Management console of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway

This page enlists the available functions of Management Console of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway. In this way you can learn how to add a new service provider connection or a new user in the program. The possible connection types are listed and detailed to allow you to know their functions.

On the Management console of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway you can find all the necessary menu items that are needed to configure the software properly. Before you start to send and receive SMS messages with this software product you need to do some settings in these menus. Figure 1 demonstrates the Management console.

management console of ozeki NG SMS Gateway
Figure 1 - Management console of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway

Add new service provider connection

On the left hand side of the interface you can find "Add new service provider connection..." option. By clicking on it, you will see a list of the possible connections. If you click on "Install" next to the selected connection, you can start to install a new connection.
The following connections will be listed:

  • Wireless connections (SMS,MMS)
    • GSM/GPRS Modem Connection: This connection allows to send and receive SMS messages with the help of a GSM modem or phone attached to the PC.
  • IP SMS connections (SMS)
    • CIMD2 Connection: The CIMD2 (Computer Interface to Message Distribution) protocol is used to connect your computer directly to the SMSC (SMS Center) of the GSM service provider. Therefore, you will be able to send SMS messages over the Internet or a private IP network.


    • SMPP Connection: The SMPP (Short Message Peer to Peer) protocol allows to connect the PC to the SMSC of the service provider. In this way you will be able to send and receive SMS messages over the Internet or over a private IP network.


    • UCP Connection: UCP/EMI (Universal Computer Protocol / External Machine Interface) connect your PC directly to the SMSC of the service provider.


    • HTTP Server Connection: HTTP Server protocol allows to use HTTP requests to pass incoming messages to your service. This technology is often used by premium-rated SMS services. This connection option can also be used as a "Virtual phone" for software development purposes.


    • HTTP Client Connection: The HTTP client protocol connects your PC directly to the SMSC of the mobile service provider to send SMS messages over the Internet. For each outgoing message an HTTP GET or HTTP POST request is used. Text and binary SMS message types are supported


    • SMTP (E-mail to SMS) Connection: The SMTP connection allows you to send SMS messages through E-mail to SMS services. E-mail to SMS connectivity is provided by many mobile network operators and multichannel IP based GSM gateways. If you install this connection, you can connect to these services.
  • Instant messaging connections (IM)
    • MSN Messenger Connection: This connection makes it possible to connect to the MSN Messenger Service. You need to register for an MSN account free of charge, and supply a username and password.


    • AOL Messenger Connection: The AOL messenger connection allows to connect to the AOL instant messaging service. You need to register for an AOL account free of charge, and supply a username and password.
  • IP SMS connections, service provider specific (SMS)
    • Madar Web Service Client Connection: This service provider connection ensures the connection to the SOAP/HTTP webservice provided for SMS sending by Madar in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It supports Latin and Arabic SMS messages. It can only be used for sending SMS messages. It does not provide an option to receive incoming SMS messages. The connection supports deliveredtonetwork and deliveredtofailed reports, but it does not support deliveredtohandset reports.


    • Hungary, Pannon GSM, SMS Futar service: This connections allows you to connect your PC directly to the Short Message Service Center (SMSC) of Pannon GSM in Hungary. It supports both sending and receiving SMS messages over the Internet. For each outgoing message an HTTP POST request is used, and a built in webserver accepts incoming messages and delivery reports.


    • Czech Republic, O2 M2M Connection: The O2 M2M connection makes it possible to send SMS messages through the proprietary SMS interface of the service provider O2 in the Checz Republic. The connection uses HTTP as the transport protocol and gives you the ability to send and receive text and binary SMS messages.


    • Croatia, TMobile ParlayX Connection: The TMobile ParlayX connection ensures sending SMS messages to cellphones through the ParlayX service provided by the Croatian mobile network operator T-Mobile. To use this service you need an account provided by this service provider.


    • Croatia, VIP ParlayX Connection: The VIP ParlayX connection allows you to send SMS messages to cellphones through the ParlayX service provided by the Croatian mobile network operator VIP. To use this service you need an account provided by this service provider.


    • Denmark, Sonofon, CPA HyDra SMS service: This connections allows you to connect your PC directly to the SMSC of Sonofon in Denmark for sending and receiving SMS messages over the Internet. For each outgoing message an HTTP POST request is used, and a built in webserver accepts incoming messages and delivery reports.
  • IP MMS connections (MMS)
    • EAIF Connection: The EAIF connection allows you to send MMS messages to cellphones. The messages are submitted over the Internet. The messages are submitted using the EAIF protocol.

