Note: Message for Salesforce is a premium offering for Salesforce customers. If you would like to add Message for Salesforce to your Message account, reach out to your account team. If you are interested in an administrative overview of the package, check out the Configuring and Setting Up Message for Salesforce article.

Modern Campus Message for Salesforce brings the features and functionality you love from the Message web app into the Salesforce Lightning interface. With Message for Salesforce you can see your inbox, respond to incoming messages and view your conversation history associated with any record in Salesforce.

Your Message Inbox

To get started, go to the Lightning App Launcher () and click on Modern Campus Message. This will bring you to the Message for Salesforce app and your Message Inbox.

The Inbox shows 3 columns of information.

1. The left filter panel allows you to narrow down the conversations you want to view.
2. The middle panel lists all the conversations that match your filters.
3. The right panel shows the selected conversation where you can engage in texting with your contact.

 

Filter the Inbox

Narrow down the conversations in your inbox using the filter panel.

Message Type Filters

Message type filters allow you to restrict the conversation list based on categories of messages.

• Active Conversations: Conversations where there's been no automated response.
• Unread: Conversations that are active and not yet read.
• Starred: Star a conversation to draw further attention to it - maybe because you need to follow-up or you'll need a colleague to weigh in before you respond. The star filter will allow you to narrow down to conversations that have been flagged or those that have not.
• No Action Needed: Conversations where automation has responded on your behalf.
• Sent: Inbox of all previously sent messages.

Programs

Your account is organized into programs. Programs are often a department within your institution, but can be used to organize contacts in any way that makes sense for your organization. Your admin determine the number of programs in your account and who has access to each program.

If you have access to more than one program, you'll be able to filter to a specific program or programs here by simply checking or unchecking the box next to each.

 

Conversation List

The middle column is the list of conversations currently selected for the inbox. If you do not see conversations you expect to see, check your inbox and program selections on the left panel. In this view, each conversation will show the sender's name, the most recent message they've sent and the date and time that message was received. Conversations in bold with a dot to the left are unread - you (or your team) haven't read the whole conversation. Clicking on an item in this list will load the conversation into the right pane.

Search

By entering a word or words into the keyword search box, the list of conversations will be filtered down to only those that contain those words within a message. So, if you're looking to find any conversation referencing "FAFSA," you can type "FAFSA" in the search box and immediately narrow the list down.

Scroll to View More Conversations

To view more conversations, scroll down the list. As you scroll down, more conversations will automatically appear in reverse chronological order of send time.

 

Engage in Conversation

Once you've selected a conversation, the right pane allows you to view the conversation history and reply.

Contact Name

At the top of the conversation is the contact's name and the program associated with this conversation. Clicking on the contact's name will take you directly to their record in Salesforce. If there's no record in Salesforce, the contact name will not be clickable.

Action Buttons

To the right of the contact name are a couple of action buttons. Similar to the bulk action in the conversation list, here you can mark this conversation as starred/unstarred, read/unread, or move it between active conversations and no action needed.

Conversation

Like text messages on your phone, the conversation history is arranged chronologically with the latest message at the bottom. The conversation will automatically load with the most recent unread message in view, so you don't have to scroll through long conversations just to get to where you need to be. Texts sent from Modern Campus Message will appear as blue bubbles on the right side, with the date/time the message was sent and the name of the person that sent the message just underneath. When the message was sent automatically, the name of the program or bot that sent it will appear instead.

Texts from your contact will be on the left side in a gray bubble and similarly adorned with name and the date/time it was received.

To the top of the conversation you'll find a tab with the program name this conversation belongs to. If this contact is communicating with multiple programs - and if you have access to those other programs - other programs will be listed as well. Clicking on those other programs will load the conversation history with that program.

Compose Your Message

Underneath the conversation you can compose a response to your contact.

• Tag : Insert merge fields to pull data from their Salesforce record (e.g. app_completed).
• Emoji : Insert an emoji from our emoji library.
• Image : Upload an image to send with your message.

Choose to send your message now or schedule it for the future. To send it, simply check your preferences and then click Send. Simple as that.

Upcoming

This tab will appear only if you schedule future messages for this contact.

Conversation History on Salesforce Records.

Your administrator can also add the conversation history directly onto your Salesforce records. Once enabled, you'll be able to engage in conversation directly from a contact's record. You'll find it identical to "Engaging in Conversation" above, just this time embedded with the record instead of in the Inbox.