How Advanced SMS Reply Processing Works Transcript for Video:
Welcome to the video tutorial on how to configure an advanced SMS reply system. In this tutorial, we’ll be going over how to configure PageGate to monitor for reply text messages when using cellular hardware then pass those replies through the GetASCII interface to modify message content and who the replies should go to.
When using cellular hardware to deliver text messages, the people who receive those SMS have the option to reply to them. When they reply, their message is delivered back to the cellular device, where it waits in memory. PageGate can be configured to check the cellular hardware for reply messages and process them in a number of ways.
In this configuration, reply messages can be fed through the GetASCII interface for advanced data processing, which allows you to conditionally modify what is done with the replies in some circumstances.
It’s also important to note that using a Filter Pack in conjunction with the SMS replies and the GetASCII interface allows an incredible amount of flexibility in determining what you want done with your reply messages. For more information on that, have a look at our Filter Pack video tutorials as well as examples 5 and 6 in the complete script examples section of our documentation.
The basic concept in play is that reply messages are going to come to your cellular hardware. When those messages come in, instead of having them immediately delivered to a static recipient or group, we’re going to write them as files to a directory so we can do a few special things with the GetASCII interface.
The first step is to open the PageGate Admin.
Next, we’ll need to create the method of translating the SMS in to a file for GetASCII. To do that, right click Carriers and select ‘Add’. Give the carrier a name, something straightforward like ReplyOutput or Files. Set the protocol to ‘File’.
Next, we’ll need to specify the location we want these files output to. I recommend creating a sub-directory of the local PageGateData folder and calling it ‘Replies’. By default, c:\PageGateData\Replies\
Set the Max Chars to 6000, then click Apply.
Now we’ll need to add a recipient to represent the method of translation. To do so, right click Recipients and select ‘Add’.
Give the recipient a name, something straightforward like ReplyProcessing or ReplyFiles.
Set the carrier to the FILE protocol carrier you just created, then click Apply to add the recipient in to the program.
Now we’ll need to format how we want the replies to look. For this next bit, I’m going to give you a few examples to work from but it’s important to note that these are just examples and only represent a small fraction of the things you could do.
To format the replies, go in to the Template sub-section of your new reply processing recipient. In the text section, you could use something like this:
sms_replies_group
%Sender%
This message was received by the Cellular Modem. It was generated either from a customer cellular phone or from the cellular network and may be a reply.
FROM: %Sender%
ON: %Date% AT: %Time%
Message: %Message%
That would read in all replies and send them to the recipients in the SMS Replies Group, keep the replying phone number intact as the sender and the message would say ‘This message was received by the Cellular Modem. It was generated either from a customer cellular phone or from the cellular network and may be a reply.
FROM: %Sender%
ON: %Date% AT: %Time%
Message: %Message%’
As another example, you could format the template like this:
Ah;%Sender%
SYSTEM
Please do not reply to these messages.
That would configure the system to pass the replies to an ad-hoc recipient tied to your cellular hardware that would then reply back to the sender of the message from the sender ‘SYSTEM’ and the message would say ‘Please do not reply to these messages’.
Effectively, the template will configure the specific behavior of the reply system and there are many different configurations you could go with.
Once you’ve configured your template, go in to the Connectors section and then go in to the 2-Way sub-section of whichever connector or connectors are tied to cellular hardware.
Check ‘Enable GSM-AT Replies’.
In ‘Reply Carrier’, select the Carrier configured to use your cellular hardware.
In ‘Reply Recipient’, select the FILE recipient you’ve configured for your reply processing.
When finished, click Apply.
At this point, PageGate is configured to listen for reply SMS, then retrieve them from the cellular hardware and output them as a text file. The GetASCII interface will then read the messages in and process them based on how you’ve structured the output recipient’s template.
This concludes the video tutorial on how to configure advanced SMS reply processing in PageGate.
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