Celly FAQ Common Support Questions inbox cells people help How do I change my username? How do I change the phone number on my Celly account? How do I set my password/reset my password? How can I mass invite a large list/group of people? How do I delete a cell? How do I delete a message? How do I change a cell name? How do I turn off texts to my phone from Celly? How do I delete my Celly account? I'm having problems sending texts to Celly from my phone. How do I login to my account on the Celly website? How do I change my avatar? celly help help home > using celly faq sms command list troubleshooting sms step by step guides celly support and forums celly company about celly blog in the press technologyspecialist General Do you have an app? How much does Celly cost? Does Celly work with my phone carrier? Can I use Celly without a phone or SMS texting plan? Is my phone number kept private? Why does Celly require members to verify their mobile phone? Can I receive Celly messages through email? Do pictures/video (MMS) work with Celly? Why is Celly a.ly domain? What are connections? What are user ranks and scores for? About Cells What is a cell? What cell names can I use? Can I have multiple admins for a cell? What is curation? What are cell receptors? What are hashtags and hashlinks? How do I remove a member from my cell? Text Messaging What phone number do I send texts to? celly is hiring! celly @ school overview letter to parents testimonials advantages policies terms of service privacy policy contact us tumblr facebook twitter email: support@cel.ly news: join @cellynews
How do I create a cell using SMS? How do I join a cell using SMS? How do I send messages using SMS? How do I invite friends to a cell using SMS? How do I send a direct message to another Celly user? How do I control who can join my cell? How do I manage cell members using SMS? How do I control who can send messages? How do I opt-out of all Celly text messages? How do I send out a poll to my cell? How do I get more help about Celly SMS commands? other projects TextOccupy How do I change my username? There are two ways to change your username. One way is by texting changename to 23559. This will send a change name request to Celly support. You can also request a username change from the web. To do so, go here: http://cel.ly/username (you will need to be logged into your Celly account). On the next screen type in a new username, then click the "Request Username Change" button. How do I change the phone number on my Celly account? If you need to change the phone number attached to your Celly account, you can do so by logging into your account on the Celly website and going here: http://cel.ly/verify. If you need to remove your phone number from your account entirely, please send us an email at support@cel.ly. How do I set my password/reset my password? If you need to change your password, you can do so from your phone by texting password to 23559. Or, you can login to your Celly account online and change your password here: http://cel.ly/account. Enter your old password, choose a new password, enter it twice, then click SAVE. How can I mass invite a large list/group of people? There are three main ways to invite a large group of people to your cell: By word of mouth: this works best for face to face groups, like in a classroom or workshop scenario, and with friends and family. Tell others to join your cell by simply texting the @cellname to 23559. So, if you have a cell called BirthdayParty, you tell others to join by texting @birthdayparty to 23559. Use email or social media: another way to invite people to your cell is by giving them a link to your cell through email, or by posting a link to it on Facebook, Twitter, an online forum, etc. For instance, if you wanted to invite others to
join Celly News, you would send them this link: http://cel.ly/c/cellynews. Send invites from the Celly website: this method works great for inviting a large list of people. Login to your account on the Celly website and go to the members page for your cell. From there, you can copy and paste or type in any phone number, email address, or Celly username that you want to invite to your cell. For additional help, see our guide, How to Invite Others to a Cell How do I delete a cell? You can delete a cell from your phone by texting delete cellname to 23559. For example, if the name of your cell is classroom123, you would text delete classroom123. You can delete cells from the Celly website too. First, go to the cell page for the cell you want to delete. From there, click the "edit cell settings" button, and on the next page click "delete this cell" Note: only the admin of the cell can delete it. How do I delete a message? The only way to delete a message from a cell is by logging into your account from the Celly website and locating the message in your message stream. Then, click the "delete this message" icon in the upper right corner of the message box. Note: admins can delete any message on a cell; non-admins can only delete their own messages. How do I change a cell name? Generally we do not change cell names after they have been created. If you just created the cell, simply delete it and recreate it with a new name. If you really need to retain your cell members and messages, but need a new cell name, please send us an email at support@cel.ly. How do I turn off texts to my phone from Celly? If you want to stop receiving Celly texts to your phone (SMS), you can text OFF to 23559 to turn off a specific cell, or, text STOP ALL to 23559 to stop receiving texts to your phone from all cells. You can also log into the Celly website, go to the cell page you want to turn off SMS texts for, and then click the orange "SMS on" button on the right side of that page to turn SMS off. How do I delete my Celly account? If you need to delete your Celly account entirely, please login on the Celly website and go to this link http://cel.ly//deleteaccount
