Getting Started
Easy Registration Process To use Office Buddies you need to be a registered user. This requires you to create a User Name and Password and to answer a few brief questions about yourself. To begin this process, select Start here and click the Register button. This will prompt you to answer a series of questions. As soon as you have completed this process (it shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes), you will be able to login and send your first SMS. Hint: We also validate your phone number, so be sure that you have your mobile phone close by. |
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| Click the Register button to complete our account application form |
Logging into Office Buddies
To get started, you need to login with your Username and Password details.
If you have forgotten your password, you can request a Password Reset by clicking the Forgot Password? link on the login panel. This will send a new password to your registered email address.
After you have entered your authentication details, you can either click LOGIN or press ENTER on your keyboard and the Office Buddies application will appear.
Hint: After you have logged in to Office Buddies you can reset your password and other details from within the SETTINGS --> PASSWORDS panel.
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| The Office Buddies opening screen |
Sending an SMS
Office Buddies allows you to send an SMS, either individually or to a group of recipients. You can do this several ways:
Sending a single SMS: Office Buddies will automatically add your details to the Personal Contacts list. You will see your name and mobile phone number displayed in the Personal Contacts panel on the left of your screen.
You will also see our startup message in the Message Composer panel. This can be removed by clicking the CLEAR button.
To illustrate the sending of an SMS to a single recipient, let's send an SMS to our own mobile phone. Use your mouse to drag your Contact details into the TO: field. Enter a message in the Composer panel (we allow you to type up to 160 characters) and click the SEND SMS button.
A grey rotating bar will appear to indicate that our message is being sent and a green nodal dialogue bar will appear that says, "1 SMS message(s) sent successfully".
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Drag your Contacts into the TO: field, write a message and click SEND SMS. That's all it |
Sending a small group SMS: This step uses the same approach as sending a single SMS. The difference is that you can select multiple recipients to be part of your group SMS.
Using either your keyboard CTRL key or a standard click SHIFT sequence, select your recipients and drag them into the TO field.
Type your message and click SEND SMS. A green nodal dialogue bar will appear that says, "6 SMS message(s) sent successfully" (assuming that you selected 6 recipients).
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| Sending to groups is as simple as 'click and drag'. |
Sending a large group SMS: This step uses Office Buddies saved Groups. These can be of any size and require you to import a CSV file to create the group.
Details on how to import a CSV file can be found in our Guide and in the online help files within Office Buddies.
Sending to saved Groups uses the same click and drag approach. Simply select the Group(s) and drag them into the TO field. At this point, Office Buddies will validate that you have sufficient credits to send to each member of the Group. If you don't, a red nodal dialogue bar will appear alerting you to buy more credits.
Assuming that you have sufficient credits, proceed to type your message and click the SEND SMS button. A green nodal dialogue bar will appear that says, "591 SMS message(s) sent successfully" (assuming that you selected 591 recipients).
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| Sending to groups is as simple as 'click and drag'. |
Sending a personalised SMS
Office Buddies allows you to personalise the sending of an SMS. This is very useful for outbound marketing and large Group reminders.
By clicking the INSERT button you are able to automatically add fields to your outgoing SMS messages. This is just like a 'mail-merge' and can be done with a few simple clicks of your mouse.
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| Customise your SMS messages with our easy-to-use SMS merge feature |
Checking your Outbox
Office Buddies maintains a record of the TXT messages that you have been sent and messages that are pending.
'Sent Messages' are messages that have been delivered into the international mobile phone network.
'Pending Messages' are messages that have failed to be delivered or where you don't have sufficient credit to deliver this message.
The status of your SENT and PENDING messages can be viewed by clicking the FOLDERS tab and either option.
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| View the Sender Log to get an instant snapshot of all your TXT messaging activity |
Adding Credit to your Office Buddies Account
With Office Buddies you can purchase 'Credits' that are securely stored against your account. These credits can be used send SMS message to over 160 countries.
These Credits can be purchased from within the Office Buddies Online Store using either a Paypal account or your Credit Card or with a Bank Transfer to our bank account.
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Office Buddies allows you to add credits to your own secure server wallet and |
The remaining Credit Balance in your Office Buddies account can be viewed in the top right hand corner of the Office Buddies application. This is a reducing balance and decrements an amount when you send a message.
To better understand different costs between coverage regions, visit our Coverage page for a summary of credit charges between countries.
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Office Buddies shows your remaining Credit Balance in the top |
Managing your Office Buddies account
Office Buddies includes a powerful suite of management tools to control the use of Office Buddies. Access to these tools is from the Administration link on this website.
Admin Access Rights
Whenever we create a new Office Buddies account, the nominated party automatically becomes the Office Buddies Administrator. This gives them the ability to add users, view reports, control the allocation of Credits and reset passwords. Other parties can also be given Administrative access rights.
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| Office Buddies allows you to grant Administrator status to other users within your account. |
Add Users
Within the Administration Console you can add users, set their status and control the allocation of Credits against their account.
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| Adding Credits to an account draws the amount from your central pool of credits |
Management reporting
Understanding who is sending what and where is a crucial part of administering the use of Office Buddies in an office environment. Office Buddies provides an instant dissection of total usage across your office. This makes it very easy to get a snapshot on individual and group behaviour and destination traffic.
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| From your Office Buddies Dashboard you can view daily SMS activity by individual or group |
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| From your Office Buddies Dashboard you can view SMS activity across the past 7 days by individual or group |
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| From your Office Buddies Dashboard you can view total SMS destination traffic by individual or group across a given date range. |
Collaborative Contacts
Giving everyone in the office visibility to key Contacts, suppliers and customers is quick way to reduce frustration and insure that the right people get the right message!
The ability to add, edit and change the Company Contacts list remains the perserve of the Office Buddies Administrator.
Office Contact lists can be created manually or imported into Office Buddies using our CSV import facility. This applies both the use of Office Group and to single Contacts. By click in the IMPORT CONTACTS link in Office Buddies, you will be guide through a 3 step process on how to import your own CSV Contacts list.
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| Importing a CSV file is a simple three step process |
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| The Office Buddies CSV import process allows you to select where your Contact will appear |
Account Alerts
To stay on top of your Office Buddies account, we have include a series of automatic triggers. These will send you an email and/or SMS if your Credit balance every drop below a preset threshold. This feature can be found under ACCOUNT on the Administration page.
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| Office Buddies triggers alerts to your mobile phone or email against preset thresholds |