Overview
Communication at the Corporate level lets you view and send emails and SMS messages for every facility your company runs - all in one place. In contrast, communication at a single facility level lets you view and send emails and SMS messages within that facility. This area is useful if you are a manager who needs a company-wide view of every conversation between facilities and tenants.
How It Works
At the Corporate level, Communication brings together the email and SMS messages of every facility in your company into one shared area, so you don't need to open each facility separately to find a conversation.
Scope of Corporate Level Communication
At the Corporate level you see and act on communications across all facilities, whereas at the Facility level you see and act on communications on one facility only.
What "across all facilities" means in practice is that the email lists of Received, Sent, and Draft emails are combined lists of every facility's and tenant's emails. Sending a new email lets you select a specific facility you want the email to be sent from and a specific tenant you want the email sent to.
Furthermore, every Corporate level user, i.e., District Manager, Assistant Manager, Accountant, etc., can see all facilities' communication channels if they were assigned appropriate Permissions].
Setup Handled by the Support Team
Communication relies on a few functionalities that our Support team configures before you start using the feature. You don't need to set any of these up yourself:
Your company's domains and email system, which lets your facilities send and receive emails.
Phone numbers for each facility, which power outgoing and incoming SMS messages and calls.
If something isn't working, for example, emails can't be sent or a facility's number isn't active, contact our Support team.
Accessing Communication at the Corporate Level
There are two ways to open Communication at the Corporate level:
From the sidebar menu - on the left-hand side of the screen, find the Communication entry which expands on click and reveals Emails and SMS.
Sidebar menu at the Corporate level with Communication option highlighted
From the icon in the top header - a shortcut to the same area.
Top header at the Corporate level with SMS and email icons highlighted
Using the Feature
Communication at the Corporate level covers two channels - emails and SMS messages. Each channel has its own area for viewing past and/or present communications and sending new ones.
Email Communication
Emails at the Corporate level bring together every email your facilities have sent or received, organized into three tabs: Received, Sent, and Draft. The Received and Sent tabs each show a combined list of messages across all your facilities, while the Draft tab holds emails that were started but not yet sent.
To start a new email from the Corporate level, click Send New Email on either the Received or Sent tab.
Send New Email button with the drop-down menu options
You can then choose one of two options:
Mail - Send an email by selecting a facility, an email recipient, and composing the message in the email drawer that opens. Additionally, you can add an attachment (e.g., invoices, reports, contracts) if needed. After composing the email you can click Preview Mode to see how your email content will look like to the recipient.
Compose new Email drawer where Select Facility, Email Recipient, and Email Subject are mandatory fields
Mail from Template - Send an email using a previously created template - insert How to create a manual template]. Select a facility, an email recipient, and a template. You can optionally attach a lease to the email. Furthermore, the Generate button works the same way as the Preview Mode button.
Compose new Email from Template drawer where Select Facility, Email Recipient, and Template are mandatory fields
ℹ️ Info: Sending a new email requires that the selected facility's email domain is fully set up and that there are tenants in the facility with valid email addresses. If a facility's email domain isn't set up, or if no tenants in the facility have a valid email address, you cannot send emails from that facility.
The Corporate level emails also let you act on existing emails:
The Received tab lets you respond to a message by clicking on the Reply button and it also contains information about the received emails, such as subject line, facility that received an email, who the sender is, and when the email was received.
Received Emails tab with the reply button highlighted
On the Sent tab you can see an overview of all emails' information: subject line, facility that sent the email, status of the email, who the recipient is, and when the email was sent.
Sent Emails tab showing all email information
On the Draft tab, apart from email information like subject line, facility sender, recipient, and date when the draft was created, you can edit a draft to continue writing it, or delete it if it's no longer needed.
Draft Emails tab with edit an email and delete an email buttons highlighted
Empty Tabs
When a tab has no emails to display, it shows a short message in place of the email list:
The Received tab shows "There are no Received Emails to display. You don't have any received Emails." When the Received tab is empty, the Send New Email button doesn't appear here - you can start a new email from the Sent tab instead.
The Sent tab shows "There are no Sent Emails to display. You don't have any sent Emails." The Send New Email button remains available on this tab.
The Draft tab shows "There are no Draft Emails to display. You don't have any draft Emails."
Email Status
There are four email statuses you can see on the Sent tab:
Scheduled - The email has been created and queued to be sent.
Sent - The email has left the QuikStor platform and been handed off to the email delivery service.
Delivered - The email delivery service has confirmed that the recipient's (tenant's) mail server has accepted the message.
