Adding Attachments and Links to Messages

Links and attachments can be sent via email or text message in BrightArrow. In this documentation, we will show you how to send links and attachments through email and text messages.

Hyperlinks

Adding a URL to an email message

To send a link via email, start by navigating to your preferred list and creating a new message or editing a message if you've already started one. Start your message as usual, selecting email as the message type.

Copy your desired URL link to your clipboard, then paste it into your email. It will show in the message as a hyperlink.

You can also use the link icon in the toolbar to add your hyperlink if you prefer.
- In your email message, click where you would like the link to be placed.
- Click the link icon in the toolbar. This method will allow you to change the text that appears with your hyperlink right away.
- Click "Insert."

Whichever method you chose, your hyperlink is now added to your email message. You can still make additional changes to the style or text of the hyperlink as needed.

Click on the hyperlink. A new menu of icons will appear with some basic editing functions that will let you do one of the following:
- Open the link
- Edit the style of the link
- Change the wording of the link and/or force it to open in a new tab when clicked
- Remove the hyperlink

Adding a URL to a text message

To add a URL to a text message, you can simply paste the URL from your clipboard directly into your text message. It will not appear as a hyperlink in the create message screen, but recipients will receive it as a clickable link on their end.

Important note: If you've made changes to shorten the wording for your hyperlink in the email creation page, you will need to copy/paste the URL back into your text message if you have the "Link to email message" toggle turned on. Since SMS text messages do not support HTML by nature, the HTML formatting of your email message is stripped out when it is converted to SMS text message. The full URL must be included in the text message for it to come through to recipients as a clickable link.

In the screenshots below, you can see that the link was shortened in the email message, resulting in the text message containing the shortened words instead of the full URLs as needed. Turn OFF the "Link to email message" toggle, then copy/paste your URLs back into the text message to include your links.

Example:

The email message contains shortened, stylized links instead of full URLs.

With the 'Link to Email Message' toggle turned ON, the exact verbiage from the email message pulls over, but the shortened URLs do not come through with links because the HTML has been stripped.

Once the 'Link to Email Message' toggle has been turned OFF, edits can be made to the text message without affecting the email message. Copy/paste the URLs back into the text message.

Linking a website to an image

You can add a live link to an image so that when recipients click on it, it takes them to a webpage.

Start creating your email message.
Copy / paste your image into the message or use the "Images" button then click "Add Image" to upload an image from your device.

Now that the image is in your email message, click on the image to bring up the menu options.
Click the "Link" icon.

Enter the web address in the URL text box.

Click "Insert."

Proceed with creating and sending your message as usual. Clicking on the image will bring your email recipients to the web page you linked.

Attachments

The instructions below pertain only to generic attachments. An attachment is generic when everyone in the contact list receives the exact same attachment. This is in contrast to an aMass Communications Solutions | BrightArrow Technologiesttachment that needs to be broken apart by contact. Example: A flyer for an upcoming event is generic since it does not change based on the recipient.

Adding an attachment to an email

To add an attachment to your email, start by navigating to your preferred list and creating a new message or editing a message if you've already started one. Start your message as usual, selecting email as the message type. Note: The process below is for sending generic email attachments only. Attachments added in this way will be accessible by all recipients of the message. If you need to send recipient-specific attachments such as report cards, contact us.

Save the document you would like to attach to your computer, then click on the "Attach" button in your email message creation page.

The button will expand to show additional options. Choose your file and rename your attachment if you want to. Click 'Upload'.

Your attachment is now added to the end of your email message with the name you gave it.

Adding an attachment or image to a text message

Attachments and images can be sent in text messages, but a few additional steps are needed. The process is easy once you know what to do. Since text messages do not contain HTML, a link to your attachment or picture will be sent via text so your recipients can click on the link to view the attachment. The image or attachment will not be embedded in your text message, but it will be viewable by recipients who click the link.

The method detailed below will create a link to your attachment that is housed in BrightArrow, so you don't have to worry about the file path from your computer being sent to your contacts. Essentially, you will first need to add the attachment to an email. You will then copy the code from the email to paste into your text message.

Start by navigating to your preferred list and creating a new message or editing a message if you've already started one. Start your message as usual, selecting email and text message as the message types. You will be able to go back later and remove the email portion of the message if you want to only send text messages.
Follow the steps above to add an attachment to your email. Sending images via SMS is done in the same way, except you will click the button to add an image to your email rather than adding an attachment.
Click on the "Code View" icon in the toolbar.

You will see that BrightArrow created an HTML link to your attachment. Highlight the link and copy it to your clipboard.

Click "Next" to proceed to the text message creation page.
Notice that the title from your attachment is within the text message, but since the HTML was stripped out the link to your attachment was removed. Highlight over the name of the attachment that populated and paste the link you just saved from your clipboard. Note that the "Link to Email Message" toggle must be turned OFF to make edits on this page.