SMS option

wings

Because our customers have field officers, the system needs to communicate with them via SMS.

Aware only uses the attribute EmailAddress aa an identifier. We need the additional option of SMS so we can send and process their SMS responses.

For example, we may SMS all officers within a specific Role with a new task. We want to process the acceptance of the task by one of the officers, and then notify the others that it has been assigned.

ab042

In order to use SMS you need a SMS service provider (aggregator). They provide all kinds of gateways to send SMS messages including EMail to SMS and the reverse.

A few items to note: SMS is limited to 160 characters and does not include a subject and headers like an email.

Every SMS sent or received is blind with NO reference to a previous message or response of it. So you will need to decide which SMS response belongs to which SMS sent, sometimes fun.

In our case we spent the money to setup our own SMS servers and the programming for it and depending on how much you want to spent that maybe an option for you.

wings

thanks ab042, we are aware of how sms works, what we want is for AwareIM to have the addition option of 'SMS' so that we can set up a customer or officer with and SMS attribute. Currently in the Regular User Intelligent object you can only specify one attribute (ie E-Mail) for sending emails. We want the choice of sending message to either Email or an SMS number.

This will allow the user to select how they want to notify the customer/officer ie EMail, SMS

The subject we send with the SMS is used and returned by the SMS provider and an email to use that we can then parse a response and update the aware data.

Support - as discussed

aware_support

Why can't you manage it in the application yourself - have the appropriate attributes and rules, ask the appropriate questions? I don't understand the problem from Aware IM point of view

wings

But dosn't the Intelligence communication channel E-mail only use the attibute 'EmailAddress' when sending an email??

Or have I missed something?

aware_support

Yes, but nothing stops you from adding SMS-specific attributes to the RegularUser object. If this attribute is set you can use SMS, otherwise e-mail. Am I missing something?

wings

I might be missing something.

On Regular User I have EmailAddress and SMSAddress sttributes

To send an email I use the following command

SEND SMSEmail TO RegularUser

This uses the EmailAddress Attribute on Regular user, how do I tell it to use use the SMSAddress attibute?

aware_support

I understand now. One solution is to choose an SMS gateway that doesn't require sending e-mails. If you have to stick to e-mails then you can do something like this:

Have another (ugly) attribute - CopyAddress
RegularUser.CopyAddress = RegularUser.EmailAddress
RegularUser.EmailAddress = RegularUser.SMSAddress
SEND SMSEmail To RegularUser
RegularUser.EmailAddress = RegularUser.CopyAddress