Text 2 Email

[unwashed potato!]

i'm looking for a way for staff to text something to a mobile number, and that then gets converted to an email and sent to us.

anyone know of such a thing that doesn't cost the earth? found something but at £200+ per year inc vat was too much for the little we'd use it

we have an unused old mobile phone which we could put a sim into and perhaps get an app that auto backs up the texts to emails, however i'd rather an automated system that doesn't require a mobile being left on charge 100% of the time for the one off texts we'd get.

 

[unwashed potato!]

Why do you need something like this? Surely your staff can just send emails from their phone?

yes but enough wouldn't feel comfortable enough to do this and have probably never sent an email. i want to make it simple so that they can really easily send a text and that's it. no fuss for them. any requirement and i know it just wont happen in the end.

Instead of texting a mobile number text an email address....

https://www.digitaltrends.com/how-to/how-to-send-texts-to-email/

Must have MMS enabled phone/plan...

thanks but unfortunately i can't rely on that. I tested this myself and it didn't work, and would be too much of a PITA if staff were doing this and unknowingly wasn't working for them.

 

[unwashed potato!]

i do but £180+VAT for the year is too much

 

[unwashed potato!]

Not to me it'll be a girl who works once a week Staff will send her things throughout the week which she can do when she's in. At the moment they tell me, "I need this, this needs to be done" etc, then I need to remember to tell her or they need to remind me at a better time and not while we are on sites, but too often we naturally forget so wanted a simple way for them whenever they remember anything they just text it to a number and she will pick it up on email when in the office.

 

[unwashed potato!]

Thanks all for the suggestions. Will go with an android I think then as there will be other possible uses having a phone in the office, for instance when her phone is on silent and doesn't answer she will get a very loud shock when I ring the office phone

 

[unwashed potato!]

no as i'm talking about the phones that they own not one sat in the office as it's the office the messages need to get to

 

[unwashed potato!]

Are their phones unable to load apps on to?

of course. you're forgetting the way people use mobiles and how good they are at them. we are good. most others are not.

 

[unwashed potato!]

we have something at the moment which we can create a todo list and assign who it's for and the importance, however that's for me and one other and not something i'd use for staff.

you're asking 60 year old ladies to do way too much. they want to vacuum floors and empty bins, they don't want to be logging into websites to ask for vacuum bags, nor downloading apps.

thinking about it. if there is such as thing as SMS divert from the operator, i could get a number that auto diverts text to me, then set up a rule that texts i get from that number are auto sent on by email. anyone know if such as thing exists with operators? i know call forwarding is a thing but not sms forwarding

 

[unwashed potato!]

2 a week. Maybe more as we have something in place it may be the team end up using it more often

 

[unwashed potato!]

You are really making a mountain out of a mole hill. Just tell them to pick up the phone and call. No need for technology implementations. Or are they deaf? (question?)

What in earth are you taking about?

 

[unwashed potato!]

Thanks. Our solution was to buy a 7 inch tablet with 4g. Have a £5 sim in there so now staff can WhatsApp and text whenever and it's picked up when she's in the office, and we do that through the Web app as you've said which is fantastic BTW, and WhatsApp Web, and Google photos for any photos they've sent we have too. Very convenient I must say. The tablet even turns auto on and off at certain days and times so is ready to go when we need it and barely uses any battery

 

[unwashed potato!]