FAQ - Sending Messages

Can I send to more than one recipient?

Yes. The "to" parameter can be a SPACE Separated List of numbers in International format. For example: to=6427000001 6178542544 12059955852

Ensure you URLencode the parameters.

Can I see when a recipient received a message on their handset?

Yes. Although a few networks do not provide the message status information, most do and they will be shown with the message in the HealthTXT Inbox

Can I see when a recipient reads an SMS message I sent them?

No. Standard SMS does not provide this sort of information. The closest you can get is if the carrier notifies us when the message is received on the handset.

Can I send a personalised bulk text message to my contacts?

No. You can send a bulk text message to your contacts and groups, but if you'd like this message to be personalised (eg. contain individual first names or appointment times), you'll need to create a one-off bulk send. To do this, compose a new text message and click Select CSV File to import the CSV containing mobile numbers and any other necessary details. From here, you'll be able to use the Merge Tags function to personalise the bulk message.

When sending SMS by email can I tell if the person received it?

Yes. When sending an email set the option for a “read receipt” (each email system has a different way of doing this so see the relevant vendor for more information).

When a message is processed with a read receipt request, healthTxT waits for a few minutes and sends an email back that has the status information for each recipient. If you have login credentials you can also view this information in the HealthTXT Inbox.

Can I send in different languages?

Yes. Some languages may not display correctly on some handsets and carrier networks.

If you are using a UTF-16 language (Chinese, Cyrillic etc), your character payload per SMS message part decreases to 70 characters in the first part, and 134 characters in the second part and 201 in the third part (compared to 160, 306 and 459 when using only English characters, respectively). Important: this includes any letters that have macrons, eg. ā, ē, ī, and also emojis.

This means if you send a message that is 100 characters (for example) in a UTF-16 language, you will be charged for 2 messages.

Are messages delivered immediately?

Spark attempts to send all messages to the carriers within seconds of receiving them, but SMS is a best effort, store and forward process which means that the carriers may have their own queuing, delivery and expiry policies.

Once Spark has passed the message to the carrier delivery is beyond our control, however, we will request status updates and use these to keep you informed of the of the message if these are available.

You can use the status information to decide whether you should resend the message or use an alternative communication method.

How Many Messages can be sent per minute?

I've changed my message fragment limit but it still only allows me to send up to the old limit, why is this?

Clear your browser’s cache and try again. Example, To clear your cache on Chrome, follow these steps:

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, click More .
3. Click More tools Clear browsing data.
4. At the top, choose a time range. To delete everything, select All time.
5. Next to “Cookies and other site data” and “Cached images and files,” check the boxes.
6. Click Clear data.

Can I make the messages be sent from the same number?

Your HealthTXT account is set up with a rotating pool of numbers, meaning when you send a message to someone it will always come from a different number. This is standard operation.

If you'd like the number to always be the same, go to Company Settings > Company Limits. From here, you can check ‘Default Consistent Numbering’. This means that different recipients will still receive messages from different numbers, but a specific recipient will always receive a message from the same number - so they could save this number in their contacts to easily recognise the sender in future. 

Note: Turning on Consistent Numbering means you can not have multiple concurrent conversations with the number. For example, if you send a person 2 messages, their response will always be attached to the most recent message.

What networks does HealthTXT work with?

HealthTXT has worldwide SMS messaging capability.

How is sending text messages from HealthTXT different from usual text messaging?

You have the convenience of messaging from a website and being able to send a group message from your phone in a very cost-effective manner.

How do I send a message to a mobile?

When you log into the HealthTXT Web Portal, there will be a purple button on the left side of the screen called Compose. Click this, add in the mobile number you'd like to send to followed by the message. You can then send the message or schedule it to be sent later. 

How do I send an SMS by email?

If you have access to the Web Portal, go to My Settings > Email2SMS and add your email address. If you don't have access to the Web Portal, your HealthTXT Administrator can do this for you.

Once this is completed, you can send an email to [phonenumber]@healthtxt.nz, eg: 6427000001@healthtxt.nz and it will send that number a text message. 

Can we set up HealthTXT so each login can only see certain numbers/groups?

A Company Admin user can enable ‘Restrict Contacts’ so Users can only send to contacts in Groups that are configured by a Company Admin. Also you can place Contacts into ‘Security Domains’ and then tightly control which users have access to those contacts within a ‘Security Domain’.

How do I create a message that will be sent at a later time?

Create the message as normal, by adding the recipients and entering the message text. Instead of clicking Send, click Schedule. This takes you into the Schedule Message screen where you can select from a calendar what day and time to send the message.

You can also select if you'd like the message to recur on a particular date and time.

Why am I billed for two messages when I only sent one?

A Text Message is 160 characters long. In order to send longer messages, Telcos actually send multiple individual messages that are glued back together via the phone in order to give the illusion of one message.

Consequently ‘long’ messages (more than 160 characters) are seamlessly chopped into fragments by HealthTXT, but we are forced to charge for each of these parts individually.

Note: When sending UTF-16 characters (characters that aren't in the English alphabet or have macrons, eg. ā, é ) the number of characters in one part is halved. This also occurs when sending emojis through text message.

Can I send and receive SMS by email using the API?

Yes. You can send an SMS using Email2SMS through HealthTXT.