Group Manager Tab

The “Group Manager” tab

Use this tab to add new groups and update existing groups.

Group Manager Tab

Add New Group Button

Click on the button to add a group, giving the group a unique name and a description.

A default group is created for you when the UWS plugin is first installed. This and all of the groups you’ve created are shown in the table below.

There are a number of group action icons shown next to each group listed:

– will open up the “member list” sidebar, allowing you to add new members.
– will open up the “group invite” sidebar, showing the settings for group member invitation, notifications, and welcome message.
– will allow you to delete the group and all of its members.
– will allow you to download the members of this group into a CSV file.
– will open the “send messages” tab, selecting only the members of this group. Useful if you have many large groups.

Bulk Add Members Button

Click the button to open the sidebar menu for uploading members to a group. Select the desired group from the dropdown where to add the bulk members, then choose the .csv file extension where your members details is save, you will need to upload first your .csv file to you media library before you can select it, after choosing the file, press button to add to the group member, the new members will be automatically populated on the group member list. Any duplicate phone numbers will be rejected.

Delete Group Button

To delete single or multiple groups, select and simply check the checkbox of the groups you want to delete then click the button. A confirmation will pop out, then proceed if you want to delete the group(s).

View/Edit Group Button

Clicking the “View/Edit Group” button, will display the group details sidebar. This will show Group Name, Group Description and other information and settings of this specific group that you can edit.

Group Details

This tab allows the existing group name and description to be updated.

You can select whether this is an “Auto-add” group. Subscribers who send you an SMS will be automatically added to “auto-add” groups.

You can also specify an “Opt out” keyword. Subscribers can send an SMS to you Twilio number including this keyword to opt-out from receiving SMS messages.

The choice of keyword you select is important, as some words are reserved. For example, if you use STOP as the opt-out keyword and a customer opts-out by sending STOP to your Twilio number, then no messages can be sent to that customer.

If you choose a word other than STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, and QUIT, for example LEAVE, then UWS will just remove the customer from all groups where LEAVE has been configured as the opt-out keyword, but the customer will remain in any other groups, where LEAVE is not the opt-out keyword. Meaning that customers can choose to opt-out of some groups and remain in others and receive messages pertinent to those groups.

Subscribers can text the following opt-out options:

{the group keyword} – to be removed from all groups using this keyword.
all = to be removed from all groups.
When a subscriber has decided to opt-out, an SMS message is sent to them confirming they’ve been removed from the group or groups. The contents of the SMS is specified in the “Group Opt-out reply” field.

To use the opt-out functionality, you must configure Twilio’s “A Message Comes In” field. This should be automatically configured on the plugin’s Messaging-Settings-Twilio settings page.

Alternatively you can manually configure your numbers a Messaging Service from your Twilio account.

View Members Button

Clicking the “View Members” button, will display the list of members on that specific group.

This will show the member names, mobile phone numbers and other details, this is where you can add new member, this will also show actions for updating member details, copying, moving, removing and banning the member individually or by bulk action.

Member List

This tab allows:

New members to be added to the group.
For updating members detail.
For the copying, moving and deletion of existing group members.

Add New Member

To add a new member, enter their name and mobile number then press the button.

Edit Member

To update an existing member, press the “Action” dropdown menu at the right side of the member and press “Edit“. A pop up menu will show for updating details. You can also add other information to the member like email, city, state and zip code for reference. Input the details on the textbox and click the button to save changes.

Delete Member

To delete an existing member, press the “Action” dropdown menu at the right side of the member and press “Remove” or “Remove from all group” to remove the member with the same phone number from all groups. A confirmation will pop out, then proceed if you want to continue deleting the member.

You can also delete multiple members at once. Simply select and click the checkbox that corresponds to the name of the members you want to delete, then press the to open the dropdown menu and select “Remove” or “Remove from all group“. A confirmation will pop out, then proceed if you want to continue deleting the members.

Ban a Member

To ban an existing member, press the “Action” dropdown menu at the right side of the member and press “Ban this number“. This will make the selected member with the phone number unable to receive incoming messages and also blocks it from sending message to your number. A confirmation will pop out, then proceed if you want to continue to ban the member.

