FrontlineForms integration with IntelliSMS

[Ray Brunsting]

I have successfully setup an account with IntelliSMS and sent an SMS message using FrontlineSMS via IntelliSMS. I don't have a cell phone that is compatible with FrontlineSMS, which is why I am using the IntelliSMS service. I'm very interested to try using FrontlineForm to gather information from tele-health workers. When reading about FrontlineForms I noticed the following quote: "You cannot use FrontlineForms unless you have a server phone number".
My core question is: does this statement imply that I cannot use FrontlineForms if I am using IntelliSMS?
A related question: if I can use FrontlineForms with IntelliSMS, do I need to do anything 'special' to get it to work?
A potentially related question: when using FrontlineSMS with an SMS Internet Service, can replies show up in my message history? (I see the replies in my IntelliSMS account, but not in FrontlineSMS)

Thanks

[Ben Whitaker]

basically - you have proved that you can SEND messages from your desktop, but to collect data with forms, you must also be able to RECEIVE messages from your desktop.

To do this you can either get a compatible phone to receive (and still use intellisms to send cheaply if you like)

OR

you can get an INCOMING number for Intellisms, and then you type that number into the FLSMS Forms clients to send in their data and to collect their forms.

In the future it will be possible to use GPRS to send/recieve forms, but we don't have a date to do this, so you will have to find a way to receive SMS to use forms/FLSMS for now.

Ben

[Ray Brunsting]

Thanks for the quick reply. I noticed I could setup FLSMS to both send a receive messages using IntelliSMS, but I only noticed a Send option for Clickatell. Does this imply that I would not be able to use Clickatell with FLSMS forms? Ray

FYI. I'll be sending SMS messages to/from Guatemala, and have not yet figured out if I would want to use IntelliSMS, Clickatell or purchase/setup a compatible phone

[Ben Whitaker]

You are right, we don't have a receive option set up for Clickatell, so if you want receive, without a physical phone, then intellisms is easiest.

You can of course SEND messages with clickatell (even for forms) if you want too, just no receive, so you will need to put something else in place for that.

The design of FLSMS is that it can use multiple phones and internet systems to send and receive, in any combination that makes sense to you.

(I'm not sure if Intellisms can deliver to Guatemala, but it would be very easy for you to test it by sending a message! Please let me know if it does work?)

[Ray Brunsting]

I plan to try using both IntelliSMS and Clickatell to send a message to Guatemala. I'll definitely let you know how it works out.

FLSMS Form feedback/suggestion
It would be great to have the options to have form responses automatically appended to online spreadsheet. In my case, we are already using Google Forms as a very simple and easy way to integrate online forms with an online spreadsheet. It works great, and I was considering using Google Forms for this particular use case. However, FLSMS forms seems like a much better option for data entry at this point. Perhaps a configuration option to integrate FLSMS form responses with Google Docs would be a great option.

[Ben Whitaker]

a good idea - will raise the google forms idea with the dev team next time we are discussing forms feature development!

[Antonio]

Hi Ben,
I am using FLSMS to develop an application to do, kind of, a survey. I like FLSMS because it relieves me from dealing with SMS protocols like SMPP or other communications technicalities, letting me concentrate only on my application on a server where I receive the messages, process them and reply to senders trough FLSMS. The server application (http request) is triggered by FLSMS upon receiving a message with a keyword, being so the process actually started by the senders.
I tried a cellphone connection (Ericsson K850i with USB cable) and everything works perfectly. What I am afraid of now is how all this could work when it comes to deal with, say, some thousands messages during one day or within a shorter time interval.
I have noticed that both the cellphone and (?) FLSMS have some delay in exchanging messages between them. So I really don't understand what could happen if the line become congested with so many SMS. Furthermore, I am not sure if the local telecommunication providers can guarantee the delivery of all the SMS in such a condition.
So I am trying to understand how I can design a better solution using an SMS getaway and FLSMS. I have seen that you advice using IntelliSMS because it has both send and receive options with FLSMS.
Can you pls explain me how it works, what have I to setup and if I can connect in the office different computers at the same time to receive and send SMS. Does it use our Internet provider and e-mail address? Is FLSMS acting as, say, Outlook, polling constantly the inbox of this e-mail address? is the keyword mechanism still working allowing me to trigger an http request and sending the output back to the sender?
Thanks for any help.
Antonio

[kiwanja]

Hi Antonio

Ben is away at the moment (getting married!).

