Using Frontline SMS and Access 97

[Anne-Marie Soulsby]

Hi

I am not technically minded but we are looking to use Frontline SMS to manage the SMS feedback we receive from our radio broadcasts, pilot phase is due to start Sept 8th. We will also receive email and online questions regarding our radio programme content.

We need to be able to handle a large number of texts coming at once, so probably using more than one mobile number. 

My main question is that we also have an Access database to store all of our data, including the feedback via SMS, email etc. The questions will be answered in the next week's radio programme, so I am hoping that Frontline can manage this so we see the most popular questions coming in. We would also like to link it to our Access database so we can produce reports of who is asking what from where, questions by age, location etc. Does Frontline work with Access 97?

Many thanks

Anne-Marie

[Laura Walker Hudson]

Hi Amanda

Thanks for getting in touch! I've highlighted your question to our :Radio Project Manager, Amy, and I'm sure she'll be in touch too.

In the meantime, FrontlineSMS will certainly collect the incoming SMS, and it's possible to export them as a csv file and import them into Excel or Access so that you can process and analyse it.

We would like, in future, to build functionality which highlights recurring words - in the meantime, you could use keywords and the Polls functionality in version 2 to allow audience members to vote on questions you pose them - this makes it easy to see the balance of opinion at a glance.

Hope this is helpful, but do shout if you have further questions - also, we look forward to hearing how you get on with FrontlineSMS, and what further functionality you'd like to see!

Best wishes

Laura

[Anne-Marie Soulsby]

Great, I hope to test this out so our texts can go into our database via a csv file. We wont be asking people polls during the pilot but we will be sure to take a look when we are a fully fledged project.

Thanks!

[Amy O'Donnell]

Hi Anne-Marie,

My name is Amy and I am leading a project at FrontlineSMS which focuses specifically on the way radio stations use SMS. I'd love to find out more about your plans, maybe we could arrange to talk sometime?

Amy \~/

[Amy O'Donnell]

Dear Anne-Marie,

I've also done some research into your question about Access - you can find some really interesing posts from users who've got this working here and here.

Thanks,

Amy