Text In Church Administration Policies

The purpose of this policy is to address guidelines regarding scheduling a message using the Text In Church platform at Tree of Life.

The vision behind investing in the Text In Church platform at Tree of Life is to facilitate communication of events, requests or changes from Tree of Life to those impacted by the communications. We aspire to communicate frequently, personally, effectively, concisely and correctly. In an effort to fulfill this vision, Tree of Life will use the process outlined below to send out messages on a Director’s behalf. Deviations from or anomalies according to this guideline are not personal and should be invitations to conversation.

The “director” is the one making the request.

The “TIC administrator” is the one processing the request on the Text In Church platform.

The “receiver” is the person or group receiving the message.

Step 1 Request	The director will post request on Slack using channel #task-tic. No verbal requests. You may notify an administrator a request was posted, but a request via Slack channel #task-tic must be made.   Questions and/or issues will be addressed on the request post’s thread. Directors may meet with the TIC administrator to set up serial messages. These dates and items will get posted in Slack’s #task-tic. Requests should include the date to send, who should receive it, verbiage, links. Audiences should be carefully considered. Many use Tree of Life keywords that may not apply to your target impact. You may connect with the TIC administrator if you are not sure who should receive your message. Character limit is 160 characters. There may need to be revisions. These are remarked in the post thread for director approval. Links are shortened by default by the TIC administrator. Directors have liberty to provide a shortened link (bit.ly, tinyurl, etc). TIC also has a link-shortening feature available. Time frame: You may request a message up to 14 weeks in advance. *Requests should be made no later than 1 week of any PLANNED event. Messages scheduled in advance can be edited or canceled by the director as long as the message has not yet been sent, thus it is to the director’s benefit to plan ahead.
Step 2	The TIC administrator will recognize the request by using either or both of these manners: 👀 The administrator may emoji the request with “eyeballs” meaning the request has been seen. 🗨️ The administrator may comment if the request was seen.
Step 3	The TIC administrator processes the request using the Text In Church platform. Scheduling requests are processed Tuesdays @10am and Fridays @10am. This includes scheduling messages in advance.
Step 4		The administrator may emoji the request using the “Mr. Meeseeks” balloon, meaning the request has been scheduled. The administrator may confirm the request with a screenshot.
Step 5	The process is complete.

Messages Received via Text In Church

On occasion, messages are received via the Text In Church platform. Those messages are then forwarded to the appropriate director for a response if one is needed via Slack (#task-tic), to which the TIC administrator will forward. Incoming text messages related to food requests are forwarded via email to the Pantry directors. Pantry directors will carry out follow up at that point.

TIC Keywords  TIC Scheduled messages