using external commands

[Gayatri]

Hello friends,
I am trying to learn about frontline sms external commands feature.
We want to use it to automatically export the sms database table to a csv file.
I also want to know if there is an additional manual that has examples of using this feature. We are in the requirements building stage of our project and are trying to understanding the potential of this feature.

[kiwanja]

Hi Mahantesh

 

There are a number of posts in the Forum already from users who have tried to do this. Please search through there - you will find answers or people who have previously had the same question as you.

 

Thanks.

 

Ken

[Morgan Belkadi]

Hi,

 

everything you need to know is here:

http://help.frontlinesms.com/manuals/1.6.16.3/keywordActions/extern...

 

Good luck.

 

Morgan

[Alex Anderson]

Hi Mahatesh,

 

I'd be more than happy to help you with this.  Could you start a new discussion (http://frontlinesms.ning.com/forum/topic/new) and describe what you are trying to achieve in a bit more detail?

 

Things to include might be:

 

* what data is in the database?

* will the database be updated by incoming SMS messages?

* what database program are you hoping to use?

* are you able to write scripts of some kind to query or update the database?

 

Thanks,

 

Alex

[mahantesh b waddar]

*some frites names n price

*no

*oracle

*ya

[Alex Anderson]

Thanks for starting a new thread at http://frontlinesms.ning.com/forum/topics/2052630:Topic:45585?xg_so...

[kiwanja]

There's quite a lot of information on using External Commands in this discussion, which you should read through. There's also a page in the "Help" files which gives additional information, here:

 

http://help.frontlinesms.com/manuals/1.6.16.3/keywordActions/extern...

 

Ken

 

[mahantesh b waddar]

hi ken,

           thank you for your quick response,you are focussing on using http request option,but let me know from you that how to execute an exe file and take the responce from it to the frontline sms,using command line execution.I tried with this by just creating a file by simple c program and stored in particular directory ,c:/temp/filename,but am getting complete path name and content of the file as responce to my cellphone,please let me know this error and how to tackle this,please do reply ,

 

regards,

mahanthesh.

[audienceone]

Hi Carlos,

Thanks for the example XML FrontlineSMS command. Is there a documentation of available "XML based FrontlineSMS command"?

Regards

[Dilipprasath]

hey carlos
Ya im working now on that external commands, im clear with how to fetch data from the website database using external commands and keywords. i have written the php scripts and hosted on my web server.
Now the problem is in getting the message from the user and insert to the website database through frontline sms. here i dunno how to set a keyword and external commands for it. can you help me out in this by giving a small example in a php script.
Imagine that the mobile user typing the product id, product name, product amount and sends the sms to the sms server (FL SMS). now the frontline sms should insert that particular datas in exisiting table called product in website database.
Can u help me through giving a sample php script. it wil be very helpful if u send as soon as possible.

[amg99]

hi Gayatri,

I'm pondering on the same idea as you have done.

Can you provide some samples how you were able to connect frontlineSMS to your website?

were you able to send a query to your site and then get the result via sms?

I'd really love to learn these as there's no developer here that can do this for us.

Thanks a lot!

Alvin

[Gayatri]

Hi Alvin,
We have not yet tested querying the web database, although that is very much feasible since we already can read data from sms, process it and send some message back to frontline.
I will ask my web developer to provide the sample code on Monday.

best
Gayatri

[Gregory Rebattu]

Hi amg99,

Here is an example i set up to try the external command feature. i works fine on my computer
Hope this can help.

Use case:

This example aims at giving prices of food products stored in a database to phone users sending a request.
The user sends by sms the name of the product of which they want to know the price.

The script will look for the price in a database and send it back through frontlinesms.

On my computer, i created a database named "sims".

This database contains a table "produits" in which I store prices of food products in different markets of the country.



FrontlineSMS Setup:



Setup a keyword.

In my example, keyword is "MIL".


For this keyword, setup an action:

type of action: external command



Use the following parameters:

Execution type: HTTP Request

Command: http://localhost/test/script.php?produit=${keyword}



Note: in my case, I created a textfile named "script.php" stored in the "www/test" folder of my local web server hosted on the same computer.

Response type: "Simpe text"

Message: Click on "Include response"

Check "send an autoresponse"



Click on done.




FrontlineSMS is setup.

You need to have a webserver setup on the local machine, create a database and have the file script.php stored in your "www/test" folder.
I attached to this message the file "script.php" and the SQL database creation instructions.

You will need to open "database.txt".
Execute the SQL instructions contained in the file on your databse server (through PhpMyadmin".
You have to create a user allowed to access the " sims" database created.


You will need to edit script.php to change the database access parameters (username, database, password..." according to the parameters you used for your user.


Once all this is done, when frontlineSMS will receive an SMs containing "MIL" it will call "script.php" with the product parameter given by "GET" method.



The script will look for the information and create a string containing the prices on the different markets.


The string is sent back to frontlineSMs which sends autoresponse by SMS.


Hope this makes sense.