With text messaging in Clio Manage, you and your clients have a convenient way to answer questions and share updates, all without having to give out your personal phone number. You can send SMS text messages using a dedicated UK phone number assigned to your firm, receive SMS and MMS texts from contacts, view saved conversations, add time entries, follow or unfollow text conversations, export conversations in PDF format, and send text notifications and automatic reminders for calendar events.
Note: Text messaging is only available for firms in the United Kingdom and for UK phone numbers (+44 country code).
Text messaging vs Clio for Clients
Not sure when to use text messaging and when to use Clio's secure online portal Clio for Clients?
Text messaging:
- Fast and effective way to communicate with clients in a way that they are familiar with.
- Client does not have an email address.
- Urgent messages where clients may respond quicker via text.
- Information being sent or received is non-sensitive. Conversations stored in Clio are encrypted; however, texts in transit, like all regular texting, are not.
- Whole firm access—all users at the firm have access to the shared firm number and can view all texts exchanged in the Communications tab.
Clio for Clients:
- Ideal for securely communicating and sharing items in a shared portal between firm and client.
- Client does not have a phone number with text messaging enabled.
- Information being sent or received is private or sensitive.
- PDF or Word documents are being shared.
- Firm users need to send documents to clients.
- Read receipts—if you need to see whether your client has received or opened a message or document.
Set up text messaging
Note: Only administrators can enable text messaging for the firm account.
When you set up text messaging, Clio requests a dedicated UK phone number for your firm. All users at your firm share this number to send and receive texts. There is no business verification step, and your number is usually ready within a few minutes.
Important: You can only receive texts from contacts. Avoid publishing your firm's text messaging number on a website or distributing it to non-contacts.
Follow these steps to enable text messaging for your firm:
- Go to Settings > Text Messaging.
- Click Request phone number. A Phone number provisioning in progress message appears while your number is set up.
Once your number is ready, you will receive an email confirming that your phone number order was successful. Your firm's number appears under Your details in Settings > Text Messaging.
Note: When you first enable text messaging, every contact with a valid primary UK phone number becomes available to reach by text right away. You do not need to set up contacts one by one.
Change your alternative contact information
Once you set up text messaging, you can add alternative contact information so your clients know how to get in touch with your firm with regard to texts they receive from you. This matters because the notifications tell clients not to call or text your firm's text messaging number. You can display either an email address or a telephone number.
- Go to Settings > Text Messaging.
- Under Your details, go to Alternative contact information and click Edit.
- Under How can your attendees contact you?, select Email or Telephone.
- Enter the Email Address or Phone Number that you want clients to see.
- Click Save.
Send texts and add time entries
Text messaging is available from the Clio Manage desktop app and the mobile app. In the desktop app, you can send your clients SMS texts from the main Communications tab, the matter or contact's Communications subtabs, the matter's Dashboard, and the contact's Dashboard. In the mobile app, you can send SMS texts from the Inbox. You cannot send your clients MMS messages.
Once you initiate the conversation, your firm can then receive texts from the contact. Contacts can text you SMS and MMS texts, including photos, videos, GIFs, audio files, and basic .txt documents. Received documents will be saved in the Documents folder for each of the contact's matters.
Note: Outbound texts have a maximum character limit of 2,048 characters. Inbound texts have a maximum character limit of 8,192 characters. If texts exceed these limits, they will fail to send.
Important: Clients cannot text PDF or Word files.
- Go to the main Communications tab or the Communications subtab for a contact or matter.
- Click the New dropdown and select Text message.
- Select a contact. Once a contact is selected, click Go to text message to view any previous text correspondence.
- Type your text and click Send.
- To add a time entry, hover over the message log and click the clock icon.
- Go to the matter's Dashboard.
- In the Contacts section, select Text next to the phone number.
- Select a contact. Once a contact is selected, any previous text correspondence will automatically appear.
- Type your text and click Send.
- To add a time entry, click the Actions dropdown and select Add time.
- Go to the contact's Dashboard.
- In the Contact information section, select Text next to the phone number.
- Select a contact. Once a contact is selected, any previous text correspondence will automatically appear.
- Type your text and click Send.
- To add a time entry, click the Actions dropdown and select Add time.
- Open the mobile app and select the Inbox icon.
- Select the Texts subtab and then click New text.
- Select a contact. Once a contact is selected, any previous text correspondence will automatically appear.
- Type your text and click the blue arrow icon to send the text.
Note: Your firm's text messaging number does not support voice calls, so clients cannot call it.
Tip: If your client opted out of receiving text messages, they can opt back in by texting "unstop" in the text thread.
View and respond to saved texts
Text messages are assigned at the contact level, not the matter level. This means that stored text messages are saved in the Communications subtabs of the contact and all the contact's matters. If a matter has a related contact, texts are also saved in that related contact's record.
