Sending SMS messages from Excel
On this page you can learn how to send SMS messages from
Excel using the Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway software. You can read a short
introduction about the Excel files you need to use, and you are provided
with details about the Messages.xls spreadsheet, explaining what each column
is for. You can also learn how to configure the Excel macro connection and
how to set the appropriate security level in the Excel client file to allow
sending messages.
Introduction
The Excel SMS client of Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway enables you
to send SMS messages from Microsoft Excel.
For this, you just need to open two Excel spreadsheets:
Messages.xls
and Ozeki.xls.
In the Messages.xls spreadsheet, you need to put the telephone numbers in
the first and the messages in the second column. To learn what the other
columns are for, read the Messages spreadsheet section below.
In the Ozeki.xls Excel spreadsheet you will find a macro
you can start by clicking the Send all button. This macro will
connect to Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway over the office LAN or the Internet
and will send the SMS messages you have edited in the Messages.xls spreadsheet.
The parameters for this network connection can be edited on the Ozeki.xls
spreadsheet.
Using the Excel Client allows you to keep a record of the
SMS messages you have sent in an Excel spreadsheet. You can identify which
of the messages you have sent belongs to a given telephone number. They are
in the same row in the spreadsheet.
For sending messages, the Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway program
and Excel do not need to be on the same computer. You can send messages from
different computers in an office network. You just need to enter the IP of
the server PC running Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway (Figure 1).
Figure 1 - Sending SMS from different computers
Both Excel files you have to use can be found in the
C:\Program Files\Ozeki\OzekiNG - SMS Gateway
directory after the program has been installed. (From here,
they can be moved to any other folder.) You can also open the Excel files
by clicking their icons below the Manage OzekiNG file icon (Figure 2).
Figure 2 - Manage OzekiNG and Excel file icons
The main steps of sending SMS messages from Excel are:
- Creating a list of messages
- Opening the Excel file sending SMS
- Starting the macro sending SMS
- Sending out messages
First, make sure the Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway program has
started. If not, start it. (For details, check out the What to do if
the service is not running section on the
Login problems page.)
Open the Messages Excel spreadsheet for editing the telephone
numbers and the texts of the SMS messages. Open the spreadsheet by clicking
its icon to do the editing (Figure 2).
Once you have opened this Excel file, you can start entering,
in the appropriate cells, all the information required for SMS messages to be
sent (Figure 3). In Excel, entering information in or applying a function to
a range of cells can be done by typing, copying and pasting or dragging cells.
Figure 3 - Edited Excel spreadsheet for SMS messages
The Messages spreadsheet
The information related to a message to be sent is in
different cells of the same row in the Excel spreadsheet. Some of the
information has to be entered/edited manually, and some will be entered/edited
automatically. Each cell involved in the editing requires a specific kind of
information.
The cell in Column A is for the telephone number you
are going to send the message to. Enter the telephone number in international
format (starting with + and the country code, without using any spaces).
The cell in Column B is for the SMS message. Note that
if a message is longer than 160 characters, it will be sent in two or more parts.
A long message will be split into single pieces. Then, each piece can contain a
maximum of 153 characters. This is because
the information for concatenation needs to be stored in the SMS. Each piece
will be sent as a single SMS message. When they reach the destination, the
recipient mobile phone will combine them back to one long message.
The number in the Column D cell shows how many characters
you have used composing your message. Be careful not to delete the function
in the D1 cell. If you happen to delete it, you can copy it from this page and
enter it in D1: =LEN(B1)
The Column E cell is for the message type.
The Column F cell is for the name of the service
provider connection you use for sending out the message. For information about
service provider connections, check out the
Service Provider Connections page.
The Excel client file
When you have finished editing all the messages to be sent out,
open the Excel client. It is automatically installed along with Ozeki NG - SMS
Gateway. Do not close the Messages spreadsheet before you open this file.
After the messages are edited, the Messages spreadsheet has to stay open along
with the Ozeki.xls file.
The Excel client file is - just like the Messages file -
in the C:\Program Files\Ozeki\OzekiNG - SMS Gateway directory.
To start the Excel client, double-click Ozeki.xls. (You can click it after
opening the C:\Program Files\Ozeki\OzekiNG - SMS Gateway directory
or clicking the file icon (see Figure 2 above).
This file contains an Excel macro that can be started by pressing the Send
all button.
This macro will connect to Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway over the office
LAN or the Internet and will send the SMS messages you have
edited in the Messages spreadsheet. The parameters for this network
connection can be edited in the Ozeki.xls spreadsheet (Figure 4).
Figure 4 - Starting the Excel SMS Macro
When you have opened the file,
click on the Send all button. Then, the Message Server
will send out the messages if the Excel macro connection is already
configured and the security level is appropriate.
If Excel's security level is not appropriate, i.e. Very high or High,
for sending messages, you can see one of the following messages (Figure 5,
Figure 6):
Figure 5 - Very High security level
Figure 6 - High security level
Then you should change the security level to Medium or
Low.
Select the Tools/Macro/Security menu item. In the Security Level
tab, select
Medium or Low (Figure 7).
Figure 7 - Changing the security level
If the security level is Medium, you receive
the following message (Figure 8):
Figure 8 - Enabling macros
Click the Enable Macros button.
To configure the Excel macro connection (Figure 9), specify the IP address
and the server port of the computer, divided by a colon.
Also, specify the server account and the password.
Figure 9 - Configuring the Excel macro connection
You only have to do this once, and the next time you want to
send messages,
you just need to click the Send all button.
If you have created a different user in the Message Server,
specify the username and the password. After Credits, in the column B cell you
can specify the maximum number of SMS messages a user can send out.
When you have finished the configuration, click the Send all button.
Then the SMS sender window will show up. It contains a drop-down menu of
open Excel files to be processed. Select the one(s) containing the messages to
be sent out, and click OK (Figure 10).
Figure 10 - Sending out messages
After clicking OK (and sending out the messages),
a new browser window will open, containing a list of the messages that have been
sent, displaying if they have been accepted by Ozeki NG - SMS Gateway for
delivery (Figure 11).
Figure 11 - Messages accepted for delivery
After the messages have been sent, you can check their
status by opening the sender's user account. To find out how to
open a user account, check out the Users
and Applications page. The screenshots on this page illustrate sending
SMS messages from the admin user's account (Figure 12).
Figure 12 - Messages in the Sent folder in the user account
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