I'm having problems sending texts to Celly from my phone. If you are unable to text Celly; not receiving Celly messages to your phone; or having issues inviting other users, please visit our Help Connecting page: http://cel.ly/hc. How do I login to my account on the Celly website? If you signed up for Celly using your phone, you can get a login for the Celly website by texting password to 23559. This will allow you to choose a password for your web login. After you set your password, you can login to the Celly website here. Your username to login is the same username you signed up with over text message. So, if you chose @ralph you would enter ralph as your username. How do I change my avatar? You can change your avatar by logging into your account on the Celly website: http://cel.ly/login -- then, on your inbox screen click your username in the upper right corner (next to your avatar). Scroll down on your profile page and you will see different avatars to choose from. After you select a new one, scroll down to the bottom and click save. Do you have an app? Our Android app available at the Google play store. You can download it here: Celly for Android. Our ios app is in the Apple itunes App Store. You can download it here: Celly for ios How much does Celly cost? Celly does not charge you anything. But standard text messaging and data rates from your phone carrier may apply. When you send or receive a text from your cell group, you are only charged by your carrier for one text. Thus, you can send one message to multiple people on your cell and it counts as one text. However, we recommend having an unlimited text message plan if you are receiving Celly texts to your phone. This is especially true for large groups. If you are on a limited text plan, you can always send and receive cell messages from the Celly website instead or temporarily turn off SMS texts for any cell. Does Celly work with my phone carrier? Celly works with all major U.S. carriers (including MetroPCS). Note: Skype and Google Talk do not work with Celly. If you are unable to text Celly; not receiving Celly messages to your
phone; or having issues inviting other users, please visit our Help Connecting page: http://cel.ly/hc. Or, send us an email: support@cel.ly Can I use Celly without a phone or SMS texting plan? Yes! You can access Celly using any web browser. In addition to web and SMS, you can also receive email notifications. Create a Celly account without a phone by going here: Celly web signup - Signup using your Twitter or Facebook account, phone number, or email address. If you do not want to use SMS texting, but have a smartphone, you can use our iphone or Android apps: http://cel.ly/app Is my phone number kept private? Yes, always. You need to enter your phone number only to receive cell texts to your phone. You can invite friends to join your cell by entering their phone numbers too, but this is not required. Celly users will never see your phone number or the phone numbers of people you have invited. Why does Celly require members to verify their mobile phone? We want Celly to be spam-free, safe, and secure. We want people to take their identity seriously and not abuse it. We also don't want people reserving a bunch of usernames and cellnames so that real people can't use them. Note: you can always verify your account with your Twitter or Facebook id or your email address. Can I receive Celly messages through email? Yes! We recently added the ability to receive cell messages through email. To do so, login to your Celly account on the web and go to your user profile page: http://cel.ly/profile. From there, click the "Email Me" checkbox under Profile Basics. Note: this turns on email notifications for your account, but does not turn on email messaging for cells. You can turn on email messaging for a specific cell by clicking the "email is off" button located on each cell page. Do pictures/video (MMS) work with Celly? Not yet. But we plan to add the ability to share pictures and videos later down the road. Stay tuned. Why is Celly a.ly domain? We chose cel.ly because it is nice and short and saves three characters; which, among other things, makes it easier to share html links to your cell or poll. What are connections?
By connecting with another member, you give them permission to send you a private, direct message over Celly. There will be additional features added to connections in a future update. For now, it is a way to track and manage who you are connected with in your Celly networks. What are user ranks and scores for? Right now, a Celly user's rank and score pertains to how active they are on Celly, and was added just for fun. However, we plan to include in the near feature other activities that will interact with rankings and scores. Have an idea? Send us an email: support@cel.ly What is a cell? A cell is our term for a mobile group network. Messages and polls sent to a cell are forwarded by Celly to specified cell members. In this way, Celly users can communicate and collaborate as a group in realtime using the immedicacy and convenience of text messaging. Additionally, from the Celly website you can send and receive cell messages, polls, and access other Celly features. Celly works with any regular phone that has SMS texting, or from any web enabled device; for instance, a tablet, smartphone, or laptop. What cell names can I use? Cell names are 6-20 alphanumeric characters with no spaces. If you need to change your cell name, see the Common Support Questions section below. Can I have multiple admins for a cell? A cell can only have one admin, but an admin can assign additional curators. Curators have some admin privileges, but not all (see below). Only an admin can edit cell settings, appoint curators, or delete a cell. To add a curator to your group, go to the cell page that you are admin of, then click the "manage members" button on the right side of the page. On the next page, you can click the "make curator" button located next to a member's username to make that member a curator. What is curation? Curation in general is the ability to moderate a cell. Curators can moderate messages and approve them to be sent to the group, invite and kick users, and approve new cell members. A cell admin can appoint multiple curators if needed. In an academic or large group scenario, curators are helpful for filtering out inappropriate or off topic messages. To learn more about how curation works, check out the Celly Curation Guide.
