Texts and emails to clients

Every text and email the firm sends goes one way, whatever part of the system sends it: a bill, a reminder, a signing link, a portal invitation, a notice to a member of staff, a sign-in code, or a text a person writes. Each is written to the message log with where it went, which provider carried it and what became of it.

Whose accounts

Docavra carries the firm's texts and emails on its own accounts by default, and counts them for the firm. A firm with its own accounts can send through them instead: store the credentials on Settings, Integrations (Frog and Arkesel for Ghanaian numbers, Twilio for every other country, Resend for email), test them, then choose the firm's own accounts under Settings, Messaging, Accounts. The choice is refused until the credentials pass their test.

• Ghanaian numbers go through Frog, and through Arkesel when Frog fails.
• Numbers abroad go through Twilio, only once Texts abroad is switched on. While it is off, a client abroad is reached by email. Sign-in codes abroad have their own switch, Codes abroad, on by default, so a client abroad can always sign in to the portal.
• Email goes from the firm's own domain once it is verified (see Send email from your domain). Until then it goes from Docavra's address as "Firm name via Docavra", and a reply reaches the firm's reply-to address.

Sender ID

A text shows a sender ID instead of a number: up to 11 letters, digits or spaces. Ask for the firm's own under Settings, Messaging, Sender ID; Docavra registers it with the providers, which takes a few days, and texts go under Docavra's shared sender ID until it is approved. One request waits at a time and may be withdrawn while it waits. On the firm's own accounts the sender ID is the one on its credentials.

What each message is for

• Security codes (signing in, confirming it is you, a signing code) always go, whatever a person chose and whatever the hour.
• Messages about a client's matters (bills, reminders, signatures, portal notices) go unless the person asked not to receive them on that channel. Outside the hours below they wait for the morning, unless they are urgent, such as a hearing tomorrow.
• News from the firm (a notice) goes only to those who agreed to it on that channel, always waits out quiet hours, and ends with the line on how to stop them ("To stop these messages, call" and the firm's phone, which the firm may reword).

Quiet hours

From 21:00 to 07:00 in the recipient's own time zone, read from their number's country, a text that may wait is held and goes when the quiet hours end. Both hours are settings.

Writing a text

Send text on a party's Messages tab, or on a matter's Communications tab, opens the composer. Choose one of the party's own numbers, write the text and watch the count under it: the characters, how many texts it takes and whether it goes as GSM. A text runs to six texts at most. Letters outside the GSM set are dropped, except the Ghanaian letters (ɛ, ɔ, ŋ and the rest), which the composer offers to keep by sending the text as Unicode at 70 characters a text. Send later chooses the day and time; a scheduled text may be cancelled from its details until it goes.

A text sent on a matter is listed on the matter's Communications tab beside the calls and letters, read-only.

Choices people make

A party's Messages tab lists every text and email sent to them, and what they agreed to receive: messages about their matters and news from the firm, by text and by email. The firm records a choice a person gives it by phone or in person. A client sets their own in the portal under Account, Messages. Every choice is kept with who recorded it and when, the latest standing.

Notices to clients

Notices sends news to selected clients: by filters (clients with open matters, a practice area, an office) or chosen one by one. Before anything goes the page counts who will receive it, who will not and why (not agreed, no mobile number, stopped), how many texts each takes and about what it will cost. Send it now or later; a notice still sending may be cancelled. Each notice lists every client it was meant for and what became of the text.

The message log and stopped addresses

Settings, Messaging, Message log lists every text and email, searched by number, email or party and narrowed by channel, state, kind and day. A message's details show its route, its cost and every report from its provider.

Stopped addresses are numbers and emails nothing but a security code goes to: one that bounced or was reported as unwanted stops on its own; the firm stops one a person asked it to, and lifts a stop with a reason.

What it used

Usage reads the firm's messages month by month, by channel, account and provider, with this month's texts against the firm's monthly ceiling. The ceiling, the budget and the price of a text are settings; on Docavra's accounts a text past the ceiling waits for the month to turn, except codes and urgent notices, and the firm's messaging managers are told as the month nears it. Texts on the firm's own accounts are counted but never held back.