Sending messages

There is an option to send outbound messages via SMS or WhatsApp to beneficiaries for each action you perform in the instance, such as Including, Declining, or Sending payments to beneficiaries. If you would like to communicate project progress to the registered beneficiaries, you can toggle the button to Send a message to registrations and enable messaging through the 121 Platform. To enable messaging services, you must create a Twilio account and ensure there are sufficient messaging credits. Contact our team to set this up. Below the steps to follow:

Who can perform actions in this page?

CVA Manager and CVA Officer roles can perform actions in the Registrations page.
Additional users may be granted only View permission on this page. Learn more about Users & Roles

Create a Twilio Account¶

The 121 Team will assist you in creating your account. If you don't have an account, please contact our team for support. Twilio will prompt you to add a payment method so that funds can be automatically topped up or added as needed.

Once your Twilio account is active, the 121 support team will link it to your 121 Platform, enabling the messaging feature.

Please note that neither 121 nor the Netherlands Red Cross will charge any fees on behalf of Twilio. Our team is solely responsible for the technical integration between the two systems to facilitate message sending.

Top-up before sending messages¶

You can log in to your Twilio account everytime you need to top-up your account.

Sending SMS Fees per SMS differ per destination and number of characters sent per messaging. Check Twilio website for the fees applied to your destination on this website for SMS

Note that one SMS is limited to 160 characters — messages longer than this will be split into multiple SMS and charged accordingly. For example, a message between 161 and 320 characters will be counted and billed as two SMS. A message between 321 and 481 as three messages, etc. You can use this base to calculate how much your Twilio account should topped-up with. The calculation will include : number of SMS sent x number of beneficiaries x price per SMS for the destination.

WhatsApp messages WhatsApp messages follow a different scheme. You can find the fees description on Twilio website

Once you had calculated the total costs, you can top-up your account via the Twilio Portal and add the necessary funds.

Add sufficient funds on your Twilio account

Without funds available in your Twilio account, SMS or WhatsApp messages will fail. Contact our team if you need help setting up your Twilio account.

Formatting phone numbers in Kobo¶

Phone numbers must be entered in international format. This means starting with the country code, followed by the rest of the number without the leading zero. For example, a phone number in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) like 0900887766 should be written as 243900887766 — where 243 is the country code and the initial 0 is removed.

When building your Kobo form, you can enforce the international phone number format using a constraint or calculation. Neither Kobo or the 121 Platform will automatically reformat numbers, so it's important to configure this logic in your form to ensure consistency.

type name label constraint constraint_message
text_phone Enter phone number regex(., '^243[0-9]{9}$') Phone must start with 243 and be 12 digits long.

Send a message to the beneficiaries¶

You can choose to send a message to an individual registration, multiple selected registrations, or the entire list of beneficiaries. You may use either a custom message or a predefined template. See below for the differences and recommended usage guidelines.

Custom message¶

In the registration page:

  • Select the list of beneficiaires you want to send a message to.
  • Click on the Message icon on the top of the page.
  • Select Custom message and add the message you want to send.
  • You can use variable by using @ and selecting the field you want to insert. Variables allow you to pull information directly from the registration form and insert it automatically, without having to fill it in manually for each person. The content will adjust automatically based on the data provided by each individual during registration.

What is a variable and how does it work?

A variable is a placeholder that automatically pulls and inserts specific information from your registration form — like a name, email address, phone number, or any other field collected during sign-up.

You can use a variable by typing @ and selecting the field you want to insert. For example, typing @First Name will automatically insert each person's first name into the message. This means you don’t need to manually customize the message for every individual. The variable will dynamically adjust for each registration, based on the information submitted by that person.

For example: Dear @name, you will receive the amount of @amount tomorrow. Kind regards, @Organization. would be read as Dear Paulina, you will receive the amount of 150 USD tomorrow. Kind regards, HelpOrg.

Predefined template messages¶

If you intend to send messages at various stages of the program, you can add message templates to your instance. To do this, provide the message content along with a title and specify when the message should be triggered. Our support team will set them up. There are 2 options to send templated mesages:

  1. Templates can be linked to key stages such as Registration, Validation, Inclusion, Exclusion, and Payment(s). This means the message will be automatically sent when the corresponding action is performed — for example, by clicking a specific button.

  2. Templated messages will be available in the dropdown menu when you click on the Message button. You can choose to send them whenever you want, independently of a specific action or stage in the program — unlike the first option, where messages are triggered automatically by actions such as registration or validation.