Sending messages - MikeBlyth/mission_database GitHub Wiki

Users can create messages to be broadcast to members by email and/or mobile phone messages (SMS). Each message is sent selectively to one or more groups of members. Additional features of messages include:

• Senders can use email, SMS, or the Web interface to create messages. For example, a member without Internet access could send an SMS message to be forwarded to all members or to members in a certain group.
• Messages are stored indefinitely in the database.
• The system records the delivery status of each message, when that information is available from the gateway. For example, it is possible to know whether an SMS message was received by a given member, and if so, at what time.
• Senders can request recipients to confirm that they have received the message. Recipients do this by replying to the email or SMS message. Confirmation is saved on the database.

To send a message, click on the “Create new message” link in the main menu. Within the new message form, fill in the applicable fields.

To send an SMS text message, just type it into the SMS box, tick the “Send SMS” box, select the groups to receive the message, and click the Save/Send button at the bottom of the form. Note that the message below the group listing will show you how many SMS messages will be sent, given the groups you have selected. An individual will not receive more than one message, no matter how many groups he or she belongs to, so there is no problem with selecting overlapping groups.

You may optionally add keywords (under advanced options) or type in a longer message in the Email box, which could be useful later if you want to follow up or search for the message later.

To send an email message, enter a Subject, type your message in the Email box, tick “Send Email”, select the groups, then click the Save/Send button.

You can send email and SMS messages at the same time; just tick both boxes.

Currently there is no support for formatting the email message, except that a double line break (extra blank line) separates paragraphs (?). Use this email feature for sending short, uncomplicated messages.

[Developers: need to add simple text markup plugin]

The system must be configured with an incoming SMS gateway such as Twilio in order to receive SMS messages of any kind. See Gateways. Users then send SMS text messages to the phone number of that gateway.

To send a broadcast message by SMS from a phone, just use this format:

• d group message

Example

d abuja Warning! There could be trouble before elections tomorrow in Abuja, so be careful.

Note: The system will automatically add a time-stamp and sender signature (initial plus last name) to the broadcast messages, so the user does not need to include those. This does mean that fewer characters are available for the message.

Limitation: You can't use SMS to create a broadcast to be sent out by email. Should this capability be added?

Users can send email messages to the system for forwarding by SMS and/or email. This capability requires an incoming email gateway such as CloudMailin.

• Users must send from one of their registered email addresses.

• The subject line is not needed.

• Format of message. The first line of the email body should follow this pattern:

  distribution_method group-list: message ...

  where the distribution_method is "d" (for SMS), "email", or “d+email” (or “email+d”) for both.

  • The first line of the body should start with the command “d” to send the message by SMS, “email” to send by email, or “d+email” (or “email+d”) to send both email and SMS.
  • More than one group can be specified, separated by spaces
  • A colon must follow the last (or only) group.
  • The text of the message can be any length and any number of lines. If it exceeds the length of an SMS message (~150 characters), it will be truncated for SMS but the entire message will still be sent by email. One way to use this would be to say, for example, "Important message regarding upcoming meeting. Please check your email for more details! Here are the details, which won't fit into the SMS but will appear in the email ..."

Examples

d alerts: Blah blah blah   Sends SMS to alerts group

d+email alerts directors: Blah blah blah   Sends SMS & email to alerts & directors 

email security: Message to Security group... Sends email (not SMS) to members group

[The colon is needed so that the program can distinguish the group names from the start of the message. Developers: if commas were used to separate the group names, the list would not need to be terminated with a colon.]

You should get a confirmation message saying that your broadcast message has been sent.