Unread texts will be marked with a badge showing the number of new messages. When you open a text message conversation, the message will be marked as read.
Note: When you receive new texts, a badge icon will appear on the Communications tab. You can enable or disable this feature in Settings > Notifications. Scroll down to Text messages.
- Go to the main Communications tab or the Communications subtab for a contact or matter.
- From the table subheadings, select Text messages.
- Optional: Click Filters to filter the text conversations by matter, contact, or firm user, and then click Apply filters.
- Click the text message you want to read or click View. Each line item in the table is a new text message thread.
- To respond, type in a new text and click Send.
Follow or unfollow text conversations
If you initiate a text conversation or reply to a text in a conversation, you will automatically follow that conversation. Other firm users can choose to follow any text conversation to receive notifications. When you follow a conversation, you will see a red badge on the Communications tab and the Text messages subtab when a new message is received. All users can also unfollow any text conversation.
Tip: Enable push notifications on your mobile device and the Clio mobile app to receive push notifications of new texts. Learn more about managing mobile app notifications.
- Go to the main Communications tab.
- Select Text messages.
- Optional: To view all firm text conversations, click All text messages or click Following to view only text conversations that you are following.
- Hover over the thread and click the bell icon to follow the thread.
- Optional: From within a text conversation, click the bell icon to follow the thread. To unfollow the conversation, click the bell icon.
- Go to a matter or contact and select the Communications subtab.
- Select Text messages.
- Optional: Click All text messages to view all firm text conversations, or click Following to view only text conversations that you are following.
- Click the down arrow next to View and select Follow replies.
- Optional: From the Communications tab of a contact or matter, when viewing a thread, select a text conversation and click the Follow button to follow it. The Follow button will now say Following. To unfollow the conversation, click Following.
Send calendar text notifications and reminders
When creating Calendar events, you have the option to send event invitations to your clients by text. With this feature, your clients will receive automated text notifications when the event is created, updated, cancelled, and for event reminders.
You can view text message templates and enable event reminders in your Settings. You can also change the alternative contact information for text notifications. When your contact receives a text notification, your firm contact information will appear in the template, which allows contacts to respond to your firm.
- Go to Settings > Text Messaging.
- Under Event reminders, turn on the toggle and select the number of days before an event an automatic text reminder should be sent.
- Under Text message templates, view the templates for event notifications, updates, cancellations, and reminders.
- Under Your details, click Edit next to your alternative contact information to update your firm contact details.
When you send a Calendar invitation by text, your client will have the option to confirm their attendance by responding to the text. The calendar event will show whether the client confirmed or not. You can also view whether a reminder notification was sent by viewing the Calendar event.
- Go to the main Calendar tab or the matter’s Calendar subtab.
- Click New event.
- Complete the event details.
- Under Invite attendees, select your contact(s).
- Check the box next to Notify via text.
- Click Save event.
Send bills and client funds requests by text
If your firm has both text messaging and Clio Payments enabled, you can use Text to Pay to text secure payment links to your clients for bills and client funds requests. When sending a bill, this feature allows you to select text messaging as an additional delivery option, along with other methods such as email or the client portal. Learn how to send bills to clients.
Failed text messages
If a text message fails to send, the reason for failure can be any one of the following:
- Unreachable number: There is an error with the contact's phone number. Verify that the phone number selected as the contact's texting number is a correctly formatted UK number.
- Rejected by carrier: The contact's carrier rejected the text message. A possible reason for this is that the phone number is unable to receive text messages. Verify the phone number entered for the contact and ensure that it is a correctly formatted UK number.
- Temporary error: The text message was not delivered because of an unusual error. Please try again.
- Unknown error: An unexpected and unknown error occurred when we tried to deliver the text message. Please try again.
- Carrier error: The text message was not delivered because an error occurred on the contact's carrier side. Please try again.
- Exceeded maximum character limit: The text message was not delivered because it exceeded the maximum character limit. Outbound texts have a limit of 2,048 characters. Inbound texts have a limit of 8,192 characters.
Export and print text conversations
If you need to export a text conversation to a printable PDF format for your records, for sharing with others, or for submitting to the court, you can do so directly from the text thread.
- Go to the main Communications tab or the Communications subtab for a contact or matter.
- From the subheadings, select Text messages.
- Optional: Click Filters to filter the text conversations by matter, contact, or firm user, and then click Apply filters.
- Click the text message you want to read or click View.
- Click the Actions dropdown and select Export as PDF.
Turn off text messaging
Turning off text messaging stops all texts, event notifications, and reminders. Your firm keeps its assigned phone number, so you can turn text messaging back on at any time.
- Go to Settings > Text Messaging.
- Click Turn off text messaging.
- In the confirmation window, click Turn off text messaging.