This document is the current source of truth for HOAfy mailbox, campaigns, templates, SMS, group messaging, calendar, events, and public community websites. It describes implemented behavior and material limitations.
HOAfy separates three messaging experiences:
- The association mailbox handles official conversations using the association identity.
- Campaigns distribute a message to a defined audience by email, SMS, or both.
- Community group messaging provides conversational group chat, currently strongest in mobile.
These channels share contacts and preferences but have different consent, delivery, workflow, and retention rules.
Association Mailbox
Core mailbox behavior is available. Inbound delivery depends on Amazon SES identity, DNS, receipt rules, storage, and operational cutover. Each association uses a canonical address such as <slug>@hoafy.org.
Current capabilities include:
- Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Archive, Spam, and Trash lifecycle
- Threaded inbound and outbound messages
- Direct compose with To, Cc, and Bcc
- Reply, reply all, and forward
- Draft revision-conflict protection
- Search and filters for state, source, labels, stars, assignee, and workflow status
- Per-user read state
- Shared labels, assignment, and workflow status
- Bulk label and workflow actions
- Inbound attachment download
- Sanitized HTML rendering
Direct sends support up to 50 recipients. New outbound attachments are not supported by the current direct-compose request. Internal notes, thread-specific access restrictions, and complete mailbox export are not available.
Some Outbox and Scheduled navigation exists without a complete dedicated data flow. The visible folder contents must be checked before promising a scheduled-send queue.
Use labels for topic, workflow status for process, and assignment for ownership of the next action. Archive completed conversations; reserve Spam and Trash for their intended purposes.
The typical mailbox workflow is:
- An inbound message is received for the official address and grouped into a conversation.
- A mailbox user reviews contact context and attachments.
- The thread is labeled, assigned, starred, or moved through a workflow state.
- A reply is sent from the association identity and appears in unified Sent history.
- The completed conversation is archived.
The mailbox manages conversations and replies. A campaign distributes one message to an audience and tracks delivery per recipient. They are separate views over related communication records.
Email Campaigns and Audiences
Email composition, templates, audience resolution, dispatch, delivery logs, and analytics are available. Some scheduling and audience-selection controls remain incomplete in the web UI.
Watch email, SMS, and audiences in the demo
Campaigns can target all members or supported role-based groups. The backend supports saved audience definitions resolved at dispatch time, while the current web composer does not expose every saved audience as a selectable recipient. The primary visible actions are Save Draft and Send Now even though scheduling and recurrence exist in backend behavior.
Saved audiences can combine supported role, unit, has-unit, and primary-owner criteria with AND/OR logic and preview. Preview immediately before sending because roster and preferences can change. Audience membership never overrides channel consent, opt-out, invalid contact data, or suppression.
Delivery records can include status, failures, opens, clicks, and unsubscribe behavior when provider events and privacy controls permit it. Open tracking is approximate and does not prove that a person read, understood, or legally received a message.
Templates
Association templates support a name, internal notes, email subject, rich HTML, plain-text preview, SMS body, version information, and edit/delete controls. Fixed system transactional emails are separate and are not all customizable.
Merge variables must be resolved during preview and validation. Keep SMS content concise, put required actions and deadlines near the top, preview with realistic long values, avoid sensitive details in subjects and SMS, and verify the final rendered delivery for legal notices.
SMS Broadcasts
Product-side SMS composition, consent, allowance checks, tracking, and webhook handling are available. Production sending depends on Twilio credentials, a provisioned sender, A2P 10DLC or another approved identity, and carrier approval.
Association registration captures business identity, authorized representative, address, campaign purpose, opt-in method, samples, policy URLs, and desired area code. Do not rely on SMS for urgent notices until the application shows an approved, send-capable campaign.
SMS requires affirmative consent. Member preferences and provider consent are both enforced. Twilio STOP, START, and HELP events update consent and preferences, and inbound compliance messages continue to be processed when outbound allowance is exhausted.
Non-keyword replies are logged by the backend. A complete board-facing two-way SMS inbox is not currently exposed as the email mailbox experience.
Segments and Allowances
Usage is measured in segments per recipient:
- GSM-7 allows 160 characters in one segment and 153 per concatenated segment.
- Unicode/UCS-2 allows 70 characters in one segment and 67 per concatenated segment.
- A two-segment message sent to 100 recipients consumes 200 outbound segments.
Do not describe SMS as unlimited. The live application and current commercial terms are authoritative for included allowance. Encoding, recipient count, consent suppression, invalid numbers, and remaining allowance should be reviewed before sending.
Before sending an SMS campaign:
- Confirm that the sender registration is approved.
- Select SMS or combined email/SMS delivery.
- Select and preview recipients.
- Review consent suppression and invalid numbers.
- Check encoding, segments per recipient, total segments, and remaining allowance.
- Validate links, opt-out language, and urgency.
- Review delivery and failure logs after sending.
Use SMS for concise, time-sensitive notices rather than long policy text. Link to a secure portal record instead of exposing sensitive details. Avoid unnecessary emoji because they can change encoding and segment count. Never import or infer consent. Keep STOP, START, and HELP handling active regardless of subscription or allowance state. Use email when carrier approval or allowance blocks SMS; a failed or filtered attempt can still create provider cost.
