Since you'll be texting people with Gloo, one of the first things you'll need to know is how to populate the People tab in your account so that you have people to text.
You can watch the video below to quickly learn how to add people to your account, or keep reading for an in-depth guide for each method!
People Overview
Every person in your Gloo account will have a profile that shows up in the People tab. This includes both Explorers and your congregation/user list. You can search and filter for different people, and see the total number of people in your account.
If you click on the name of one of your People, you can view their profile, which contains all of their information, as well as an activity log showing how they have interacted with your Gloo account in the past.
How does a new person get created in my account?
There are 4 ways a new person gets created in your Gloo account.
Manually inputting them one by one.
Bulk adding people via ChMS integration or CSV upload.
Someone simply texting into your account's phone number.
An Explorer that we match with your account.
Let's look at each of these.
Manual input
The Add new person button in the People tab is a great option if you only have one or a few new people to create. For example, this might be helpful if you just want to add a few of your staff teammates.
Simply input the information, verify you have permission to text the person, and click Create Person to save them as a contact.
Note: If you receive an error regarding a user being previously deleted, check out this article to learn why!
Bulk adding via ChMS or CSV upload
When you have more than 10 people to add to your account, ChMS integration or CSV upload is a great option to add them all at once. This is the most common way people get added.
To bulk add People, go to your People menu and navigate to Integrations.
Choose one of these guides for full instructions on setting up your integration or uploading via CSV file.
Texting in
The third way People get created in Gloo is simply by texting in to your account's phone number. It doesn't matter what they text in; they just need to text something!
When someone new texts in, a profile will immediately get created in the People tab. Because Gloo automatically asks for someone's name, the profile will be amended with the name upon someone texting it in.
Note: If someone was created via the other methods and already has a profile, their name will not be asked for.
Even if someone does not give their name, a profile is created with (No Name) as a placeholder.
Pro tip: If you need to edit a member's profile without a name attached, you can do so by searching their number in your messages inbox, head to the first thread that appears, and then click on the profile icon (as shown below). Once you've confirmed that you're in the correct thread with the correct number, you'll be able to easily access their profile by clicking "view profile".
You can shape this user onboarding experience under your Messaging menu by navigating to Automations -> Onboarding.
Pro Tip: Try it out in the Texting Simulator!
Explorers
If you have a Gloo+ membership and your account status is set to Active, then we will automatically match Explorers with your account! You don't need to do anything but sit back and wait. Once an Explorer is matched with your account, they will automatically be created in your People tab and assigned to a Group called Explorers.
Which People creation option should I choose?
The texting in method is automatic, so it happens by default. This means it can be used as the only method of adding people into your account OR it can be used in addition to the other methods. (For example, you may integrate your ChMS, but any new guests will be created as People upon texting in.)
If you already have phone numbers ready to text, and you'd like to send them a broadcast, it makes the most sense to manually input, integrate, or import.
In addition, it makes sense to integrate your ChMS even if you don't want to broadcast, but you don't want Gloo to ask for people's names upon them texting in because you already have them.