Communication Permissions

Communication permissions control whether your organization can contact a Person via SMS, email, or phone. Solidarity Tech supports two levels of permissions: global (organization-wide) and chapter-specific.

How Permissions Work

Every Person has both global permissions and chapter-level permissions for each communication type:

Permission Logic

A Person can only be contacted if both their global permission AND chapter permission are enabled:

Can Contact = Global Permission AND Chapter Permission

For example, if someone has:

• Global SMS Blast: ✅ ON
• LA Chapter SMS Blast: ❌ OFF
• NYC Chapter SMS Blast: ✅ ON

They will receive text blasts from NYC but not from LA.

Default Behavior

When a Person joins a new chapter (either as primary or secondary), their chapter-level permissions are automatically initialized to match their current global permissions. This means:

• If global SMS is ON → new chapter SMS starts ON
• If global Email is OFF → new chapter Email starts OFF

Managing Permissions

Viewing Permissions

Navigate to a Person's profile and click the Permissions tab to see their communication permissions.

The Permissions tab shows:

• Global Permissions (at top) - The master switches that override everything
• Chapter Permissions - Individual toggles for each chapter the Person belongs to

Editing Permissions

Team Members with appropriate permissions can toggle chapter-level permissions ON or OFF directly from the Permissions tab. Changes are tracked in the Person's activity timeline.

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Note: Editing global permissions in the dashboard requires the "Update Advanced" permission. People can only opt themselves out globally via the email unsubscribe page (if enabled in organization settings). If a global permission is OFF, chapter permissions are ignored.

STOP and START Keywords

When a Person texts STOP to one of your Chapter Phone Numbers:

1. Their SMS Blast, SMS P2P, and Call permissions are revoked for that specific chapter
2. They receive a confirmation message that they've been unsubscribed
3. An activity is logged on their profile

When they text START:

1. Those permissions are restored for that chapter
2. They receive a confirmation that they've been resubscribed
3. An activity is logged on their profile

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Multi-Chapter Behavior: If a Person is in multiple chapters that share the same phone number, STOP/START affects all chapters using that number.

Email Unsubscribes

Every email blast includes an unsubscribe link. When a Person clicks it, they have options:

1. Unsubscribe from this chapter - Revokes email permission for just that chapter
2. Unsubscribe from all emails (if enabled) - Revokes global email permission (master switch)

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The options shown on the unsubscribe page depend on your organization settings. See Email Unsubscribe Options to configure what choices People see.

Resubscribing

From the same unsubscribe page, People can choose to resubscribe:

• To a specific chapter
• To all emails (global)

All unsubscribe and resubscribe actions are tracked in the Person's activity timeline.

Importing Opt-Outs

When importing contacts from a CSV, you can preserve opt-out preferences from your previous system.

Chapter Opt-Out

Map a column to "Chapter Opt-Out" to revoke chapter-level permissions. After selecting this option, choose which permissions to revoke:

• ☐ SMS Blast
• ☐ SMS P2P
• ☐ Email
• ☐ Call

If the column value is true, yes, 1, or y, the selected permissions will be set to OFF for the import's target chapter.

Global Opt-Out

Map a column to "Global Opt-Out" to revoke global (organization-wide) permissions. This works the same way - select which permission types to revoke.

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Tip: You can import the same CSV twice with different opt-out columns to handle complex opt-out scenarios (e.g., some people opted out of SMS but not email).

Activity Tracking

All permission changes are logged in the Person's activity timeline:

• "Opted out of emails for [Chapter Name]" - Chapter-specific email opt-out
• "Opted out of all emails (global)" - Global email opt-out
• "Opted back in for emails for [Chapter Name]" - Chapter-specific resubscribe
• "Changed SMS Blast permission for [Chapter] from true to false" - Manual permission change

This audit trail helps you understand how and when permissions changed for compliance and troubleshooting.

Filtering by Permission

You can filter your People list by communication permissions:

1. Go to People
2. Add a filter for "Has SMS Permission", "Has Email Permission", etc.
3. These filters respect the chapter context of your current scope

For chapter-specific filtering, use the Chapter Permission filter rules to find people with specific chapter-level permission states.

Best Practices

1. Respect opt-outs - Never manually re-enable permissions for someone who explicitly opted out.
2. Use chapter permissions strategically - Let people choose which chapters they want to hear from
3. Import carefully - When migrating, map opt-out columns to preserve people's preferences