Message Flows
About
A Rogerthat message flow is a logical and coherent sequence of message steps. It is an automated interactive communication between your service and a user. Once a message flow is launched, the recipient(s) will walk through the various steps of the flow, one message at a time. Each time a user finished the entire message flow, your service will receive the responses of that user.
A service can launch a message flow for one, many, or all of its users. A service can also decide to launch a message flow when a user pokes a service, for example by scanning a QR code, by explicitly poking the service, or by clicking an action link that the user received in an SMS text message, in an email or embedded in a web page.
Every time a user completes a message flow, the results are sent back to your service. This way your service only has to gather the results of the entire message flow, instead of processing the responses to every individual step. This greatly simplifies your service.
Creating and managing message flows
Two types of people will create message flow templates:
- Marketeers or non-technical business people will typically use the Rogerthat Message Flow Designer. See the screenshots. This drag & drop designer is very easy to use. It is purely focused on the business content and flow of the communication. No need to program one line of code.
The following features are supported in a message flow:
- Every message contains a message text and interactive elements such as buttons.
- Connect the various steps together, based on the user responses of the previous step.
- Select the message branding from a dropdown.
- Configure sound alarm options of a message.
- Configure what happens when a user presses a response button. For example, dial a phone number, show a confirmation popup, open a map, open a web page.
- Configure message auto-locking.
Running the message flow
A message flow can be launched for one or more recipients. They will receive the subsequent messages of the message flow, one at a time. Based on the user responses, the next step in the flow is selected. When a user has finished the message flow (arrived at the “End” step), the set of user responses is sent to your service.
Your service aggregates these message flow results and can further process these e.g. create a pie diagram image and post that on a web site, send a notification to one or more users, store the result in an internal database to be processed later.
Your service receives the message flow results as callbacks which can be processed by any kind of software.
Getting started
An extensive getting started guide and reference is available in the Message Flow Designer Guide.