CommCare Messaging allows you to group cases (contacts) to allow broadcast surveys or messages. These broadcasts, can be used, for example, to notify all participants in a study of a particular side effect or that some new services are available. You can also setup specific case groups for each region or type of participant in your project.
Creating a Case Group
- Go to the Messaging tab, then select Case Groups
- Type in the name of your group (ex. Control Group) and click the "+ Create Group" button.
- Click on the Manage Cases button to edit the cases within the group.
- There are two ways to add cases to the group.
- Manually With Identifier: Type in an identifier for the case (phone number, an external ID specified when creating case or the actual case ID). If specifying the phone number, you need to specify the full phone number (including country code with no spaces and no + symbol). Then click on the + Add Case button. If the case can't be found, an error will be displayed.
- Through Excel: Download the cases_bulk_example.xlsx file. In the file, type each case to add to the group as a separate row. You can use the phone number, external ID or actual case ID. If the case can't be found, an error will be displayed.
Editing a Case Group
Use the Manage Cases button to open the Case Group. You can use the + Remove button to remove cases from the group and the + Add Case button to add additional cases. You can can also using the Excel import functionality to bulk add phone numbers. If you want to remove all cases from the group, its easiest to delete the group and create it again.