In this article, you will learn how to set up automatic SMS notifications, anonymize communications between driver and recipient, and set up dependency notifications (if applicable).
- General Overview Video
- Notification Set-up & Triggers
- Tags
- Links
- Removing or Editing a Notification
- Notifications Language
- Route Calls and Messages
- Anonymize Communications
- Dedicated Phone Numbers
- Disable Notifications
- Dependency Notifications
- Restrictions
General Overview Video
In this video, you'll learn how to customize messages and tracking links that you can provide to your customers. For more details on customizing your tracking page, refer to our Tracking Page article.
Notification Set-up & Triggers
The Communications tab allows an administrator to set up and customize any number of automated SMS messages that can be sent to a recipient based on varying driver actions and triggers.
Note: There can only be one notification per trigger. Below the notifications window, you will have the option to select the language in which you would like to communicate with your customers.
To add a new communication select the "+" symbol located at the bottom right of the notifications window. The exact messaging of these notifications can be completely customized along with task-specific tags.
Onfleet offers the following triggers for notifications:
- is triggered when the driver starts the task from the driver app.
- triggered when the ETA falls below a certain threshold, which you specify. Note that these ETAs are calculated only for the current task - for future tasks, use Predicted ETA.
- is triggered when the driver is within 150 meters (~500 feet) of the destination.
- is triggered when the driver completes the task from the driver app and marks it as succeeded.
- is triggered when the driver completes the task from the driver app and marks it as failed.
- is triggered when the driver has started a task that has dependent tasks linked to it. A notification will be sent out to all recipients attached to the dependent tasks. For more information, please review Dependency Notifications.
- is triggered when the driver has completed a task that has dependent tasks linked to it. A notification will be sent out to all the recipients attached to the dependent tasks.
- triggered when the predicted ETA of a downstream unstarted task (i.e. not the current task) falls below the specified threshold.
- triggered when the task is delayed by a certain threshold, which you specify.
Tags
Tags are variables that are replaced with text at the time the notification is sent. You can see a preview of what these tags translate into at the bottom of the notification details view.
- - {recipientName} - The name of the recipient for this task
- - {workerName} - The driver assigned to this task
- - {eta} - The estimated time to arrival for the driver to reach the recipient
- - {vehicleDescription} - The year, make, model of the vehicle used by the driver
- - {vehicleLicensePlate} - The driver's license plate
- - {workerPhone} - The driver's phone number
- - {taskShortId} - The Task ID, as seen from the Onfleet dashboard
- - {destinationAddressShort} - The recipient's street address (without city, state, or zipcode)
- - {destinationAddressLong} - The recipient's street address (including city, state, and zip code)
- - {trakLink} - a link that the recipient can click on to track the driver's location in real-time (to customize this web view, see recipient tracking page). Once a task has been completed, this link can be enabled to automatically convert into a feedback page
- - {creatorName} - The name of your organization, as specified in Admin settings
- - {executorName} - The name of the organization that has been delegated to complete this task (for use with connected organizations)
- - {merchantName} - The name of the organization that originally created this task (for use with connected organizations)
- - {signatureUrl} - a link for the recipient to provide a signature for their task through their personal device and removes the need for contact on the driver's device. The signature can be viewed within the completed task details.
We do our best to handle various circumstances appropriately, for example:
- If a task is started when the driver is within 150 meters of the destination and you have notifications set up with , and triggers, we will only send the notification.
- If the driver loses connectivity when the ETA is 12 minutes and re-gains it when the ETA is 6 minutes, but there is a 10 minute trigger set up, it will use the actual ETA (6 minutes) in the notification that gets sent, provided you used the appropriate tag rather than entering "10 minutes" directly into the notification text.
Links
If your organization would like to include any non-Onfleet hosted links in your communication to recipients, please contact the Onfleet support team.
Removing or Editing a Notification
Notifications can be removed or edited by clicking the buttons depicted below. Editing can also be initiated by double-clicking on the message.
Notifications language
The preferred language of your notifications can be configured with this dropdown.
Route Calls and Messages
An admin can select whether to route calls coming from the recipient directly to the driver performing the task or route all of the calls back to the organization by choosing "Admin". The number found in the settings of the Admin account (Settings > User Settings > Phone number) is where those calls will be routed (for example, some organizations choose to use a Customer Service line). For more information on configuring organizational settings, click here.
