Texting and the Phone inbox

The Phone dashboard

• The business number in the header (or "Forwarding to your assistant" on the forwarding path).
• An Inbox card — "Every call and text on your business line — reply from one place."
• A "Finish setting up" checklist (Get your phone number → Set up call answering → Forward your calls) until setup is complete.
• Pending Approvals — assistant-proposed appointments awaiting a decision (for users with the "Approve scheduling" permission).
• "Last 30 days" stat tiles: Texts received (shown once texting is live), Calls answered, and Avg response time.
• The Settings tabs inline on the page: Assistant and Automated texts — there is no separate settings button or page.

The Phone inbox

The inbox lists every call and text on the business line, newest first, with filter chips All / Texts (with an unread count) / Calls and a search box. It's a master-detail view — click any item to open it on the right:

• Text threads open the full conversation, with the reply composer and assistant controls (below). New leads are tagged "New lead".
• Calls show the outcome, a summary, any message taken, and the full transcript.
• Calls your team placed from the web dialer show as outgoing ("Placed by …") with a note that calls placed by your team aren't recorded, so there's no transcript — only assistant-answered calls are transcribed.
• An outbound text the carrier could not deliver shows a red "Not delivered" indicator under that message bubble.

Text thread controls

• Assistant mode dropdown (top right of the thread): "Assistant replies automatically", "Assistant drafts, you approve", or "Take over (assistant off)". Changing this needs the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission.
• Draft approval: when the assistant drafts a reply, a "Your assistant drafted a reply" card appears above the composer — edit the text if needed, then Send or Dismiss.
• Composer modes: "Reply" texts the customer directly; "Coach assistant" sends the assistant an instruction (e.g. "tell them we can come Thursday") — it writes the customer-facing text as a draft in the drafted-reply card for you to edit and send. Coaching never texts the customer directly.
• Checking "Save as standing instruction" in coach mode makes that coaching permanent — it appears under Settings → Assistant → Standing instructions, where it can be deleted.
• Replying and approving or dismissing drafts needs the "Respond to customer inquiries" permission — so office managers can reply. Reading the inbox needs inbox read access.

Photos and attachments (MMS)

• Photos customers text in appear inside the conversation — click to enlarge.
• Other attachment types — contact cards, audio, video, PDFs — appear as labeled chips that open in a new tab.
• To send photos, use the image button next to the composer in Reply mode — up to 3 photos per text, compressed automatically. The technician app's Comms tab works the same (attach via camera or photo library).
• Video sending is not supported (carrier size limits).

What texting requires: a business line + free carrier registration

Texting can only run on a line Pool Founder provides — it can never work on the free call-forwarding path. On top of the line, US carriers legally require every texting business to register first (10DLC registration). Registration is free — Pool Founder covers the carrier fees and files the paperwork automatically — and it's self-serve: the form (legal business name exactly as on IRS records, EIN, business address, contact info) is collected as the first step of business-line setup, before anything is billed.

• Business verification usually clears within minutes; full carrier approval usually takes a few days. The Phone dashboard shows a live progress timeline: Payment → Business verified with the IRS → Carrier approval → Number activated.
• Texting turns on by itself when the carriers approve — nothing to do. Until approval, the text switches are hidden and text conversations don't appear in the inbox; phone calls need no registration and work from day one.
• If the carriers can't verify the business (usually a legal-name spelling mismatch), the dashboard card reopens the form so you can fix it and resubmit — the retry is free.
• Sole proprietors without an EIN can't register — the form steers them to the free forwarding path before any billing; companies already on a business line in that spot should contact support at support@poolfounder.com.

Automated texts

The Automated texts tab of Phone settings holds the customer SMS notification controls — exactly three:

• "Enable SMS Notifications" — the master switch for all SMS notifications. With it off, the two cards below grey out and nothing sends.
• The "On the Way" card — technicians can send an "on the way" text to customers from their route, and they get a prompt when GPS detects they've left a stop. It's a per-job setting toggled on the job detail page, with "Turn on for all jobs" / "Turn off for all jobs" bulk buttons here.
• The "Invoice Ready" card — texts the customer when an invoice is created (maintenance, work orders, and deposit invoices; the message includes the amount and your company name). It's a per-customer setting toggled on the customer edit page, with "Turn on for all customers" / "Turn off for all customers" bulk buttons here.

• Once your texting registration is live on your business number, automated texts send from that number and appear in the customer's conversation in the Phone inbox — customers can reply, and the reply lands in that thread.
• Before registration, they send from a shared toll-free number with no reply thread.
• The tab is only shown once texting is registered — before that, deep links to it land on the Assistant tab with an explanatory notice.

STOP and START (opt-outs)

Anyone who texts STOP — existing customers and new leads alike — is opted out, and neither the assistant nor your staff can text them until they text START.

The mobile Comms tab

The technician mobile app's Comms tab (bottom bar, visible to roles with inbox read access) shows texts, portal message threads, and assistant-answered calls, with the business number at the top of the feed. Emails are web-only — they never appear on mobile.

• Tap a text conversation for the full SMS thread — reply, coaching, assistant mode, and draft approval, for companies with texting unlocked.
• Tap a portal thread to reply or leave an internal note; tap a call for its summary and transcript (a phone icon calls the customer back from your own phone).
• A "bookings need your approval" banner at the top of the feed opens the Approvals screen, where users with the "Approve scheduling" permission Approve or Decline each proposed time.
• Push notifications for assistant events open the exact conversation, call, or the Approvals screen.
• When the Comms tab is visible, Account moves out of the bottom bar — it becomes the person icon in the top header.

Frequently asked questions

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