> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.fieldpulse.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Customer Communications Overview
> See what Customer Communications does in FieldPulse — email and SMS templates, automatic triggers, and one place to review every message your team sends.
> **Who uses this:** An Admin sets up Customer Communications in Company Settings; the **View Customer Communications** permission controls who else can review sent messages. **Availability:** All regions · Customer Communications must be enabled; Engage add-on to send from your own phone lines.
[Customer Communications](https://www.fieldpulse.com/features/customer-communication) is the part of FieldPulse that sends emails and text messages to your [customers](https://www.fieldpulse.com/features/customer-management) — appointment reminders, "your tech is on the way" texts, [invoice](https://www.fieldpulse.com/features/estimates-and-invoices) links, feedback requests — without anyone on your team remembering to send each one. This page covers what Customer Communications includes, how the pieces fit together, and where to review everything your team has sent.
## Overview
Customer Communications is the email and SMS system built into FieldPulse for messaging customers about their work. It does three things:
* **Templates** — Build reusable email and SMS messages that fill in job and customer details through Field Values, so every message reads like you wrote it by hand.
* **Automatic triggers** — Tie a template to a moment in the work — job created, job status changed, invoice past due — and FieldPulse sends the message on its own.
* **Manual sends** — Send a template, or a one-off message, to a customer from any job or customer record when you need to.
Templates, email settings, and automatic triggers live in **Company Settings** > **Customer Communications**. FieldPulse logs every message that goes out — automatic or manual — under **Management** > **Communications**, with a delivery status on each one.
Three extras sit on top of that core. Any message can carry file and photo attachments from web or mobile. And from the [FieldPulse mobile app](https://www.fieldpulse.com/features/mobile-app), a technician can send the assigned user's profile photo along with an SMS so the customer knows who to expect, or text the customer a live trip tracking link on the way to a job.
## Video walkthrough
Two recorded walkthroughs cover Customer Communications end to end — one for the web app, one for the mobile app:
* [Customer Communications on the web app](https://www.loom.com/share/47344a973902421caef243ad9569d5c7)
* [Customer Communications on the mobile app](https://www.loom.com/share/9bd583dc774c49c29d89bf2c313e97bd)
## How it works
The workflow breakdown Customer Communications solves is the gap between what happened on the job and what the customer knows. A tech finishes early, an invoice goes past due, an appointment is tomorrow — and nobody tells the customer until they call to ask. Customer Communications closes that gap in four moves:
1. **Set up templates once.** Write your email and SMS templates in **Company Settings** > **Customer Communications**, using Field Values to drop in the customer's name, job time, and location. See [Setting Up Email & SMS Templates](/customers/communications/message-templates).
2. **Decide what sends on its own.** Create automatic triggers so the right message goes out at the right moment, with no one hitting send. See [Setting Up Automatic Communication Triggers](/customers/communications/automatic-triggers).
3. **Send the rest by hand.** For anything you do not automate, send a template from the job or customer record. See [How to Send Communications to Customers](/customers/communications/sending).
4. **Check what your customer got.** FieldPulse records every send with a delivery status, so you know whether the message landed.
## What your customer receives
Your customer receives an ordinary email or text message — no app to install and no login. The message body comes from your template, with each Field Value replaced by that customer's details, so the text reads as though you typed it for them.
Field Values carry through to the text your customer reads, so a reminder can name that job's arrival window rather than a generic time:
Who the message reaches depends on what it is about:
* **Job-related communications** go to the main customer contact, or to any additional contact on the customer record that you designate as the job's contact.
* **All other communications** go only to the main customer contact, never to additional contacts.
### Files and photos
You can attach files and photos to SMS and email communications sent from web or mobile, on both one-off and templated messages. One message can carry several attachments, though you select and upload the files one at a time.
* Email attachments are capped at **10 MB per file**.
* SMS attachments have **no size limit**, because FieldPulse texts your customer a link to a file viewer instead of the files themselves.
"*Please click the link below to view all files.*" is default FieldPulse text on SMS attachment messages and cannot be removed or edited.
This is what your customer sees after selecting the link to view your attachments:
### Profile photo messages
Let your customers know who to expect: from the FieldPulse mobile app, you can send the assigned user's profile photo along with a customer communication SMS. This is available when sending the SMS from your phone's own messaging app, and can't be used with automatic communication triggers at this time.
On the customer record, select the green **Actions** button:
After selecting **Actions**, locate **Send Customer Communication**:
Select **Send Customer Communication**, choose the SMS template you'd like to send, select **Include Profile Photo**, then select **Send from Phone**:
### Live trip tracking
A technician on the way to a job can text the customer a live trip tracking link from the FieldPulse mobile app: on the job record, select **Actions** > **Send Customer Communication** > **SMS** > **Send Trip Tracking SMS to Customer**. The first time your account sends one, the technician writes a default trip tracking message and presses **Save**, and FieldPulse reuses that message on every send after it. The link opens a map with the technician's real-time location and an ETA the technician can adjust before sending, and the message can include a photo of the team member so the customer knows who to expect.