Note: Due to the possibility of multiple tasks being active, administrators are not able to respond directly to inbound SMS messages from recipients.
Anonymize communications
By checking this box, an admin can choose to anonymize all customers to driver communications. If this is selected, the phone numbers of all parties will be anonymized and communications will be limited to active tasks.
From the Communications tab in Settings, you can choose whether the phone numbers of your drivers and recipients are anonymized during communications. This is done by routing calls and messages through our telephony provider, using an Onfleet phone number.
Anonymization protects the privacy of both parties (your drivers won't see your recipients' phone numbers and vice versa) and prevents further communication outside of an active task.
If you decide not to enable anonymization, voice and SMS communications between drivers and customers will not be routed through our telephony provider and will, therefore, display the actual contact number of either party.
Note: All trigger-based, automatic SMS notifications are inherently anonymous, as they must be dispatched to recipients via our telephony provider using either an Onfleet number or your custom organization number.
You can select how you want recipient communication to be routed. By default, the option to route calls and messages to 'Drivers' is selected. This means when the task is active and the recipient calls or texts a response, the communication will be routed to the driver.
If the recipient responds after the task is completed, we make every attempt to determine the intended organization and send an email with the details to the organization's email address. If however, your organization has a dedicated phone number, the recipient's communication after the task is completed will be routed to the Admin phone number as defined in your Dashboard Settings > User Setting section. Should the Admin phone number listed not accept SMS, the recipient communication will be routed as stated above.
If you select the option to route calls and messages to 'Admin', then all communication from recipients will be routed to the company phone number.
Dedicated Phone Numbers
If you prefer to use a local phone number to deliver notifications to your customers, we can set you up with a unique, dedicated line.
If your organization has set up a dedicated phone number, it is required that your team anonymize communications in order for the phone routing to work as expected.
There are also a few key differences in the way that undeliverable calls and SMS/text messages are handled, which are detailed in our Telephony Overview article.
Billing note: A dedicated phone number is included with all Scale and Enterprise plans. For more details please visit our pricing page.
Disable Notifications
To disable notifications for an individual recipient, open a task of theirs by double-clicking it, or simply locate the recipient via "Search". Next, double-click the "Recipients" section. Click the "Edit" button and then check the box to the left of "Disable notifications for...". Once saved, this recipient will no longer receive automated SMS notifications.
Additionally, our telephony providers will handle the following messages on long codes in accordance with industry standards (Note: This is entirely independent of Onfleet opt-out settings and will not be reflected in the recipient profile in the dashboard).
STOP will stop customers from receiving messages from your Onfleet number.
HELP will return a message informing the customer that they can use the above commands to control the delivery of messages.
If your recipient sent a STOP request by accident, please have them text 'START', `YES`, or `UNSTOP` from the same number and let us know by emailing support@onfleet.com so that we may restore their Onfleet notifications preferences.
Dependency Notifications
You can create custom SMS notifications that are automatically sent to your recipients when a driver has started and/or completed a task (pickup or dropoff) that has dependent tasks linked to it.
If a task has been started and/or completed that has dependent tasks linked to it, a notification will be sent out to all recipients attached to the dependent tasks.
To set up notifications for linked tasks, please see Create a notification.
For tasks that are linked serially (for example, Task 1 is the parent of Task 2. Task 2 is the parent of Task 3. Task 3 is the parent of Task 4, etc) the dependency notification will only be sent once the ‘parent’ task is completed.
In the above situation, Task 3 will not receive a notification until Task 2 has started.
If you prefer to have all your tasks receive a notification at the same time, you can make them dependent on a single task rather than serially.
Restrictions
Onfleet has an anti-spamming threshold of 10 seconds (10000 ms) in our notification system that applies to all automated SMS messages that are system-generated (driver-initiated SMS does not apply to this restriction).
If notifications are triggered too closely to one another the secondary notification will not be sent to the customer. For example:
Company A has a notification set for a `Dependency Completed` task - "Your order has been picked up from a restaurant!"
Company A also has a `Task Started` notification for its customer for when the driver begins the task.
If the driver starts the Task within 10 seconds of completing their `Dependency Completed`, then the `Task Started` notification will not be sent.