Trio can send messages by text (SMS) as well as in the app and by email. This article tells you who gets a text, how many texts your plan allows, why a text may not arrive, and where replies to texts go.
Who gets a text
Each person chooses in their notification settings if Trio can text them.
- Conversations - when you send a message in a conversation, Trio also texts each person in it who has texts turned on. See Messages and Conversations.
- Group messages - with Email / SMS per preference, Trio emails each person who has email turned on. It sends a text only to a person who has email turned off or no usable email address, and who has texts turned on. See Group Messages.
- Reminders and alerts - Trio can also send these by text to people who have texts turned on.
The monthly text limit
Each plan has a monthly limit on texts:
- Free - 50 texts a month
- Pro - 1,000 texts a month
- Max - 10,000 texts a month
Every text that Trio sends for your studio counts: messages, group messages, reminders and alerts. Sign-in codes do not count. The count starts again on the first day of each month (UTC). Owners and admins can see the count on Plan & usage.
When your studio reaches its limit:
- Conversations - Trio sends no more texts until the first day of the next month. The message still reaches each person in Trio, and by email when they have email turned on. Owners and admins get an SMS limit reached for this month alert in the bell.
- Group messages - Trio blocks a group message that uses Email / SMS per preference when your studio has used all its texts for the month. It also blocks it when the texts used so far, plus every recipient outside Trio, would pass the monthly limit. This counts people who would get email, so it can happen while texts remain. Send In-App only, or send to a smaller group.
To get more texts, change your plan. See Trio plans and your subscription.
Why a text did not arrive
Check these causes:
- The person turned texts off in their notification settings.
- It was a group message, and the person has email turned on, so Trio sent an email.
- The person texted STOP. Their family or student page shows Texts stopped with the date. To get texts again, they text START in reply.
- No phone number is on file for the person.
- Your studio reached its monthly text limit.
Replies to texts
When someone replies to a text, Trio puts the reply in the correct conversation in Messages. Trio holds the few replies that it cannot place, and an owner or admin chooses where each one goes.
Unmatched replies
A few inbound texts cannot be filed automatically. Those wait for review at Moderation Inbox, a page titled Moderation Inbox. Only owners and admins can open it - teachers and staff who follow the link are sent back to their dashboard. Nothing in Trio links to the page: there is no sidebar entry, no button on the Messages page, and no notification when something arrives. Bookmark the address if your studio sends texts.
What lands here
Trio holds a reply for review when it knows the reply belongs to your studio but cannot tell where to file it:
- More than one conversation in play - your studio texted that phone number from two or more separate conversations within the last 24 hours, so the reply could answer either one.
- An ambiguous sender - the number is shared by more than one person in your studio, or it belongs to a student who has no account of their own.
A text from an unknown number never reaches this page. Trio answers it automatically and files nothing in your studio.
Working through the queue
Each entry shows the sender's phone number, the message, how long ago it arrived, and a Media attached badge when the text included a photo. Three actions are offered:
- Attach to thread - file the reply into an existing conversation. When Trio recorded likely conversations, you get one button per candidate labeled with that conversation's name. When it recorded none, the button is greyed out and explains why on hover: keep the reply as a new thread or discard it instead.
- Keep as new thread - treat the reply as the start of its own conversation rather than part of an existing one. When Trio recognizes the sender, the button names them.
- Discard - clear the entry without filing the reply into a conversation. Use it for wrong numbers, automated replies, and one-word acknowledgments that need no follow-up.
Choosing an action removes the entry from the list. An empty queue reads "No unmatched SMS replies".
Because nothing alerts you, look in from time to time. A parent whose reply is sitting here is waiting on an answer nobody has seen.
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