Opened - The email recipient (tenant) loaded the message,
SMS Communication
SMS at the Corporate level brings together every text message your facilities have sent or received with tenants, organized as chat-style conversation threads. Each thread groups all messages exchanged with a single tenant, so you can follow the full back-and-forth in one place.
ℹ️ Info: SMS requires that both the facility and the tenant have a phone number assigned. If either is missing, SMS messages cannot be sent. Our Support team sets up facility phone numbers; tenant phone numbers are added when the tenant is created or updated. If you cannot send an SMS to a tenant, check that both numbers are in place.
Tenants can also opt out of SMS messaging. If a tenant has opted out, you cannot send them an SMS message - even if both phone numbers are correctly assigned. You can see this status in the previous conversation thread, if it exists, or in the tenant's profile under Settings.
Notification "SMS Messaging Unavailable. This contact has opted out of SMS messages and cannot be reached via this channel"
Finding an SMS Conversation at the Corporate Level
You can find an existing conversation in two ways:
Scroll through the list of conversations and click the one you want to open.
List of SMS conversations
Use the Search bar to find a tenant or recipient by their name or phone number. When you search by a phone number, enter the full number without brackets, with or without the leading +.
Search bar on SMS Communication page
You can also filter the conversation list to narrow it down. Filter by Facility to see conversations from one or more specific facilities, or by Status to show only Read or Unread conversations.
Filtering by Facility and Status
Sending a New Message
Once you open a conversation, the chat-style thread appears. To send a message, type your message in the text field at the bottom of the thread and click the paper plane icon or press Enter to send.
Send a new message bar with the send button highlighted
You can also send an SMS using a template by clicking on the plus icon on the left side of the text field. Select a template and a lease, and when you click Generate you will see what the message will look like before sending. If you don't select a template, you cannot click the Generate button.
Send SMS Template with the Template field mandatory and the Generate button highlighted
ℹ️ Info: SMS messages aren't validated for delivery before sending. If a message cannot be delivered, it still appears in the thread Message not sent followed by the reason. There is no separate failure alert - check the thread after sending to confirm the message went through.
SMS Statuses
Each SMS message in a thread shows a status that reflects where the message is in the delivery process. You will most often see:
Pending - The message has been sent from QuikStor and is on its way to the recipient. This is the typical status while the message is in transit.
Delivered - The recipient's phone has received the message, shown as a small blue dot next to the message sent time. This is the typical status once delivery is confirmed.
Failed or Undelivered - The message couldn't be delivered. A Retry button appears next to the message so you can try sending it again. The reason for the failure appears in the thread as a Message not sent note - see the failure reasons below.
ℹ️ Info: SMS statuses can change quickly, and you may not always see every status a message passes through. The statuses listed above are the ones you are most likely to see in the thread.
SMS Failure Messages and Troubleshooting
When a message fails (status Failed or Undelivered), the thread also shows a Message not sent note explaining why. The possible reasons are:
Message not sent. [phone number] is an invalid phone number. - The recipient's phone number isn't a valid number. Open the tenant's profile and correct the phone number, then send again.
Message not sent. Authenticate. - The platform couldn't authenticate with the SMS provider. This is a back-end configuration issue. Contact our Support team.
Message not sent. No messaging service found for sender number [phone number]. - The facility's sender phone number isn't properly linked to the SMS provider's messaging service. The phone number shown is the facility's, not the tenant's. Contact our Support team.
Message not sent. The concatenated message body exceeds the 1600 character limit. - The SMS message is longer than the 1600-character limit. Shorten the message and send again.
A Note on Phone Center
Phone Center is also available at the Corporate level, but it is a paid feature that must be enabled by our Support team. Phone Center lets you view and listen to recorded phone communications between your facilities and tenants. If your company hasn't opted for it, Phone Center doesn't appear in your menu.
Accessing Phone Center from the sidebar menu at the Corporate level
FAQs
1. Can I view Communications for only one facility?
Yes. Switch to the Facility Level by clicking on the Facility switcher.
2. Why is my email not going through?
The email system is set up by our Support team. If emails are not sending, contact them.
3. Where do I find an old email or SMS?
You can find an old email on the Received or Sent tab either by scrolling through old email or using your browser's find-in-page shortcut (Ctrl+F on Windows, Cmd+F on Mac). Moreover, you can find an old SMS by using search in the relevant tab.
4. Why don't I see Phone Center?
Phone Center is a paid feature. If your company decided not to buy the feature, you won't see it. On the other hand, if your company opted for the feature, and you don't see it, you need to contact our Support team.
5. Why was my SMS not delivered?
If an SMS could not be delivered, the message appears in the thread starting with Message not sent followed by the reason. Common reasons include an invalid phone number, a missing back-end configuration, or a message that exceeds the 1600-character limit.