FrontlineSMS allows you to text message with large groups of people anywhere there is a mobile signal.

Case studies and implementation information

Please use this thread to share experiences using FrontlineSMS.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Mativo on November 25, 2009 at 9:21am

Am Jonathan in Kenya. Have used FrontlineSMS now for a full year and are planning for use in a remote district in Kenya (Kilifi) on health issues with support from ROtary International. Will share more soon

Permalink Reply by Peter Burgess on November 25, 2009 at 5:29pm

Dear Jonathan ... Two questions: (1) what is the malaria situation in the area where you are working; and, (2) what data can you share about the availability of health resources in the Kilifi area?

Permalink Reply by Benoit on November 25, 2009 at 1:33pm

TSF uses FrontlineSMS Forms to do monitoring of the Dengue and H1N1 situations in Nicaragua.
This project is quiet new (1 month) and have been implemented in an emergency way to answer to the governmental need for data collection.
Details are available here :
http://www.kiwanja.net/blog/2009/11/mobile-meets-health-on-the-marg...
The idea is to develop from this base another project, more structured regarding the need of the government, in the coming months. Maybe a trunk a FrontlineSMS:Medic especially develop for health monitoring ?

Permalink Reply by Lee on January 25, 2010 at 3:10pm

Hope for Haiti is using FSMS to help coordinate doctors, pharmacists, and NGOs who are working in response to the earthquake in Haiti. We're based in Les Cayes, Haiti. Just got the system up and running today. Tomorrow I present to the UN and hopefully get their buy-in. Could also be a great way of distributing security info on large scale.

Permalink Reply by Sarah Iribarren on January 16, 2012 at 5:16pm

I am currently piloting FrontlineSMS with patients with TB in Argentina who are receiving treatment by self-administration (<50% of patients in the Province of Buenos Aires receive treatment by directly observed therapy-DOT).

Have two issues with platform: We are able to see messages received when selecting 'All messages' in the messages tab however when selecting by patient only sent messages are displayed. In order to more easily track patients daily ideally we would like to see sent/received by selecting each patient in 'message history'. Under 'All messages' we need to compare phone numbers in order to identify each patient. Both received and sent boxes are selected for view preference. Any suggestions/other options that I am not aware of?

Second, we have experienced where messages have been received by modem but not FrontlineSMS platform. Most messages appear in modem 'inbox' but not all in FrontlineSMS. Unsure what we are doing sometimes and not others to get this inconsistency?

So far patients have received the intervention well and have maintained contact with staff regarding treatment progress.

Thank you for any assistance

Sarah

Permalink Reply by Florence Scialom on January 17, 2012 at 11:05am

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for getting in touch about this. Firstly, it sounds like you are now running a very interesting use of FrontlineSMS, and it would be great to learn more about your project and potentially feature it on our blog. Please do let me know if this is of interest.

On your first question - when you select the individual contact/ patient and then view their message history in FrontlineSMS is their number listed with the international dialing code? I just checked this in my system and it seems that for all contacts that do not have the full dial code at the beginning (for example +44 in the UK) FrontlineSMS only displays the messages sent, but not received from this contact. In the All Messages tab, the Sender Number column shows the contact / patient you have received a message from, and the Recipient column will be blank for messages you've receive.

On your second question, it may be that the modem is running device manager software that is getting in the way of FrontlineSMS receiving messages. You should make sure that device manager software has started and been fully shut down before starting FrontlineSMS.

Hope this all makes sense and helps you with these issues, but please let us know if you need further assistance.

Thanks,

Flo

Permalink Reply by Sarah Iribarren on January 18, 2012 at 10:01am

Thanks Florence,

I have previously passed on our study abstract/ info to Nadim and have been in contact with Josh Nesbit as well. Likely no time for blog but as things come up and as report/papers written I will be happy to pass them on.

Regarding viewing issue. In contact list I can list with or without country code (+54 here) and messages can be sent but received messages record number without the country code, only the cell phone prefix which here is two numbers 11 or 15. A 0 is recorded in front of numbers received in FrontlineSMS platform. For example the sender number for received messages is 011 then 8 numbers of mobile phone. It is true that recipient number column is blank for messages received. With few patients it is OK to look at 'all messages' but as list is growing much more challenging. Do not have local tech support to trouble shoot. Any further suggestions?

thank you

Sarah

Permalink Reply by Florence Scialom on January 18, 2012 at 11:05am

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for your reply. It would be great if you can pass on reports and papers to us about your project, wherever possible, and we'd be happy to feature these on the publications page of our website if suitable. I look forward to staying in touch as your project progresses!

Meanwhile, on your question about viewing messages I'm not sure what the problem could be here then. Just to check, have you tried making sure (in the Phones tab, right clicking on connected device) that your modem / phone is set to send and receive messages?

In terms of local troubleshooting support, it may be worth connecting with Domingo Liotta here on the forum, who is an active FrontlineSMS user based in Argentina. I can also check in with our developers to see if they have any suggestions I'm missing.

I hope we can help solve this issue soon.

Best

Florence

Permalink Reply by Sarah Iribarren on January 18, 2012 at 11:48am

Yes "use for sending" and "receiving" messages are checked in the phone tab for modem. And under Message tab both received and sent boxes are checked for view.

I will see if I can touch base with Domingo. Thank you

Permalink Reply by Florence Scialom on January 18, 2012 at 12:27pm

Hi Sarah,

Ok thanks. Please let us know whether you are able to connect with Domingo to troubleshoot this further, and if not I will see if our developer team can help.

Best of luck, and I look forward to staying in touch.

Cheers

Flo

Permalink Reply by Domingo Liotta on January 19, 2012 at 8:49am

Hi Sarah:

Regarding your second question the Carriers Software gets into the way and immediately downloads pending messages to its propietary software.

I use Movistar and It immediately opens, when the modem is inserted. A way to avoid this is to disable autorun.

Also if I dont close the propietary software FrontlineSMS doesnt detect the modem.

I¨m running the lastest FrontlineSMS in a windows 7 Toshiba and I see the sent, and received emails ok separated by students phone number with the 011 as prefix for Buenos Aires

Add me on skype (dliotta)

Best regards

Domingo

Permalink Reply by Sarah Iribarren on January 19, 2012 at 10:00am

Domingo,

Fantastic! Adding the 0 is what I needed to do. Also, although you can call a cell phone here directly with prefix 11 or 15 the program recognizes only 11 (at least with the numbers that I have so far). Therefore you must be sure to enter contact with 11 and not 15 although the messages will be sent using 15.

I am using Movistar as well and will disable auto run.

Thank you for the help. I will add you to skype. Would be interesting to discuss how things are going for you with system here in BsAs.

One other issue we have picked up- the time log in FrontlineSMS is 2 hours behind the actual time. Not sure if it is picking up a different time zone? Any ideas how to fix.

Thank you and look forward to meeting/chatting via skype

Sarah