Within the dotloop Android 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.
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 pencil.
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 search for and select Beth Buyer.
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 contact icon at the top right will allow us to edit Beth's information, and the 3 vertical dots will give us the option to export the conversation. 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.
The contact icon will show us Beth's details, where we can edit any information here, as well as contact Beth.
Clicking the 3 vertical dots will give use the Export Conversation option, which will export the conversation to an excel spreadsheet.
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 you have searched for the loop, tap the magnifier icon on your keyboard at the bottom right.
This will show us all results for our search criteria, where we can select the loop.
Once selected, you will see a radio button next to the loop. Now we can click Next at the bottom of the screen.
We will now be presented with all documents and all folders in the selected loop. We can check each document we wish to share. 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 top of the screen, denoted by the question mark icon. For now, let's choose a permission.
Since I only need Beth to sign, I am going to choose Can Sign. Now we can 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. Underneath the signed document you will see all edits made to the document.
You can view any of the versions of the document by tapping on the OPEN button under 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 VIEW NEWEST VERSION to view the most current version. I'm going to tap GOT IT however, because I want to view this older version.
We can view this document, and tap on the 3 vertical dots at the top right for more options.
From here, we can download this revision, or host in person signing.
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 tap the Start group conversation button.
I will then tap all people I want to start the conversation with, then tap NEXT.
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.