A little help and guidelines on the difference between the messages that can be sent through the Crowd Connected platform
What is the difference between a manual message, a triggered message and a broadcast message?
- A manual message is one that you have to press send yourself.
- A broadcast message is a message that is scheduled to be sent at a specific date and time in the future.
- A triggered message is a message that will be sent on ENTRY or EXIT to a region between two specific times. If a device is already present in the region it WILL NOT receive the message. It must have entered or exited the region.
Trigger messages are widely used for “Welcome to the festival”, “Welcome to the campsite” and Goodbye, see you next year.
How do I send a message to app users “Present now” in a region or multiple regions?
For either manual or broadcast messages, create a filter that is IN the specified region BETWEEN two times, where the 'from time' is 1 hour ago and the 'to time' is 15 minutes ago.
- If creating a broadcast message, the filter must be at least 15 minutes before the send time and this will be evaluated when creating the message.
👉 It will not be possible to save the message if this condition has not been met.
- If creating a manual message, this condition will be evaluated at the point of sending, so if the 15-minute gap has not elapsed from the 'to time', it will not be possible to send the message.
The reason for this 15-minute delay is to get higher number of delivery successes. In those 15 minutes, we can get as much location data from devices to get a complete picture of who was present. Due to various reasons, we do not always get data from devices when it is expected, primarily due to poor connectivity so it is possible a device might not send its data until a while after we would have normally expected it.
Therefore by delaying when we send to the user, we have a greater chance of capturing everyone who was actually there.
Can I send a message triggered on "Entry" (or Exit) but with the entry/exit trigger window starting in the past?
No, this is not possible. The trigger window must be set to start at least 15 minutes in the future. However, any filters within the message can be set to any time in the past up until the end time of the trigger window.
Maximizing reach for a broadcast message
It is better to choose a time window (i.e. BETWEEN time A and time B) rather than at a specific single point in time. So if you want to send a message to everyone seen in a region at approximately 4 pm on Thursday, we recommend using between 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm (or similar) UNLESS there is a specific reason not to.