an SMS Terms section that names your gallery, and your Privacy Policy. Add and publish both under Studio Site → Pages → Terms and Studio Site → Pages → Privacy; see Terms & Conditions. Once each is published, the member sign-up form links to it instead of the cartoncrew.online page.

What your gallery sends

These are the only settings you own, and only an admin can change them. Everyone else on staff can read the tab.

1. Gallery name in the consent text. The consent wording your members agree to names the gallery. Leave this blank and it uses your organization’s name. If the name your gallery filed with the carriers is different (a DBA, for instance), put that here so the wording matches the filing.
2. Schedule and shift updates, Sales activity (daily summary) and Emergency alerts — one switch per category. Switching a category off stops those messages for everyone immediately. Members’ own sign-ups are kept, so switching it back on later resumes where it left off. With Schedule and shift updates on, every member signed up for shift texts gets a confirmation text when their place on a shift is confirmed: they sign up and your gallery confirms sign-ups straight away, you approve their request, or you add them, move a place to them or confirm a slot you held for them: [your gallery’s name]: You are confirmed for the Front desk shift on Thu Feb 11, 10am-2pm. Reply STOP to opt out. A request still waiting for you sends nothing; a shift already past sends nothing; a change you make in Silent mode (Schedule, above the month calendar) sends no text either; one confirmation per shift per member, however often it is pressed. A rota import and a stand-in swap do not send it. They then get a reminder the evening before each shift they have a confirmed place on, at 5 PM your gallery’s time: [your gallery’s name]: Reminder - you are on the Front desk shift tomorrow, Thu Feb 11, 10am-2pm. Reply STOP to opt out. The shift name and time read as they do on your calendars. One reminder per shift per member, however often it is checked; a member who has switched off shift texts, replied STOP or never signed up gets nothing. The reminder needs your gallery’s time zone (in the sidebar, open Studio Site, then the Featured tab, Your gallery’s timezone); with none set, no reminders go out. A volunteer who is not one of your members is never texted. With Sales activity (daily summary) on, each artist who sold something gets one text the next morning, around 9 AM your gallery’s time, with how many sold and the total, whichever way the pieces sold (by hand, the register, the Square app or your website): [your gallery’s name]: Your sales on Fri Oct 9: 2 pieces sold, $450.50 in all. Reply STOP to opt out. No titles and no buyer details; a reversed sale is not counted; nothing on a day with no sales; one text per artist per day however often it is checked. This is the daily summary the consent wording describes - never a text per sale. It needs your gallery’s time zone, like the shift reminder.
3. Send a confirmation text when a member signs up. Off for every gallery until you turn it on. Turn it on only after your gallery’s A2P Campaign is approved by the carriers; until then nothing may text a member. With it on, a member who signs up on the member portal form gets one text, right away, at the number they just gave: [your gallery’s name] Text Alerts: You are signed up for sales, shift and gallery alerts. Msg frequency varies. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help, STOP to opt out. Once artMail notifications are on, a member who signs up on the new wording gets … You are signed up for sales, shift, artMail and gallery alerts. … instead; with artMail off the text is exactly as above. The name is the one in Gallery name in the consent text (or your organization’s name). It is sent only for a new sign-up: not when a member just changes which alerts they get, not when they press Yes, sign me up! again while already signed up, not when they re-join by texting START (the carrier’s own reply covers that), and never to members who signed up before you turned it on. It appears in Recent messages like any other text, and a refused or failed one never undoes the member’s sign-up.
4. artMail notifications, such as unread messages. Off for every gallery until you turn it on. Turn it on only after your gallery’s A2P Campaign opt-in description and sample messages have been updated to include artMail notifications (ask CartonCrew support; see Connecting a gallery’s Text Alerts). Until then your gallery keeps the consent wording it has today and nothing about artMail is texted. Turning it on:
   • changes the consent wording on your member portal (and in What members agree to below) to add artMail notifications such as unread messages;
   • asks members who signed up on the earlier wording to check the box again to add artMail. Their shift, sales and emergency texts keep working either way, and nobody gets an artMail text without checking the box on the new wording;
   • sends a member who agreed to it at most one text a day, between 9 AM and 8 PM your gallery’s time, when they have artMail they have not opened for four hours: [your gallery’s name]: You have 3 unread messages in artMail. Read: https://… Reply STOP to opt out. It says how many messages are unread and links to the member’s inbox; it never includes a subject or a word of any message. Each message is texted about once; mail that arrived before the member agreed is never texted. It needs your gallery’s time zone, like the shift reminder. Who gets it is decided by the member’s own consent, not by their role, and the member’s one control over it is the artMail notifications switch in the Text Alerts section of their My Profile (the artMail page’s text switch stays greyed out and does not decide it). Turning it off stops the texts at once and shows the earlier wording again.
5. Press Save. The tab re-reads the settings from the server and shows what was actually stored. A red toast means nothing was saved; the message in it is the server’s reason.

