Within the dotloop iOS app is the Messages section, which is a great way to keep in contact with your clients, share documents, or create group messages! The best part? This enables your clients to interact with you solely via text messaging! As an added benefit too, when interacting with clients via text messaging, we will generate a phone number for you (based on your area code!) so that you can keep your own personal phone number private. Clients can save this number generated by our system and interact with you directly from that phone number!
Once you have the dotloop app installed on your device, and have logged in, you can now access the messenger from the home screen by tapping the Messages icon at the bottom of the screen.
We'll now have to set up your device by tapping the Verify Your Phone Number button.
At this step, just simply select your country, type your phone number, then tap Next at the top of the screen.
The app will give you a chance to review that you have typed in the correct phone number. If you notice an error here, tap the Edit Number button, but if all appears correct, tap Confirm.
You will now receive a text message with a verification code. Type that code here. If you have not received the code, you can tap the Resend Code link.
That's it! You're now all set up and ready to begin using the Messenger!
Direct messages will be the most common way to utilize the Messenger. These messages will allow you to directly interact with a user to send messages and share documents. Let's go over the features available here.
Let's begin by tapping the New Conversation button.
When you first enter this page, you can opt to import the contacts from your mobile device, but by default, we will show you the contacts on your dotloop account. In the To: field we can tap and type in any name from your contacts, a phone number, or an email address. In this scenario however, we're just going to tap on Beth Buyer.
Since Beth is listed in my contacts with a cell phone number and an email address I will get the option to choose to reach out to Beth through either of these means.
Once I have Beth selected, I will tap Next.
This will now start a new conversation with Beth. If I have interacted with Beth in the past, it will show any past messages listed here. Let's go over the options of this message. On the top left, the back arrow will take us back to our list of messages. The phone icon at the top right allows us to call Beth, while the i icon will take us to more options for editing and interacting with Beth. At the bottom of the page we have an attachment icon on the left side, which allows us to select and share documents from our loops to Beth, and just to the right of that we can tap to type a message to Beth.
Tapping the phone icon, will ask if we want to call Beth.
The i icon will show us Beth's details, where we can choose to Export Conversation to an excel spreadsheet. Next to Beth's name we can choose to email Beth, call Beth, or click on the right arrow to edit Beth's information.
Choosing to email will open a new email on your device.
And choosing to Edit Contact will allow us to edit Beth's information, or add any missing information.
Let's go back to the conversation and tap on the attachment icon. With this we can share a document to Beth from on of our loops. I will note however that we can only share existing documents from existing loops, so it is best to have added Beth into this loop already and set up your documents in advance. If you have not done that, please do so now.
On Step 1, we will select a loop. All loops on our account will appear in a list below and you can either tap on the loop you wish to choose, or tap on the magnifier to search for a loop.
Searching for loops will allow us to narrow down and quickly find the loop we wish to select a document(or documents) from.
Once selected, you will see a check mark next to the loop. Now we can click Next at the top of the screen.
We will now be presented with all documents and all folders in the selected loop. We can manually check each document we wish to share, or tap the Select all link at the top. Once we have made our selection, tap Next.
We will now be asked to ensure that we have all information we need for Beth. Beth will need to have an email address, as well as a role before tapping Next.
Now we can set the permission level for our document. Under the document name, tap the Permission link. If you need more information on which permission is the best choice, we have made a handy guide that you can access at the bottom of the screen. For now, let's choose a permission.
Since I only need Beth to sign, I am going to choose Can Sign.
Now that our permission is set, let's tap Share!
We will now be taken back to the conversation, where we can see the document was successfully delivered!
I'm also going to include a message to send to Beth with some instructions.
Beth will receive a text message that I have shared a document, where they can tap on the link to begin the signing process!
Alternatively, Beth can interact with the messages via email. We will send an email for each message sent, that will look like this:
When Beth clicks to view and reply to the message, we will allow Beth to see the message and send one reply.
We will alert you when Beth has opened the document, as well as when Beth has signed the document.
Below the document you can tap to view all edits made to the document.
You can view any of the versions of the document by tapping on each one. This can be handy to view the current version, or in this case, to view an older version of the document we may want to reference. When we open an older version, a prompt will let you know that this is an older version, and in case you opened it by mistake, you can tap Yes to view the most current version. I'm going to tap No however, because I want to view this older version.
We can choose to Edit the document, or tap More at the bottom for more options.
From here, we can view the messages on this document (taking us back to the message center), host in person signing, or print this revision.
Group messages allow us to message multiple people at once. While doing this, all recipients can view all messages, and any replies sent will send to each person in the group message.
note: at this time, you cannot share documents via group messages.
To send a group message, we will follow the same steps as above to send a single message, but instead select multiple people.
We will then be asked to name the group.
note: you cannot edit the name of the group past this point.
Success! We can now begin sending messages to our group!
Note: Messenger is free to use for all users, but the creation of new conversations is a Premium feature.