If you're planning on receiving thousands of messages, you could experience problems using phones and modems, and might want to look at using an online service and setting up an incoming number (we currently support IntelliSMS for that).

If you do use IntelliSMS, the incoming messages are fed back via email, and FrontlineSMS picks them up and treats them in exactly the same way as if they'd come in via a regular SMS via an attached phone. No difference there at all. FrontlineSMS will regularly check the email account for messages, as you say, just as is does with attached devices. So yes, you can set up keywords and trigger events from email-based messages.

Hope that helps. Let us know how you get on.

Ken

[Antonio]

Hi Ken,
I registered on Intellisms to do a try, but I had a problem in receiving their regcode via SMS (?). I informed them via e-mail of the problem and they sent me the regcode via e-mail. Later on I tried to send an SMS to my cellphone in Mozambique from their site, but without success because the SMS sent shows a RE (Routing Error) status.
I image that they cannot reach Mozambique with their service.
So it doesn't seem to be a solution for my problem of processing thousands of SMS during one day or during few hours.
Do you think that setting up, say, 5 to 10 separate lines with different computers (i.e. different FLSMS installations) would be enough to process thousands of SMS within few hours?

Thanks
Antonio

[kiwanja]

Shame if they don't cover Mozambique. Have you asked them directly? Sounds like their technical support is quite responsive.

You could certainly lighten the load if you spread the incoming SMS over multiple computers, phones and numbers. You might still want to tell whichever operators you use that you're doing this though - else they may have an issue with large volumes going through their message centres. Even then, it might not be robust enough.

If you use, say, one of the South African IntelliSMS numbers to receive your messages, can you text to that and then receive it via their email set up? Even though their service might not support sending messages to Mozambique numbers, you should be able to get messages from Mozambique users, if they're happy to text an overseas number.

I'm travelling from later today, but let me know what you think/how you get on.

Ken

[Antonio]

Hi Ken,
I informed Intellisms about the error of sending messages to Mozambique and actually they had to do some changes to deliver SMS to the network here. Now I am able to send an SMS from their site to my cell phone and have the reply in the SMS inbox of My Account. So far so good.
Because my need is primarily to receive SMS, to which my program on the server reply to, I should activate an Inbound dedicated mobile number. The problem is that they offer only a UK number (From the site ....A Dedicated Inbound Number is a standard 11-digit UK number, it can be access outside the UK by prefixing the number with +44.). Apart from the cost that senders should pay to send an SMS to UK, there are other non-technical negative "drawbacks" to send such SMS abroad to Europe. I don't understand when you say "one of the South African IntelliSMS numbers to receive messages". Is it then possible to have a local dedicated inbound number from IntelliSMS where to receive SMS. That actually would be the right solution for me.
Last problem. I tried to setup a connection with intelliSMS in FLSMS using my intelliSMS trial account .
I dont know what is the meaning of the "From number" field. Is it a dedicated inbound number that should be activated on IntelliSMS?
I put nothing or my cell phone number in it and I always have now an error repeatedly saying "IntelliSms - tonino: Receiving failed, please verify your settings."

Regards

Antonio

[Johnny West]

hmm... i find IntelliSMS will forward the replies and FrontlineSMS will feed them into the program. But it doesn't seem to accept the text as keywords and initiate the actions set in the Frontline program - join, leave etc. At first I thought this was a question of caps sensitivity but I've checked and although Frontline shows exactly the same text coming in, it won't treat it as a keyword and execute the appropriate actions.

[Ray Brunsting]

I thought I would provide a short update and a couple of follow-up questions.

Update: I have successfully sent SMS messages to Guatemala using Clickatell, but have not managed to get it working with IntelliSMS

Earlier Ben wrote: "In the future it will be possible to use GPRS to send/recieve forms, but we don't have a date to do this, so you will have to find a way to receive SMS to use forms/FLSMS for now"

I would really prefer to have forms automatically uploaded to a server 'somewhere' on the on the internet, and wonder if you have plans to allow this option at some point. I've been separately investigating EpiSurveyor (http://www.datadyne.org/episurveyor), which looks like an interesting option, but does not work on the phones we are currently using in Guatemala.

So, basically, I wonder if you have any suggestions for bypassing the 'local' receiving and processing of forms data, ideally having the data automatically uploaded to web site where browser based tools may be used to analyze and export the results.

Thanks, Ray