What members agree to

The next card shows the consent wording exactly as the server renders it for your gallery right now, with a version id and the date that version came into force. This is the text a member reads beside the checkbox on their form. It is shown to you so you can quote it; it is not editable here. If the wording carries your gallery’s own approved variant, the card says Your gallery’s wording; otherwise CartonCrew standard wording.

Change the gallery name above and save, and the preview updates. That is the server re-rendering it, not the page filling in a blank.

Members

The Members card is the list of everyone who has ever signed up, with three counts at the top: Signed up, Opted out and Total.

Each row shows the member, their number masked to the last four digits, their status, which categories they currently get (artMail appears only when artMail notifications are on and the member agreed to the wording that covers them), and the date. A member who opted out by texting STOP shows Opted out (sms stop keyword). Full phone numbers are never shown on this screen.

Two actions live on each row:

• Revoke — for a member who is signed up. Use it when a member asks you in person to stop the texts, or when a number turns out to be wrong. You must type a reason; it is recorded, with your name and the time, in the gallery’s compliance log. The member can sign up again from the portal whenever they like.
• Re-grant — for a member who is opted out. This is for your own mistake only: a member who signed up on the form and was revoked in error. You must type a reason. A member who has never signed up on the form cannot be re-granted; the server refuses with This member has never signed up on the form; they must sign up themselves, and that is the answer. Send them to the portal. A re-grant restores what the member agreed to on the form, on the wording they saw then: a member who signed up before you turned on artMail notifications is re-granted without artMail, and has to check the box again themselves to add it.

Both actions are available to staff with edit rights; both are logged.

Emergency alert

For time-sensitive news only: a closure, a safety issue, a burst pipe. It goes to every member who is signed up and has kept emergency alerts on. The number that will receive it is shown in the card before you type anything.

Every emergency alert starts with your gallery’s name and the words Emergency Alert:, so members know at once who is texting them. For example, you type Closed today due to snow and members receive Riverside Gallery Emergency Alert: Closed today due to snow. The name is the one in Gallery name in the consent text above; if that is empty, your organization’s name is used. You cannot remove or change this opening, and it is added for you, so do not type it yourself.

1. Type the message, or start from a ready-made one: pick it in Ready-made message above the box (see below). One text per member. The whole text, opening included, can be up to 320 characters, so the counter under the box shows how many characters are left after the opening.
2. Press Send emergency alert…. Nothing is sent yet. A confirmation opens showing the recipient count and the text exactly as members will receive it, opening included.
3. Type SEND in the box and press Send now. Cancel sends nothing.

Afterwards the card reports Sent, suppressed and failed counts. Suppressed means a member the server refused to text at the last moment (opted out between your count and the send, or with emergency alerts turned off); it is not an error. Failed means the carrier did not accept the message; check the log below.

Only an admin can send. If the Emergency alerts switch above is off, the button is disabled and says so: turn the category on first.

Ready-made messages

Above the message box, Ready-made message lists eight messages every gallery gets:

1. Open Settings → Text Alerts, go to the Emergency alert card and choose a message in Ready-made message. It fills the Message box. Nothing is sent.
2. Edit the text as you like. Replace every word in [square brackets] with your own words, for example [reason] with a burst pipe. While any [bracketed] word is left, Send emergency alert… stays disabled and the card says why; the server also refuses such a message.
3. Send it the usual way (steps 2 and 3 above). Your gallery’s name and Emergency Alert: are still added in front.

Every message fits within the 320 characters with the opening and typical words in its brackets, even for the longest gallery name. The list is the same for every gallery; you cannot add your own yet. If the Emergency alerts switch is off, the list is not shown.

Recent messages

The last card is the send log: when, who, the masked number, the type, the status, a fingerprint of the message and the Twilio message id. Two things are deliberately not on it:

• The message body. CartonCrew keeps a hash of what was sent, not the text. The fingerprint lets support match a message a member is asking about without the log becoming a copy of every text.
• Full phone numbers. Same masking as the Members card.

A status of suppressed means the server declined to send because the member had opted out or quieted that category; the attempt is logged so the audit trail shows the refusal, not just the sends.

When it goes wrong

• The tab says Not configured and you were expecting Connected. Read the sentence beside the badge. If it is about credentials, support has not finished setting up the account; if it is about the Messaging Service, your gallery has not been assigned a sender yet. Either way it is a support ticket, not a setting.
• A member says they never got a text. Check the Members card first: are they signed up, and is that category on for them? Then the log: was the message suppressed, failed or delivered? A delivered message that did not arrive is a carrier question; note the Twilio id.
• A member says they got a text after opting out. Look at the log for the time they opted out versus the time of the message. A message already accepted by the carrier before the STOP can still arrive a little later; a message sent after the STOP would be a defect, and support wants the two timestamps.
• Re-grant is refused. The member never signed up on the form. Only they can do that.