    • MM7 Connection: This connection is used to sending MMS messages to mobile phones over the Internet. The messages are submitted using the MM7 protocol which allows you to connect to an HTTP or HTTPS webservice provided by an IP MMS provider.
  • VoIP connections
    • VoIP Autodialer: This connection enables you to dial voice calls on telephone lines and play voice messages. The voice messages can be prerecorded wav files or text read out by the built in text to speech converter. You can use VoIP phone lines or any analog or ISDN phoneline, to dial the call and to play the voice message. You can even process DTMF responses.
  • Other
    • Loopback Connection: It is used for user-to-user routing purposes. To apply this functionality you have to configure proper inbound and outbound routing after installing this kind of service provider. If you send an SMS to the loopback service provider it will generate an incoming SMS with the same message data, but the originator and the recipient phone numbers will be switched.

Add new user or application

On the right hand side of the Management console you can find "Add new user or application" option. By clicking on it, a detailed list appears including all the possible user connections. To install a new user or application you need to click on "Install" next to the selected user.
The following users will be listed:

  • General
    • Standard user: This user makes it possible to send and receive SMS messages from the graphical user interface (GUI) of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway. It provides interactive login with a username and password.
  • Application interfaces
    • Database user interface: With the help of this option you can use a database server, such as MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL, etc..., to send and receive SMS messages. If you install it, Ozeki NG SMS Gateway will connect to the configured database and will check a database table periodically for outgoing messages. If an incoming message arrives, it will be inserted into another table.

    • File user interface: The text file to SMS gateway configuration makes it easy to send and receive messages using text files. When an incoming message arrives, Ozeki NG SMS Gateway creates a text file for the message in your incoming directory on your hard disk. If you would like to send a message, all you have to do is place a text file into the outgoing directory.

    • E-mail user interface: With this option, you can create an e-mail to SMS gateway configuration. After configuration, Ozeki NG SMS Gateway will periodically download new e-mails from a POP3 account and forward the first 160 characters of the e-mail subject and e-mail body as an SMS message to a predefined phone number. You can also specify phone number(s) in the e-mail's subject line. You can also send incoming SMS messages as e-mail to an e-mail address.

    • HTTP client user interface: The HTTP client user passes incoming messages in an HTTP GET or an HTTP POST request to an external webserver. The HTML page returned by the external webserver can contain response SMS messages or any other outgoing SMS messages, that will be delivered by Ozeki NG SMS Gateway.

    • Forwarder user interface: This is forwarder application, that can be used to forward messages from one service provider to another. This user does not change the originator and the recipient address.

    • FTP to SMS: The FTP to SMS user downloads files from an ftp server periodically and sends it's contents as sms messages.

    • RSS to SMS: The RSS to SMS user reads an RSS feed periodically and sends it's contents as SMS messages to a predefined phone number or to a subscription list.
  • Providing SMS service to 3rd party clients
    • HTTP server user: The HTTP server user allows you to use the HTTP API provided by the built-in HTTP server of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway. This means that you can send SMS messages by issuing HTTP GET or HTTP POST requests from your application.

    • SMPP user: If you setup an SMPP user account, you can provide SMS service through the Short Message Peer to Peer (SMPP) protocol to SMPP clients. SMPP clients are 3rd party SMS software products, that can connect to this Ozeki NG SMS Gateway through the network to send and receive SMS messages.

    • Outlook Mobile Service user: Outlook Mobile Service is a feature of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 that lets you send text messages as well as multimedia messages to a mobile device from Outlook in a manner similar to e-mail messages. If you setup this service, you can provide mobile messaging service to Outlook 2007 clients.
  • Incoming SMS message processing and autoresponding services
    • Application starter: The application starter can run commands and execute batch scripts on your computer when an incoming SMS message arrives. The executed command can optionally return one or more response messages by writing to it's standard output.

    • Autoreply: The Autoreply user makes it possible to reply to incoming messages and to forward these messages to various phone numbers based on the sender address and the message content.

    • Autoreply easy starter: The AutoReplyEasy user makes it easy to reply to incoming messages. It can be used to compose a text, WAP Push or any other kind of reply message.

    • Colour SMS: The colour SMS protocol was introduced by the Hungarian GSM service provider T-Mobile to pass incoming SMS messages to 3rd party content providers in HTTP requests. The applications operated by the content providers return a response SMS message in each HTTP request.

