How to Add Short Name to Blast / Update Character Count

Is your message getting cut off even though you have characters available?
 


This article will walk through how to add the ‘Account Short Name’ back into the text so that the preview and character count are reflected properly. 

First, we will look at an example of the character count showing that there are characters available, yet the test text message that can be sent will show the issue we will cover. 

In the test text message, the Short Name of the account is INCLUDED.

By default, this will ALWAYS be included in EVERY text message but in the portal, it does not take it into account in the preview or the character count.

Because of the characters used for the short name of the account in the message, it decreases the total amount of characters available for the rest of the message.

This causes part of the message to be cut off.

This can be easily fixed.

1. Open up the blast/create a new blast
   
   
2. Insert “+SmartText”
   
   
3. Select the: “Data Field Value”
   
   
4. Change the fields that appear from this:
   
   
5. To this:
   
   
6. So that it appears like this: Select USE
   
   

NOW the Account Short Name appears in the preview AND is taken into the character count. NOW the same message shows that it is 18 characters over and it would be cut off at the end of this message with this updated version of the blast.

And that is how you can ensure the character count and message will be accurate!

Here is a quick video of this process:
https://www.loom.com/share/31ba3d3821224db085f3f06ad40ed7e7