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EasySMS Service WEB

Logging On To The System

In order to logon to the system the user must supply a valid username and password. Please note that both the username and password are case sensitive.

If no activity occurs after a period of time, the user will automatically be logged off.

User Access Privileges

The EasySMS Service has 5 levels of user access, namely:

• Guest
• Normal User
• Advanced User
• Administrator
• Super User

The Please refer to the section on Creating a User for a description on user level rights.

The SMS Menu

The SMS Menu gives you access to the sms boxes; namely the Incoming, Pending, Sent, Delivery Reports, Batch and Bulk SMS boxes and can be accessed from any page in the system.

SMS's are displayed on a two tier system. The summary page is first displayed indicating the sms count broken down by day. The user is able to select the period viewed by selecting the start and end day as required. If there are more than the default (25) number of entries that can be displayed on one page, the user can scroll backwards and forwards to view all entries for the selected period.  The user has the option to delete all sms's for the viewed day by clicking on the 'Delete' hyperlink.

At this level the user may select the day to view a detailed display of all sms's processed on that day. If there are more than the default (25) number of entries that can be displayed on one page, the user can scroll backwards and forwards to view all entries for the selected period.  To delete individual sms's click on the 'Delete' hyperlink.

The user may also filter the displayed sms's by status utilising the filter drop down box, as well as delete individual sms's.

Incoming SMS

This page allows the user to view all SMS's received by the EasySMS Service. Each User will only see the sms's related to their account. For more details on User Accounts refer to Creating a User.

To view the sms, click on the 'View' hyperlink. The SMS will be displayed. You are then able to reply or forward the sms as required

Pending SMS

  This page allows the user to view all SMS's that have not yet been sent.

To view the sms, click on the 'View' hyperlink. The sms will be displayed.

To delete the sms, click on the 'Delete' hyperlink.

Pending SMS's may have one of the following status's:

Pending	Waiting to be sent at the scheduled date/time
Failed	Send attemped for the number of retry times but failed
Expired	The SMS could not be sent before the validity period expired
Authorize	Waiting to be authorized by the system administrator
Paused	The Batch to which the sms's belong has be de-activated

To view sms's that have a certain status, utilise the filter drop down box.

Sent SMS

This page allows the user to view all SMS's that have been sent.

To view the sms, click on the 'View' hyperlink. The sms will be displayed. The user has the option to forward the sms to another recipient.

To delete the sms, click on the 'Delete' hyperlink.

Sent SMS's may have one of the following status's:

None	No delivery report received to date
Delivered	The sms has been delivered to the recipients handset
Submitted	The sms has been submitted to the Service Provider
Delivery Failed	The sms could not be delivered
Submission Failed	The sms could not be submitted to the Service Provider
Rejected	The sms was rejected by the service provider
Invalid Destination	The recipient cell number does not exist
Invalid Source	The specified from number is invalid
Ivalid Params	The sms submission format is invalid
Expired	The Service provider expired the sms - validity period
Deleted	The sms was deleted by the Service Provider
Unknown	The sms is in an unknown state
Buffered	The sms has been buffered by the Service Provider

To view sms's that have a certain status, utilise the filter drop down box.

Delivery Reports

This page allows the user to view all Delivery Reports received. Note that when delivery reports are received, the status of the referenced sent sms is updated with the information received in the delivery report.

To delete the Delivery Report, click on the 'Delete' hyperlink.

Delivery Reports have one of the following status's:

None	No delivery report received to date
Delivered	The sms has been delivered to the recipients handset
Submitted	The sms has been submitted to the Service Provider
Delivery Failed	The sms could not be delivered
Submission Failed	The sms could not be submitted to the Service Provider
Rejected	The sms was rejected by the service provider
Invalid Destination	The recipient cell number does not exist
Invalid Source	The specified from number is invalid
Ivalid Params	The sms submission format is invalid
Expired	The Service provider expired the sms - validity period
Deleted	The sms was deleted by the Service Provider
Unknown	The sms is in an unknown state
Buffered	The sms has been buffered by the Service Provider

To view Delivery Reports that have a certain status, utilise the filter drop down box.

Batch SMS

Batch's refer to a collection of sms's. Batches are created when

• A file of sms's is submitted to the EasySMS Service via import, FTP or CSV
• A Bulk SMS is generated and creates a Batch.

To view a batch of sms's, click on the 'View' hyperlink. The following information will be displayed:

• The Batch name, generate and sms schedule times
• The Batch status (Pending or Generated) and state (Active or Inactive).
• The send status or counts of the Batch
• The delivery statistics associated with the batch

To delete a batch of sms's, click on the 'Delete' hyperlink. The Batch, as well as all associated sms's (pending or sent), will be deleted.

