Outbound alerts text a recipient list, not individuals. Build lists of external contacts, set them to expire, let people add their own number via a QR sign-up link — and brand that sign-up page with your own logo, colours and wording.
When an emergency alert goes out by SMS, it texts a recipient list — a named set of external contacts — rather than numbers typed in one at a time. Lists are the roster you maintain before an incident so that, when one happens, reaching the right people is a single click.
+447700900123).Lists and the people on them can be permanent or time-boxed, which keeps your rosters honest without manual tidying:
Rather than collecting numbers yourself, you can generate an unguessable sign-up link — and its matching QR code — that lets people add their own number to a list. No login, no account, just a number and a tap. It's ideal for a poster in a lobby or a slide at an induction.
STOP. See the next article for how consent and opt-out work.A sign-up link can also carry a public Report an issue form — photos, a video and a voice message included — so the same poster that joins people to your list lets anyone flag a hazard. See Issue Reports under Security Operations.
Lead with decides which of the two people meet first. Sign-up leads by default, with Report an issue as a link underneath it. Switch it to reporting and the page swaps round: the report form is what opens, and joining the alert list becomes the link below — the right way round for codes printed on gates, seat backs and bins, where reporting is the reason the code is there at all. Both are always available either way, and like branding it can be changed on a link whose QR code is already printed. The setting appears beside Issue reporting once a form is attached.
Each sign-up link can send a welcome text the first time somebody joins the list through it — a confirmation that the number went in, and a chance to say who you are before the first real alert arrives. Write it on the link itself, alongside the QR code, and choose the number, sending pool or Sender ID it comes from. The editor shows the exact text that sends, its segment count and anything that could get it blocked, exactly as the campaign composer does. It is sent once per person: re-scanning the poster adds nothing, so nothing is sent again. Anyone who has already asked you to stop is skipped, and the message counts against your SMS allowance like any other. If you send from a Sender ID, nobody can reply to it — choose the opt-out link so people still have a way out.
By default the page a sign-up link opens is plain and carries whoot. styling. If you'd rather it looked like yours — a poster in your reception should send people to a page that clearly belongs to your organisation — create a brand template and apply it to any sign-up link. A template is your look: what the page says, and what it asks, is set on a sign-up form (below).
Brand templates live under Admin → Branding. Templates are reusable: build one per venue, campaign or brand, then pick the one you want each time you create a link. The same templates dress the response page people open during an alert, so a venue sets its look once.
A template controls how the page looks:
When you create a sign-up link, choose a template from the Brand template dropdown. Leave it on Unbranded for the standard whoot. page. You can also change the template on a link you've already created — handy when the QR code is already printed and you want to refresh the look without reprinting anything.
A sign-up form is what the page says and asks. Build one under Admin → Forms → Sign-up Page and attach it to a link from the Sign-up form dropdown, exactly as you would a brand template — and, like a template, you can change it on a link whose QR code is already printed. A link with no form asks for a mobile number and nothing else, with the standard wording. The form holds your own headline, consent text, privacy policy link and footer, and works on a branded page or the standard one.
The form can also ask extra questions — which stand someone is in, their seat number, the name of their tutor. Each question is one of your contact fields: the same fields you merge into a message as a {{token}}, build dynamic groups from, and map when importing a file. Pick a field from the list, mark it required or optional, and add a hint if the question needs one; the page renders it from the field's own definition, so a choice field becomes a picker and a date field a date. You can declare a new contact field without leaving the builder. The person's name is always available as a built-in question.