Frequently Asked Questions
Q. So what is Office Buddies?
A. Office Buddies is our corporate SMS messaging application that works from any Internet Browser.
Q. How do I start using Office Buddies?
A. Just click the SIGN UP link above. Register your username and details and you can start sending immediately. The sign up process takes less than a minute. Five (5) SMS credits will be automatically added to your account.
Q. How do I use the collaborative features of Office Buddies in my office?
A. Simply create an Office Buddies account for each member of your Office Workgroup. This is done from your Administration Console. From this point your can also manage the allocation of Credits for each user and the Office SMS reporting.
Q. What rights does my ADMINISTRATOR status provide?
A. Each Company Account can have one or multiple Administrators. As an Administrator you can import and maintain the Company Contacts list, allocate credits between users, add new users, review performance reports, and manage certain account alerts.
Q. We want to have different Company Contact lists for different users. How do we do this?
A. Create a new Company Account for each workgroup. This way, each different account can have its own unique Contacts list and nominated users.
Q. If I purchase credits, is there an expiry period?
A. No. We do not impose a time period governing the use of your credits.
Q. Office Buddies will not allow me to import my Contacts list. What's wrong?
A. If you are experiencing difficulty importing a file, it is most likely that the CSV file format is incorrect. If you are using Microsoft Excel, be sure to save using CSV (MS-DOS). Please follow the instructions careful from the notes provided in our Online Help and in our User Guide.
Q. The details that appear when I use the Composer Merge feature is incorrect. What's wrong?
A. Most problems occur because the order of the data is incorrectly presented in your Contacts list. For the correct data to appear, the fields need to be in the correct order, i.e. FirstName, LastName, Mobile, Notes.
The option 'FullName' combines the contents of the FirstName and LastName.
The only mandatory syntax field is the 'Mobile' field. This obviously controls the delivery of your SMS messages. The other fields, FirstName, LastName and Notes can contain other data that may or may not relate to the Contacts FirstName, LastName or Notes information.
Please refer to our User Guide for further examples on how the Contact import feature of Office Buddies can be used.
Q. I am having a problem using the Sender ID feature. What's wrong?
A. The Sender ID field can contain any alpha numeric characters and should not exceed 12 characters. You need to click the UPDATE SETTINGS button to insure that this setting is saved to your Office Buddies configuration after you have entered your Sender ID description.
Certain international operators will block any message that contains a Sender ID. This currently occurs with Maxis in Malaysia, all the USA carriers and certain carriers in Europe.
If you wish to use the Sender ID features, we would advise you to test each of your regional operators to insure that the messages are delivered with the Sender ID feature invoked.
Q. If I use Office Buddies in my office, does this mean that everyone can see my personal Contacts list?
A. No. Your Personal Contacts list always remains private. Only the Contacts entered in the Company Contacts can be viewed across your Office Network.
And only users with ADMINISTRATION status can add and edit the Contacts in Company Contacts list.
Q. Is Office Buddies available for my mobile phone?
A. No. txtbuddies is not yet available on a mobile phone.
Q. Is there an Office Buddies icon that I can install on my desktop?
A. Yes. Click on this link to install an Office Buddies icon on your desktop. Clicking this icon will automatically load your preferred browser and the Office Buddies application.
Q. Why is it more expensive to send to certain country regions?
A. Our pricing is determined by the price we get charged by each of the regional carriers. This is reflected in the final retail pricing that appears in our price book.
Q. I don't have a Paypal account. How do I buy credits?
A. Use our convenient Bank Transfer facility. This will allow you to directly transfer funds from your bank account to our bank account. This can occur as a third party transfer from your Internet Bank account or a direct bank wire.
Just be aware, that if you are transfering to internationally, you will incur additional bank fees.
Paypal also allows you to transact using a credit card (Visa/Mastercard). If you click the Continue Checkout link on the Paypal page, you are taken to their card processing form.
Q. Do my Contacts need to be Office Buddies subscribers to enable me to send them an SMS message?
A. No. Office Buddies will allows you to send to any of your Contacts, anywhere across our Global GSM routing network.
The regions and mobile operators that we support can be view on our Coverage page.
Q. When I send a TXT message, my friend doesn't receive it. What's wrong?
If you are sending into a region where we have mobile coverage support and txtbuddies is reporting 'Delivered', it is likely that your friend has a 'ported' number. A ported number is a number that has been transferred between operators. These numbers are typically not supported by the international carrier networks which depend on number prefixes that align with specific mobile operators.
Q. I don't understand International Number formats, can you explain?
Office Buddies works internationally, so you need to clearly differentiate the recipient's country of origin. This is typically a one, two or three digit prefix in front of the mobile number. If you are uncertain of the correct number prefixes, check our coverage page. For more information on this subject, view our number format guide.
Q. I would like to terminate my use of Office Buddies. How do I go about this process?
If you are using a PERSONAL account, please Contact us with your details and we will follow your instructions to suspend your account on our authentication server. This will effectively block you from being able to login to Office Buddies.
If you part of an Office Buddies Workgroup, Office or Enterprise usage license, please send a request to your Office Buddies Administrator to suspect your access rights on his/her Company list.
If you have remaining Credits in your account, these are not refundable.
Q. Is there a txtbuddies User Guide?
Sure, if you click on this link, the Office Buddies Guide will open in your Internet browser.
Q. I would like to advertise on the Office Buddies Community Network. How do I sign up?
A. Start by visiting our Advertising page. This presents a number of features found in Target, our Campaign Manager. There is a link on this page which will allow you to send an email to a member of our sales team.