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The Complete Guide

The REALM Guide

Everything Realm does, and how to use it. The full handbook: every feature, with step-by-step instructions. Use the contents on the left to jump to a chapter.

97Chapters
15Product areas

Texting

Text your clients and leads from inside Realm so the conversation lives next to the Realm — not buried in your personal phone. Every text is tied to a contact, and (when relevant) to a Realm.

Sending a text

  1. Open Connect and pick Text on the channel rail.
  2. Choose the person you want to text, or click New message and type their phone number — Realm recognizes a phone number and sets the channel to text automatically.
  3. Write your message in the composer and click Send.

Texting a brand-new number? Realm creates a lightweight contact for it so the conversation has somewhere to live. Fill in their name and details later from People.

Texting from a Realm or a contact

You can start a text from a few places, and they all land in the same thread:

  • From a contact in People — opens (or starts) that person's conversation.
  • From inside a Realm — opens the conversation for the people on that transaction.
  • From Connect directly — pick the person and send.

Because Connect groups by person, a text you send from a Realm and a text you send from the contact page show up in the same thread, in order with their emails and chat notes.

Where your texts land

  • Outbound and inbound texts appear in the person's conversation, mixed in with email and chat on the timeline.
  • New inbound replies show as unread in your Inbox.
  • The Activity view gives you a chronological log of individual messages across every channel if you'd rather scan message-by-message than thread-by-thread.

Text messaging is governed by consent rules (TCPA), and Realm handles the keywords for you automatically on any inbound text:

  • A contact who replies STOP (or UNSUBSCRIBE) is immediately opted out. Realm records the opt-out, sends a one-time confirmation ("You're unsubscribed and won't get more texts. Reply START to opt back in."), and stops texting that number — automations and drips included.
  • A contact who replies START or YES is opted back in and gets a confirmation ("You're confirmed for text updates. Reply STOP to opt out anytime.").

Consent is tied to the phone number, so it applies to every contact who shares that number. Because opt-out is enforced everywhere, you never have to police it by hand — a contact who's said stop simply won't be messaged.

If a phone number belongs to more than one of your contacts, an inbound reply is attributed to the thread you were most recently texting — so a shared household number lands in the right conversation.

EVE and texts

EVE can flag a text thread that's gone quiet and draft a reply for you to review and send. As with email, nothing goes out until you approve it.