Importing large numbers of SMS from Excel

[David Taylor]

Hi all, 

Apologies if this has been covered before but I couldn't find anything in the forum. 

I'd like to be able to create a list of SMSs (numbers and messages) to be composed within Excel and then import these and use Frontline to send them. The file would look something like this: 

Number Message

071x xxxxx Test message 1

072x xxxxx Test message 2

073x xxxxx Test message 3

074x xxxxx Test message 4

075x xxxxx Test message 5

076x xxxxx Test message 6

The messages would need to be sent to different numbers and the content would also vary. There are likely to be a large number of messages so I'd prefer not to have to send them all manually.  

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

David

[Alex Anderson]

Hi David,

FrontlineSMS doesn't *naturally* support this, but you could hack this functionality using external commands. Let me know if you'd like any more pointers.

Cheers,

Alex

[David Taylor]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for getting back to me. I'd love some pointers on how to do this. I'm not a developer but I follow instructions pretty well and if I know what to ask for I have a couple of programmers I can call in to help.

Cheers,

David

[Alex Anderson]

Hi David,

I've written a quick tutorial to help you do this. I've assumed you're doing this on Windows, but you could achieve very similar on Linux or OSX - you'd just need to modify the script slightly.

First up, I wrote the script toxml.bat (attached) and saved it in c:\temp. Then, I saved the messages I want to send in c:\temp\messages.txt (attached).

Next, fire up FrontlineSMS. The next bit is explained in the diagrams (attached):
1. create a keyword "loadmessages"
1a. go to advanced view and create a new "external command action" for this keyword
2. change the command type to "command line execution"
3. enter the command details
4. select a response type of "FrontlineSMS commands". This will ensure that the command response is processed as XML

5. go to the HOME tab, and enter the recipient number "000" (Test Number)
6. enter message text of "loadmessages"
7. send the message

This will trigger the loadmessages keyword, which in turn will run the script and process the details in messages.txt. If you now check the Message History tab, you should see that your messages have been loaded and are now in the outbox.

Let us know how it goes!

Alex

[David Taylor]

Great! Thanks for all your help with this! I'll give it a go and let you know how it goes.

Cheers, David

[David Taylor]

Hi Alex,

I've followed the directions and sorted the ' No forms' issue.

When I send 'loadmessages' to 000 I get a message in the bottom left hand corner which says 'Messages loaded' but in the messages tab there is no evidence of the messages. I've attached .tifs so you can see.

I'm not sure if this is something I've entered wrong or am looking in the wrong place but I can't see the loaded messages.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

David

[Alex Anderson]

Hi David,

Sorry this isn't working for you. Any chance you can share your logs for this?

Also, it would be great if you could confirm the settings for your external command, and the locations and contents of toxml.bat and messages.txt.

Hopefully we can get this up and running!

Alex

[David Taylor]

Hi Alex,

I reinstalled the software and started again and this time it worked! I must have done something wrong the first time.

Thanks a lot for your help!

David

[Alex Anderson]

Great to hear :D