Credits to Michael Allen for his easy to follow SMS Prayer Request Capture recipe for inspiration. Be sure to give Michael some crazy extra chip points by @ replying to him with @michaelallen ++ and all of the double pluses on RockRMS Chat!!

This workflow allows someone to text your church's Twilio number and have them entered into a group attendance for an online or streaming service. If Rock is able to match the phone number to a person, the request will be attributed to that person. At this time if does not handle the new noname person if Rock can't find a match in order to add them to the group.

Assumptions:
  • That you've appropriately created a Twilio account and set up the integration and webhook according to the Communicating With Rock Manual - Integrations
  • That you have some basic understanding of the new SMS Pipeline base functions according to the Communicating With Rock Manual - SMS Pipeline
  • That you have a general group (or other type) populated with all of your regular attendees and members that you'd like to message and match for attendance tracking (massive churches may find this challenging due to scale of their lists)
  • That your group has an appropriate Location, Schedule, and Meeting Date that can be matched to the workflow

Note: This workflow will work with the SMS Pipeline however has not been tested with the legacy Text-to-Workflow webhook at this time.
Secondary Note: This was developed mid-service during our first online "semi-live" worship and sermon during the coronavirus lockdown, so setting a go-forward Meeting Date in the Workflow attribute versus the manual entry I did would be beneficial for future use.

  1. Setup your new workflow (or import based on download link below)
  2. Setup you new SMS Pipeline Launch Workflow item
SMS Pipeline (Launch Workflow) Settings:
Message Regular Expression options:
^\s*here .* (This will match any message beginning with "here ")
^.*here*$ (This will match any message with "here" anywhere in it)
Or you can just type HERE into the Message field set to "Contains"

Workflow Attributes:

FromPerson {{ FromPerson.PrimaryAlias.Guid }}
FromPhone {{ FromPhone }}
Message {{ MessageBody }}
Workflow Export
If you are using Rock v9+, you can download SMS take attendance with HERE reply_v1.json to import the workflow.

Screenshots
If you are unable to import the workflow, you can recreate it manually based on the screenshots below. (Scroll all the way down for copy/paste friendly text from each of the actions)

Text for the workflow actions:
Parameters
FirstName {{ Workflow | Attribute:'FromPerson','FirstName' | SanitizeSql }}
LastName {{ Workflow | Attribute:'FromPerson','LastName' | SanitizeSql }}
Message {{ Workflow | Attribute:'Message' | SanitizeSql }}
RequestedByPersonAliasId {{ Workflow | Attribute:'FromPerson','PrimaryAliasId' | SanitizeSql }}
Parameters
Message {{ Workflow | Attribute:'Message' | SanitizeSql }}
Create Response

        
{%- assign fromName = Workflow | Attribute:'FromPerson','NickName' -%}

        
{%- if fromName != empty %}Thanks {{ fromName }}. {% endif -%}

        
We have received your request, and will forward it to our prayer team.

After completing your WF you can now setup your SMS Pipeline capture and response:

Go to Admin Tools - Communications - SMS Pipeline to add a new "Launch Workflow" pipeline item.

SMS take attendance with HERE reply_WF-full.png

SMS take attendance with HERE reply_SMSpipeline-full.png



Once your WF and SMS Pipeline is setup you can send out an SMS communication to the group and let them know how to let your church know that they've "attended" in an online service (pre-recorded or live stream). It also helps to cross-post this quick "how-to show that I attended" message in the comments of your video, live stream, or Facebook, Twitter, et al.

SMS take attendance with HERE reply 3.png


Once the communication is released (I'd target for 3-5 minutes after the live feed has ended or your scheduled pre-recorded release video length), sit back and watch as your attendance is automatically filled in for you in your chosen group:

Note: I should've set the Location as "remote" for this example, and the Didn't Meet occurrence to our physical building location.  

SMS take attendance with HERE reply 4.png

Modify this recipe for your group and church needs as you see fit.

Please leave comments below on ways to improve upon this simplistic take of mobile attendance taking for times of remote/online service. I'd be happy to update this recipe!