To pause a batch of sms's, click on the 'Deactivate Bulk' hyperlink. The Batch, as well as all associated pending sms's, will be paused. In this state no sms's will be sent. To re-activate the Batch of sms's, click on the 'Activate Bulk' hyperlink.

Note that if a Batch is generated by a user that has been configured for SMS Authorization, the sms's for the bulk will be generated in the Authorize state. The sms's will not be sent untill the generated Batch has been authorized by the Administartor. When the SMS's are generated, an sms will be automatically sent to the administrator, requesting authorization.

 Bulk SMS

Bulk SMS's provide a powerful mechanism to send relevant sms's to many recipients at one time.

To view a Bulk's detail, click on the 'Stats' hyperlink. The details of the selected Bulk will be displayed. If the Bulk has been generated at least once, the sms statistics for the Bulk will be displayed.

Bulks can be in one of two modes, Pending or Generated. If the Bulk is a once off Bulk, the Bulk will move from the Pending to the Generated state once the sms's have been generated on the specified date-time. Repetative Bulks stay in the Pending mode until their validity expires.

Bulks can be temporariliy deactived. Whilest Bulks are in this inactive mode, no sms's will be generated. To de-activate a Bulk, click on the 'Deactivate Bulk' hyperlink. Similarly, to re-anble the Bulk, click on the 'Activate Bulk' hyperlink.

Note that if a Bulk is generated by a user that has been configured for SMS Authorization, the sms's will be generated in the Authorize state. The sms's will not be sent untill the generated Batch has been authorized by the Administartor. When the SMS's are generated, an sms will be automatically sent to the administrator, requesting authorization.

Home

Once a user has successfully logged on he/she is taken to this section.

The following functions are available from the Function Menu :

Send an SMS

This page allows the user to send an SMS to a single number or a list of numbers. When sending the same SMS to a list of numbers, each number in the list should be seperated by a ';'.

To select recipients by name, click on the button to the right of the number box. A popup window will be displayed. Two options are available:

• Type in the first letters of the contact. All the matching contacts will be displayed. Add the contacts as required.
• Click on the button to the right of the entry box. A dropdown list of Contact groups will be displayed. Select the group required. Add the contacts as required.

A scheduled date can be set against these SMS's to specify the date and time at which the Server should send the pending SMS(s).

A sms validity period can be set  by selecting the required expiry period. The validity period is based on the time from the scheduled send time.

Importing an SMS file

Importing SMS's entails importing a file which contains the data for each SMS in a specific format. Imported sms's will be collated into a batch. 

Note that if a Batch is generated by a user that has been configured for SMS Authorization, the sms's will be generated in the Authorize state. The sms's will not be sent untill the generated Batch has been authorized by the Administartor. When the SMS's are generated, an sms will be automatically sent to the administrator, requesting authorization.

The import files should be normal text files (.txt) and must be in one of two formats, namely SMS File Format or Number List Format. It is important to note that each sms specified in an import file must be containd on one line. As a result, sms's that are imported via file may not contain carriage returns in the message text (ie message text may only consist of one line).

SMS File format:
In this format each line represents an SMS and which contains its details. Each SMS can be different from the others. Each line should be formated as follows:
[Number] | [Text] | [MsgRef] | [Schedule Date/Time] | [Validity] | where:

• Schedule Date/Time is: yyyymmddhhnn
• Validity period is in hours [h] or days [d] with a maximum period of 48 hours

Thus a typical entry would look like:
0117881448|Hi Dev Squared! How are you?|0001|200801311200|22h| The MsgReferance is a user defined entry used to keep track of SMS's and should be unique for each entry.

Number List format:
In this format each line specifies a number to which the SMS should be sent. The user must also supply the message text, a scheduled date and validity period in the relavent input boxes. The  SMS will be sent to each entry in the import file on the specified date.

Scheduling a Bulk SMS

Bulk SMS's provide a powerful mechanism to send relevant sms's to many recipients at one time. A bulk sms consists of the following elements.