    • ASP: This is an ASP script, that allows you to run VB and C# code when an SMS message arrives. This ASP script can implement any logic to do various tasks with the incoming messages. Your code can send response SMS messages as well.

    • Autoreply database: This is an autoreply application, that allows you to setup keywords that trigger SQL queries in a database. SQL queries can return response messages based on information in database tables. (Hint: A keyword is the first word in the SMS message.)

    • SMS PDF: This is an SMS PDF application. If it receives an SMS messages containing an e-mail address, it will send a PDF file to the e-mail address in e-mail. The e-mail will contain the PDF as an attachment. The e-mail will be sent through your SMTP server.

    • SMS WCF: This is an SMS WCF application. If it receives SMS messages, it will send a WCF service accordingly to your settings.

    • Voting: This is a voting application, that allows you to setup an interactive SMS Vote with up to 20 keywords. (Hint: A keyword is the first word in the SMS message.)
  • SNMP network monitoring and SMS notifications
    • SNMP agent - initiates SNMP trap if SMS is received: This is an SNMP agent. If it receives an SMS message, it can forward it as an SNMP trap event to an SNMP monitoring server.

    • SNMP agent - accepts SNMP query, and forwards it as SMS: This is an SNMP agent. It can be queried by SNMP monitoring software using an SNMP get request. With an SNMP query, the SNMP monitoring software can send an SMS message.

    • SNMP monitoring server - initiates SNMP queries: This SNMP monitoring tool, can query an SNMP agent by requesting the value of an OID with an SNMP GET request. If the returned value matches a condition, it can send an SMS message(s).

    • SNMP monitoring server - accepts SNMP traps: This SNMP monitoring server can accept alerts from SNMP agents. Alerts are sent by the SNMP agents as SNMP traps. On the configuration form of this SNMP monitoring server, you can define an OID and a value. If this SNMP server receives the configured OID and the configured value, it sends an SMS message to the specified phone number(s).


Finally, in Management console you can configure the inbound routing and outbound routing of SMS messages. Inbound routing defines what should happen to a message that comes from a mobile user. The message can be forwarded to one or more users. Outbound routing defines which service provider is responsible for sending the message to a mobile user.

FAQs

What is a two way SMS system?

When discussing a two-way SMS system, we typically refer to systems that have the capability to both send messages to mobile users and process SMS messages received from mobile users.

When a mobile user replies to my SMS, can I tell which message did he originally reply to?

When it comes to SMS communication, determining whether an incoming message is a reply to a previously sent SMS is not possible. The SMS technology does not include any mechanism for identifying whether a message is a reply to a specific previous message. There is no session identifier or discussion identifier embedded in the SMS protocol data unit (PDU). Each message is treated as an independent entity.
While direct identification of replies is not feasible, you can use other methods:
Keywords: Rely on specific keywords included in the message text to infer context.
Sender Telephone Number: If you use an IP SMS connection and your SMS service provider supports long codes, you can include extra digits in the sender’s telephone number to help identify the original message.

Can I use keywords to match replies to submitted messages?

Yes.

While the SMS technology doesn’t inherently allow direct tracking of replies to specific messages, you can use keywords as a workaround. When sending an SMS, include a unique keyword in the message text. Inform the recipient (the person who will reply) to include this keyword in their response. If the recipient replies with the same keyword, you can associate their response with the original message. This way, you can tell which message the response belongs to. The challenge is that the mobile user might forget to include the keyword in their reply. However, when they do include it, you gain context for matching messages.

Can I use long codes to match replies to submitted messages?

Yes, if you have an IP SMS connection, and a network that allows this.

If you have an IP SMS connection and are in a network that allows it, you can use long codes to match replies to submitted messages. A long code is a telephone number with a postfix. For example: +36201234678888, where 8888 is the postfix added to the standard telephone number +3620123467. Some networks permit the use of long codes through IP SMS connections. In these networks, the recipient (e.g., +3620123467) will receive messages sent to any telephone number that starts with +3620123467. For instance, if an SMS is sent to +36201234678888 or +36201234679999999, the receiver (with the phone number +3620123467) will receive both messages. If you can use a long code as the sender telephone number, you can include a message identifier in the tail of the sender’s telephone number. When a reply comes back to the long telephone number, you can determine which originally submitted message it belongs to. Unfortunately, only a limited number of mobile networks allow long code telephone number formats.

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