Step 4 – Create a Contact and Send a Single SMS
fmSMS allows you to send an SMS to a single Contact or a bulk SMS to a found set of Contacts. To send an SMS to a single Contact click on the CONTACTS button at the top of the screen to view any existing Contact records (this will be empty for new users). Click the New Contact button on the toolbar to create a new blank Contact record. In order to send an SMS you must enter the following details:
First Name: the First Name of the Contact (this is important if you are going to be using the merge fields function with a Template)
Last Name: the Last Name/Surname of the Contact (this is important if you are going to be using the merge fields function with a Template)
Mobile: enter the Mobile Phone/Cell number of the Contact. Enter this as you would dial it in your Country without any country codes or + symbols.
Country: select the Country for the Contact from the drop down list.
International Format: this is entered automatically by fmSMS once you have entered the Country and Mobile Phone number.
The additional fields (Company, Dear, Category, Salesperson, Notes) are not required to send an SMS but if you are going to be using these as merge fields with a Template then you will need to complete these fields). Once you have finished entering the required Contact fields click the New SMS button to create a new blank SMS to this Contact. Your screen should look like this:
In order to send an SMS you need to ensure the following are completed:
Account ID: if you setup a default Account this will be pre-populated with the Account Name, otherwise you will need to select the Account you wish to use to send the SMS.
Contact ID: this should be populated with the Contact ID for the Contact you wish to send the SMS to. The Recipient, Recipient Phone, Recipient Country and Int Format fields should all be completed using the details for that Contact.
Sender: select the Sender for this Message: you must select a Sender from this list even if you will be using a shared virtual number, dedicated virtual number or Alphanumeric Sender ID. If there is a matching Sender with the same name as the current user’s Account Name this will be entered automatically (e.g. if you are logged into fmSMS using the FileMaker Account Name “John Smith” and you have created a Sender record with the name “John Smith” the Sender will automatically be set to “John Smith”). The Sender Phone, Sender Country and Int Format fields should all be completed using the details from the selected Sender record.
Select Template: if you wish to set the Message Body using one of the Templates select the Template from the drop down list and the Message Body will be set to the contents of the selected Template. Any merge fields that were present in the Template will be replaced with the actual value for each merge merge.
Sender ID: this defaults to Sender ID for the selected Account. You can change this from Sender Mobile to Alphanumeric (fmSMS will alert you if the SMS Gateway for the selected Account does not support one of these options).
Scheduled Delivery: this feature allows you to submit a Message to the SMS Gateway immediately but delay the actual delivery to the recipient (N.B. not all SMS Gateways support this feature). To delay the delivery of the Message select the desired delivery date and time.
Characters: this is set automatically as you modify the contents of the Message Body field
Credits: this is set automatically as you modify the contents of the Message Body field. N.B. fmSMS supports sending long messages greater than the standard 160 characters. In order to send a long message the SMS Gateway has to truncate the message into 153 character segments which is why a 320 character message will require 3 credits instead of 2.
Sent Timestamp: this is set once you click the Send Message button and the Message has been submitted to the SMS Gateway.
Gateway ID: this is automatically set to the SMS Gateway’s own unique reference number (this is typically used when checking on the Message Delivery Status).
Bulk SMS ID: if the Message was sent as part of a Bulk SMS to a found set of Contacts the Bulk SMS ID will appear here.
Message Body: this is where you enter the actual text of the Message to be sent (or select a Template to populate this). N.B. you cannot send a blank SMS.
Send Result: this stores the result returned by the SMS Gateway. It typically contains a status/result that you can match to one of the options in the list of Gateway Codes. Each SMS Gateway returns a different result in a different format. Review the Gateway Codes for more details on a particular result.
Once you have finished entering your Message Body you are ready to send the Message to the SMS Gateway – click the Send Message button to send the Message to the SMS Gateway. fmSMS will first check to ensure all required details have been entered before attempting to send the Message and will alert you to any issues. Check the result returned in the Send Result field and review the Gateway Codes for further details. Once you have sent a Message the Message screen should look like this:
Send via Server: we have also included an option for having Messages sent using FileMaker Server and the Perform Script on Server script step. fmSMS has to be hosted by FileMaker Server for this to work. You could also flag a Message to be sent by a FileMaker Server script schedule if you didn't want to sent the message immediately using Perform Script on Server. You must first setup a server side script and schedule this in order for the Messages to actually be sent. You need to enter a 1 in the <<Messages::SendServerSide>> field to flag it to be included in a server side schedule. See Step 9 – FileMaker Server Side Sending for further details.