You can also ban multiple members at once. Simply select and click the checkbox that corresponds to the name of the members you want to ban, then press the to open the dropdown menu and select “Ban” option. A confirmation will pop out, then proceed if you want to continue banning the members.

Banned Numbers
Phone numbers placed in this field will not be allowed to subscribe to groups. Numbers in this list will be blocked from subscribing if the are trying subscribe by SMS, using the UWSFORM shortcode or using a Gravity Form. Numbers should be added to the banned number list one number per line.

Copy member(s) to other group

To copy a single or multiple members to other group, press the to open the dropdown menu and select “Copy” option. A confirmation will pop out, then select which group you want the members to be copied, the press the proceed button.

Move member(s) to other group

To move a single or multiple members to other group, press the to open the dropdown menu and select “Move” option. A confirmation will pop out, then select which group you want the members to be copied, the press the proceed button.

Group Invite Settings

Group Invite Settings

From the “Group Invite” sidebar you can construct a form which you can place on your website, to invite your website visitors to subscribe to SMS/voice message updates.

You can also specify a subscription keyword, used to subscribe new members using inbound text message, rather than using the web form.

You can choose whether to send the subscribes an SMS message containing a welcome message.

The HTML for your form is provided on this tab or you can choose to use the shortcode [uwsform].

Specify a subscription keyword or phrase

You can also use this tab to specify a subscription keyword. When a text message is received containing this keyword, by your Twilio number, the sending number is added into this uws group.

You must have configured Twilio to route inbound messages to the plugin. To do this configure the “Number URL” and “Messaging Service URL” associated with your number in your Twilio account. See the Settings tab documentation for details.

Select phone number for ‘welcome messages’

If you have multiple Twilio numbers, you can optionally chose which number the ‘welcome messages’ will be sent from. If you don’t select a number here, then the default number selected in the Settings-Twilio Settings tab will be used.

If you have enabled “Messaging Services“, then the numbers in your number pool will take precedence over the “group number” set here.

Subscription confirmation code

On each group’s Group Invite tab, there is an option to send out a confirmation code, which needs to be entered during the [uwsform] subscription process.

When you enable this setting, for [uwsform] will include a ‘Get Confirmation Code’ button, which when pressed, will send a 4-digit code to the subscriber’s phone. To complete the subscription, the correct confirmation code has to be entered into the form.

Tailor the subscription form

In this section, you can construct a new form containing a description and two entry fields:

Text for description field. The description is displayed at the top of the form.
Text for name field. Here you can specify the label for the name field.
Text for number field. Here you can specify the label for the number field.

Send welcome message. Check this box if you want to send an SMS message to new subscribers (i.e. people who have entered their name and number into your form to subscribe to your group).

Enter welcome message. If you’ve clicked the option above, then enter your welcome message here. You can use the special tags shown below in your welcome message:

%fullname% or %name% – when the message is sent, this tag is replaced by the message recipients full name.
%firstname% – this tag is replaced by the recipients first names (i.e. everything but their last name)
%lastname% – this tag is replaced by the recipients last name.
%number% – the tag is replaced by the recipients phone number.
%optout% – If you’ve specified an opt-out keyword for this group, this tag is replaced with the keyword.
%uws_groupid% – the id number of the group a member has subscribed to.
%uws_groupname% – the name of the group a member has subscribed to.
%uws_groupdesc% – the name description of the group a member has subscribed to.

Send Welcome Message When. You can choose to send a welcome message when an administrator:

Manually adds a new member to this group, from the Member List tab or through the Bulk Add screen.
Manually moves a member into this group from the Member List tab.
Copies a member into this group from the Member List tab.

Redirect to. In this field you can specify a web page that you new members will be redirected to, after they’ve successfully subscribed. The page can be a full URL or the name of a WordPress page slug (e.g. /shop/).

HTML for your invite form. This field contains the HTML needed to construct an invitation form, based on your input above. Place this HTML on your website where appropriate.

Invite form shortcode. If you’d prefer, use the shortcode shown in this field to create your tailored invitation form. This will display a basic form with name and number entry fields.

[uwsform id={group id].

A variation of the shortcode is available, if you do not require the subscribers name to be entered, then you can use the shortcode :

[uwsform id={group id} name=no].

If you want to capture additional information from your subscribers or give your subscribers the ability to join more than one group, then please take a look at the the documentation and the and at the FAQ.