FrontlineSMS allows you to text message with large groups of people anywhere there is a mobile signal.
Trinidad crime watch service sends first official auto-forwarded message!
Hi All -
It's 510am here in Trinidad, and I happen to be awake because around 355am I was awoken by the arrival of my neighbourhood security alerts service's very first auto-forwarded message! It concerned an intruder in somebody's back yard (interrupted by the security patrol) but it was exciting to receive it nonetheless, as it proves that the system is working.
85 people have registered for the service so far, most of them using the automated keyword system I've set up (they text "addme" and their name to a designated number; an auto-reply is then kicked back to the number confirming that the add was successful). In addition to this saving me the work of adding them manually, I figured it would get them into the habit of using keywords.
I've also prepared and circulated a detailed document explaining the system and in particular how to use a keyword to auto-forward a message to the entire group. I've also set things up so that security alerts are automatically e-mailed to our neighbourhood mailing list, so we'll have an external log of all the incidents that are reported using the system.
I'm still having my share of problems with Clickatell, however. Fortunately I woke up when this morning's message arrived and was able to re-send the failed messages manually using the cell phone. Among those messages listed at "Sent" in the FrontlineSMS message log, however, a fair number are still showing in the Clickatell system as "Delivered to gateway", which means they have not been received by their intended recipients.
Does anyone know if it's possible to automate the process of resending failed messages using the cell phone (ie tell the system to bypass Clickatell and send via cell phone once a message is logged as "Failed")?
Stay tuned for more updates.
Best,
Georgia
It's 510am here in Trinidad, and I happen to be awake because around 355am I was awoken by the arrival of my neighbourhood security alerts service's very first auto-forwarded message! It concerned an intruder in somebody's back yard (interrupted by the security patrol) but it was exciting to receive it nonetheless, as it proves that the system is working.
85 people have registered for the service so far, most of them using the automated keyword system I've set up (they text "addme" and their name to a designated number; an auto-reply is then kicked back to the number confirming that the add was successful). In addition to this saving me the work of adding them manually, I figured it would get them into the habit of using keywords.
I've also prepared and circulated a detailed document explaining the system and in particular how to use a keyword to auto-forward a message to the entire group. I've also set things up so that security alerts are automatically e-mailed to our neighbourhood mailing list, so we'll have an external log of all the incidents that are reported using the system.
I'm still having my share of problems with Clickatell, however. Fortunately I woke up when this morning's message arrived and was able to re-send the failed messages manually using the cell phone. Among those messages listed at "Sent" in the FrontlineSMS message log, however, a fair number are still showing in the Clickatell system as "Delivered to gateway", which means they have not been received by their intended recipients.
Does anyone know if it's possible to automate the process of resending failed messages using the cell phone (ie tell the system to bypass Clickatell and send via cell phone once a message is logged as "Failed")?
Stay tuned for more updates.
Best,
Georgia
Tags: caribbean, clickatell, trinidadandtobago
Views: 64
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alex Anderson on -
Hi Georgia,
Nice one - sounds like you've got a pretty neat system worked out. Did they catch the intruder??
Re: Clickatell: unfortunately FrontlineSMS doesn't track messages once they have been sent to the Clickatell system, so it can't tell the difference between a properly delivered message and one that is "Delivered to gateway". Also, FrontlineSMS won't currently retry failed messages on a different device, although this would definitely be a good feature.
Looking forward to more updates :-)
Cheers,
Alex
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Permalink Reply by Georgia Popplewell on -
Thanks, Alex. I don't think the intruder was ever caught, and a neighbour of the people in whose yard the intruder was seen lurking had some items stolen (neighbour hasn't yet registered for the service--something tells me he will today).
I know FrontlineSMS has no control over Clickatell, but I hope to see automatic routing of failed messages to a different device as a feature in a future version of the application!
Best,
Georgia
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