Texting Patrons Through Sportsman
Sportsman has built-in texting functionality to allow you to text your patrons directly from the application. Being able to send a text to a team roster, a group of members or facility reservation patrons is a convenient method for Recreation facilities to communicate critical information like pool closings, weather cancelations and schedule changes. Our “Timeslot Registration” feature and Day Pass purchases sold on ActivityReg websites can be configured to send QR entry codes to patrons via email and/or text. Only the Sportsman Core module is required for Texting. Texting is provided under an account through Peak Software however you may also use Clickatell (3rd party) account.
Beginning September 1, 2020 all Sportsman customers are automatically enrolled in the basic Sportsman Text Services plan which allows up to 1,000 standard text messages or 500 QR texts (which count as 2 texts) a month for free (or an equivalent combination). A portion of your Sportsman Core renewal price covers the expense of this free service.
It is important to note that standard texts over 160 characters are divided up and charged as multiple messages to the same number by most texting carriers. Please read thru the detail under the Free Service and Pay As You Text Plan to understand how total messages are counted.
To help you keep your texting under the Free Service limits we offer administrative tools including a text counter and a site configuration tool to limit all texts to no more than 160 characters so that multiple texts are not sent as part of the same message. You cannot exceed the 1,000 total count per month unless you are on our Pay As You Text Plan. You may also elect to email reservations and day passes with QR Codes rather than included a text message.
For the small percentage of our customers that need additional texting volumes each month or on occasion, we will offer a Pay As You Text Plan that will invoice you for any overages. This plan requires acceptance of our Texting Agreement before you can exceed the monthly threshold. If you are on this plan and continue to use less than 1,000 total messages per month you will not have any charges.
Free Service and Pay As You Text Plan
Free Service Limits and Calculations
Using our free service you will receive 1,000 text messages per month. Based on the length of your standard texts sent along with the number QR Codes sent via text your total number of patron communications may be much less than the total 1,000 count.
Standard (character-only) texts of 160 characters are considered a single text. Texts of 161 to 306 characters to a single cell number are counted as 2 text messages because of the way most service providers divide up longer texts. Further divisions are based on each additional 153-character limit.
QR Codes sent as texts always count as 2 text messages to a single cell number because both a short message and a QR code image is sent.
In the example below while only 815 texts were sent to patrons, the total text messages counted toward the 1,000 free limit is 905.