What are cell receptors? Cells can continuously track web feeds and social networks for signals of interest using receptors. A receptor is a sensor attached to a cell that watches for message patterns and imports matching messages automatically. With cell receptors you can create realtime, prospective searches for items of interest (like a job, apartment, or academic subject). Or, you can use receptors to simply bring in messages from other web sources, e.g., RSS and Twitter. For more info about using Receptors, see this guide: Celly Receptors Guide What are hashtags and hashlinks? Hashtags help organize messages. Think of them like keywords. Add hashtags like #idea or #alerts to your messages and Celly will make it easy to find them and filter with other cells and network feeds. Hashlinks connect cells together. For more info about using Hashtags and Hashlinks, please see this guide: Celly Hashtags and Hashlinks Guide How do I remove a member from my cell? If you want to manually remove a cell member, you can use the kick button. If you look at the members list on the right side of your cell page, next to the name of each member is a small gear icon. If you click the gear you can kick a member out of the cell. You can kick members using your phone by texting "kick @cellname @username" to 23559. E.g., "kick @english101 @ralph" would kick user @ralph from the @english101 cell. What phone number do I send texts to? The Celly short code number is 23559. All Celly text messages use this phone number. So if you want to send a text message to your cell group, then you would text it to the 23559 number. How do I create a cell using SMS? To start your own cell using just your phone, text start to 23559. You can also start a cell from the Celly website, by going here: Start a Cell. For a step by step guide to starting a cell from your phone, please view this guide. How do I join a cell using SMS? To join a cell you text the @cellname to 23559. So, if you wanted to join your friends cell, which has the cell name baseball, then you would text @baseball to 23599. If the cell is open for anyone to join, then you will automatically join. If you need to be approved by the cell admin first, then you
will be notified when approved. For more info about joining cells, please see this guide: How to Join a Cell. How do I send messages using SMS? When you send messages on Celly, you send 23559 a plain text, and it will get sent to your "current cell" (the last cell that you joined or messaged). This is simple if you only have one cell. If you have multiple, we can't always tell which cell you meant to send the message to. In this case you will receive a confirmation message allowing you to select the cell to send to. You can also send messages to a specific cell by starting your message with the @cellname prefix. For example, you might text: @classroom123 don't forget the pop quiz tomorrow! -- and your message will go directly to the cell classroom123. All plain texts you send to 23559 will send messages to your current cell until you choose to send one to a different cell. For more info, with screen shots, please view our guide: How to Chat on a Cell How do I invite friends to a cell using SMS? To invite a friend to your cell, text invite to 23559. You will then be prompted to enter your friends phone number or Celly username. Reply with the numbers and usernames of the people you want to invite. Your friends will receive an invite request to join your cell. Remember, if you need to invite a lot of people at once, you might find it easier invite people to your cell using the Celly website. How do I send a direct message to another Celly user? Send direct messages to other Celly users by texting @username msg to 23559. For example, if you want to send a direct message to user Ralph, you could text @ralph hi, how was the game? to 23559. This sends a direct message to Ralph, rather than to the cell group. You can also send direct messages from the Celly website by clicking on a user's avatar picture. How do I control who can join my cell? People can request membership by texting your cell name to Celly. Others can also join your cell from the Celly website. You can choose how to approve these uninvited members: Username (default) - You decide who can join based on their username. Username + description - Same as above but people must provide a short bio for you to read before approval.
Password - A password must be provided Anyone can join - Anyone can join your cell without invitation. Your cells start out as approved by username. So only people you invite or approve can join them. If you want to change this, you use the privacy command. By texting privacy to 23559, you can change who can join. How do I manage cell members using SMS? If someone tries to join your private cell, you need to approve them first. You will get a text like this: "samantha wishes to join @classroom123. txt APPROVE or DECLINE." Once you approve a user, they will automatically join your cell. To see a list of cell members, text members to 23559. You can also remove cell members, by texting kick cellname username to 23599. Where cellname is you put the name of your cell, for username put the name of the user you want to kick. To let a kicked user rejoin your cell, you have to re-invite them. How do I control who can send messages? Celly has three main messaging modes. A cell admin can change the message mode at anytime and switch between modes when needed. The three modes are: Open chat (default): Everyone can send messages, everyone receives every message. Curated chat: You can send out messages to everyone and others can send messages privately to you. You can choose to rebroadcast others messages to the whole group. Alert-only: One person pushes out message to everyone else. Your cells start out in "Open chat" mode. To change to another messaging mode, you use the mode command. So you text mode to 23559 to change the messaging mode of your cell. How do I opt-out of all Celly text messages? If you want to opt-out of all Celly text messages, text stop to 23559. If you just want to temporarily turn off messages to your phone, text off to 23559. How do I send out a poll to my cell? You can create a poll using SMS or the Celly website. For SMS, just text poll to 23559, you will then be prompted for your questions and answers. For a step-by-step guide for using Celly's polling feature, please go here: How to Send a Group Poll. How do I get more help about Celly SMS commands?
See our Full SMS Command List or text HELP to 23559 or contact us using the info on this page. about help welcome blog support