Communication Preferences
Members can manage email, SMS, voice, mail, and supported promotional/news preferences. Preferences operate alongside provider consent and legal delivery requirements. A preference does not make electronic delivery sufficient where law or governing documents require physical mail or another channel.
Community Group Messaging
Group messaging is partial and configuration-dependent. The mobile app supports text groups with encrypted local storage, a durable outbox, REST synchronization, WebSocket update hints, reconnect recovery, mute/read state, and delivery status.
Administrators can define audience-backed groups, defaults, retention settings, icons, and archive state. The web application focuses on group configuration rather than a full conversation client.
Attachments, edits, reactions, typing indicators, read receipts, moderation, search/export, web conversation parity, and production push-provider enablement are not complete. Group messaging is not a public forum or message board; HOAfy does not currently provide a complete forum experience.
Physical Mail Boundary
Invoice delivery can record a physical-mail fallback intent after an email bounce. HOAfy does not currently provide a generally available production mailroom for composing, purchasing, tracking, or receiving USPS mail through Lob or another provider. Any per-letter price must be verified against the active product terms and provider configuration.
Calendar and Events
Watch the community calendar in the demo
Event management, recurrence, reminders, invitation audiences, feeds, and public-site publication are available.
Current capabilities include:
- Month, week, and agenda views
- Draft, published, and canceled lifecycle
- Community, board, and maintenance event types
- Date, time, timezone, location, and description
- RFC 5545 recurrence
- Edits or cancellation for one occurrence, this-and-following, or the series
- Email and SMS reminder configuration
- Board, member, and public visibility
- Saved-audience invitation preview
- Public and revocable member iCal feeds
- Dashboard upcoming-event projections
- Violation-hearing synchronization
- Public-website publication
- Agenda and minutes document references
RSVPs, capacity, guest counts, waitlists, My Events attendance, amenity availability and reservations, reservation fees/deposits, and Google Calendar OAuth synchronization are not currently available.
Public feeds contain only intentionally public events. Private/member feed URLs contain revocable tokens and must be treated like credentials. Reminders remain subject to contact data, consent, provider setup, and SMS allowance. A calendar invitation does not itself prove statutory notice.
Public Community Website
Watch the community website in the demo
Public website configuration, pages, themes, preview, publish/build, contact details and forms, images, and analytics are available. Hosting and custom domains depend on deployment, DNS, certificate, and routing configuration.
Eligible HOAs and community associations can create a public site at <slug>.hoafy.org. Under the current offer, an eligible site's public website can remain online and editable after the paid software trial ends. Accounting, full communications, payments, and other management capabilities still require the applicable paid relationship.
Current administration includes:
- Enabled and published state
- Subdomain and custom-domain text
- Site title, tagline, contact details, and footer
- Search-indexing preference
- Theme, colors, logo, hero image, and favicon
- Navigation order
- Page slug, status, visibility, and SEO fields
- Preview, publish, build status, and build history
- Basic analytics
The editor supports general and structured content for FAQ, events, documents, gallery, links, contacts, and news. The deployed site is static and public. A members-only setting does not create an authenticated document portal; sensitive content belongs in the HOAfy application.
Contact pages display the association's configured public email address and phone number and include a reCAPTCHA-protected contact form. Successful form messages go directly to the association mailbox Inbox so the board can reply and track the conversation in Communications. The website builder does not keep a separate submissions list.
Entering a custom domain does not make it live. DNS, certificate coverage, CloudFront aliasing, and routing must all be validated. The current web UI does not provide a complete DNS verification wizard.
Operating Guidance
- Preview campaign recipients immediately before sending.
- Keep required action and deadline visible in both email and SMS variants.
- Verify SMS sender approval and allowance before relying on the channel.
- Treat feed tokens and mailbox attachments as sensitive records.
- Keep confidential content out of the static public website.
- Preview public changes on mobile and desktop and test forms after publication.
- Use official delivery methods required by law or governing documents.
Support Answers
- Can a file be attached to a direct mailbox email? Inbound attachments can be downloaded, but new outbound attachments are not supported by the current direct-compose request.
- Can a campaign be scheduled? Backend scheduling exists, but the current web controls do not expose the complete workflow.
- Why is SMS disabled? Common causes are missing carrier approval, sender provisioning, consent, provider configuration, or remaining allowance.
- Is one text always one segment? No. Encoding and length determine segments, multiplied by recipient count.
- Can residents reply to SMS? Replies are received and logged, including compliance keywords, but a complete shared two-way SMS inbox is not available.
- Are email opens guaranteed? No. Privacy features, image blocking, and mail-client behavior make open tracking approximate.
- Does uploading a document publish it on the website? No. Document visibility and website publication are separate choices.
- Can residents RSVP or reserve amenities? Not in the current event workflow.
- Does entering a custom domain make it live? No. DNS, certificate, CloudFront alias, and routing must also be configured.
- Are members-only public-site pages secure? The current site is static and public. Sensitive member content belongs in the authenticated application.