Trip tracking needs two things:
* **Location services turned on** for FieldPulse on the technician's phone. Without location access, FieldPulse cannot share the vehicle's position with your customer.
* **A send method.** The text goes out either from the FieldPulse app or from the phone's own messaging app — sent from the phone's messaging app, it comes from the technician's personal phone number.
Selecting the link in that text opens the live map:
The live trip tracking link stays active for one hour after it is sent, so your technician's location is shared only while they are on the move rather than for the rest of the day. Trip tracking messages cannot be tied to automatic triggers — a technician always sends them manually.
For the full customer-side view, see [Trip Tracking Overview](/scheduling-dispatch/dispatch/trip-tracking-customer-view).
## Message tracking and delivery statuses
FieldPulse keeps every communication your team sends in one place. Go to **Management** in the left menu and select **Communications**.
From the Communications tab you can:
* Review every message your team sends, in one list.
* Filter by related record type using the tabs at the top.
* Open any message to see who sent it, the date and time, the delivery status, the customer, the related record, and the full message content.
Each message carries a delivery status:
| **Status** | **What it means** |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Delivered** | The message reached your customer. |
| **Opened** | Your customer opened the message. |
| **Clicked** | Your customer clicked a link inside the message. |
| **Bounced** | The message did not reach your customer — the email address does not exist, or your customer previously reported your emails as spam. |
Email communications can show three more statuses:
| **Status** | **What it means** |
| ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Sent** | The email reached the recipient's mail server. That does not guarantee it lands in the inbox — it can still be blocked or filtered at a later stage. |
| **Deferred** | The first delivery attempt did not go through — often a full inbox or a temporarily unavailable server — and the email is queued for automatic retries. |
| **Blocked** | The recipient's server refused the email, because of a blacklisted sending address, spam-filter triggers, or domain-level policies. Ask your customer to check their spam folder. |
## Availability
Customer Communications is available in all regions and has to be enabled on your account. How your messages send depends on whether your account has the Engage phone add-on — see [Engage Overview](/add-ons/engage/overview):
* **Without Engage** — every automatic email and SMS sends from a no-reply toll-free number provided by FieldPulse.
* **With Engage** — when the **Send Customer Communication via Engage Account** toggle is on, SMS and email triggers send through your Engage account. Choose **Engage Smart SMS Delegation**, which picks the sender's assigned line, then the company owner's line, then any available Engage line; or choose a **Custom Phone Line** so every SMS always sends from the same number.
* **Texting U.S. numbers through Engage** requires 10DLC registration with The Campaign Registry before carriers will deliver your messages. See [Setting Up 10DLC Compliance Registration](/add-ons/engage/10dlc-compliance).
* **Trip tracking** is a mobile-app feature and needs location services enabled on the technician's device.
## FAQs
### What time do communications send to my customers?
Date-based triggers send at 8:00 AM in the timezone set on your FieldPulse account, so a message set for 3 days after a job is completed goes out at 8:00 AM on that day. Hour-based triggers send the exact number of hours after the event — 30 hours after completion means 30 hours after that job entered the Completed status. See [Setting Up Automatic Communication Triggers](/customers/communications/automatic-triggers) for every trigger option.
### Do I need the Engage add-on to send customer communications?
No. Without Engage, FieldPulse sends your emails and texts from a no-reply toll-free number. Engage lets those messages send from your own business phone lines instead.
### Can automatic triggers send trip tracking messages?
No. A technician sends trip tracking texts manually from the FieldPulse mobile app. The same is true of profile photo SMS, which a technician sends from the mobile app through the phone's own messaging app using **Send from Phone** — neither can be attached to an automatic trigger.
### Can a customer stop receiving these messages?
Yes. A customer can reply STOP to any text to unsubscribe from every SMS your account sends them, and you control which automated notifications a customer receives from their customer record. See [Customer Notification Preferences and SMS Opt-Out Details](/customers/communications/notification-preferences).
## Related articles
* [Setting Up Email & SMS Templates](/customers/communications/message-templates)
* [Setting Up Automatic Communication Triggers](/customers/communications/automatic-triggers)
* [How to Send Communications to Customers](/customers/communications/sending)
* [Customer Notification Preferences and SMS Opt-Out Details](/customers/communications/notification-preferences)
* [Job Confirmations Overview](/customers/communications/job-confirmations)
* [Trip Tracking Overview](/scheduling-dispatch/dispatch/trip-tracking-customer-view)
* [Engage Overview](/add-ons/engage/overview)
## Related topics
- [Customer Portal Overview](/customers/customer-portal/customer-portal.md)
- [Communications](/customers/communications/index.md)
- [How to Send Communications to Customers](/customers/communications/sending.md)
- [Setting Up Automatic Communication Triggers](/customers/communications/automatic-triggers.md)