• A generate and schedule time: 
  • The generate time refers to the date-time when the actual sms's will be created.
  • The schedule time refers to the date-time at which the sms's will be sent
• SMS validity period. This will apply to all sms's generated by the Bulk.
• An SMS Schedule. This determines when the Bulk will generate sms's. The Bulk can either be a once off or a repetative Bulk that will generate as defined by the schedule.
  The following schedule types are available:

  Daily	The bulk will generate on a multiple of days. ie: Daily or every 3 days.
  Weekly	The bulk will generate on a multiple of weeks. ie: Every week or every 3 weeks. The day of the week can be specified.
  Monthly	The bulk will generate on a multiple of months. ie: Every month or every 3 Months. The day of the month can be specified.
  Annually	The bulk will generate on a multiple of years. ie: Annually or every 3 years.The day of the year can be specified.
  Specify Dates	The bulk will generate on which every days are specified

• A dynamic Contact Group. SMS's will be generated for all contacts that match the criteria defined in the Contact Group.
• An SMS Template. The SMS Template defines the text that will be generated in the sms's. The template may contain links to Contact information, allowing each sms generated having information pertinent

To create a new Bulk, first create the necessary Contact Group, SMS Template and SMS schedule (if required). Click on the 'Schedule a Bulk SMS' menu item and fill in the required fields. Click on 'Add Template' to add the sms text selected.

If you wish to view the contacts to which the Bulk will be sent, click on the button to the right of the Contact Group selection.

Comments

To access the comments page, click on the 'Comments' hyperlink displayed on most pages. Comments provide a mechanism for users to communicate with other users in their usergroup about the product. Users with Admin and Power access levels can view and administer all comments on the system.

Comments can be add by clicking on the Add a new Comment link on the View Comments page. To edit or delete a comment click on the Edit and Delete links under the comment. Users that don't have Admin or Power privileges can only edit and delete their own comments.

Contact Management

Contacts can be added, edited and/or deleted using the function menu. Alternatively you can import contacts using the import section found on the Contact Management home page. For further details see Importing a Contacts File

Contacts can be private to a user or shared between users in the same User Group. Please refer to the section on User Groups.

The EasySMS Service Contact database has the following fields by vdefault:

• Reference
• Firstname
• Lastname
• email
• Cell
• Shared flag

It is possible for each installtion to add contact fields to the database to store information suited to their specific application. The database can be modified using the EasySMS Service Manager application. This information can then be used to data-mine recipients for sms's or automatically embed the information into generated sms's. These custom fields can be populated with data when importing a contact file, via manually entering the contact or by syncronising with an external database.

The following functions are available from the Function Menu :

Adding a Contact

Click on the 'Add a new Contact' menu item. The new contact form will be displayed. If you have customised your database, the additional custom field will also be displayed. Enter the information for the new contact and add the contact.

Viewing a Contact

You have a number of options when viewing contacts. These are:

• View All to display all contacts
• View Group to display contacts associated with a Contact Group
• View Like to display contacts with a firstname or lastname beginning with a selected letter
• View Query to allow you to determine which contacts will be displayed. 

Editing a Contact

After selecting a view on contacts, click on the 'Edit' hyperlink to edit the contact. Please note that you can only edit contacts that belong to you i.e. not shared by someone else.

Deleting a Contact

After selecting a view on contacts, click on the checkbox to mark the contacts on the page for deletion and click on the 'Delete Checked' button to actually delete the contacts.

Please note that you can only delete contacts that belong to you.

Importing a Contacts File

Contacts can be imported from a CSV file by browsing to the required file. The file must be a standard address book formated CSV file. This format is a text file with contact fields sperated by comma's. The first line of the file is always the field definition line or header.

The first line has the following format:

Member,First Name,Last Name,Email Address,Mobile Phone

The following lines contain the comma seperated contact information, in the order defined by the first line. Please note that if any fields contain a comma, they must be enclosed in inverted comma's ie: "25, 1st Ave, Melville"

You can also import custom defined fields (see Custom Contact Database) by specifying the Import Field name in the first line of the file. The import Field name is defined when adding the custom field in the EasySMS Service Manager. For example if you added the field 'Gender', the header line would change to:

Member,First Name,Last Name,Email Address,Mobile Phone,Gender

SMS Management

The easySMS Service provides a number of tools to allow users to formulate and target sms recipients. In addition it is possible to create sms templates that will embed contact information into the generated sms's.

Contact Groups

Contact Groups allow the user to create a grouping of contacts intended for use with Bulk SMS's. Groups are created by specifying a SQL query and/or by adding contacts to a static list. If a query is specified, it is only executed at the time that the Bulk SMS is generated, returning the sms recipients that match the query expression.

Queries are constructed by selecting the search field and then a matching expression. For example, to find all contacts that have Vodacom cell numbers, the following query will be used.

((SMSNUM LIKE '278%') OR (SMSNUM LIKE '277%'))

Note that all numbers are stored in the system as Country Code, without the preceeding 0, followed by the number. ie: instead of 0827561123 the number is stored as 27827561123.

Multiple expressions can be included in a query as show above. Expressions are joined by using AND's and OR's. Expressions should be encapsulated in brackets. 

• Expressions joined by an AND indicate that both expressions must be true to return a contact.
• Expressions joined by an OR indicate that either expressions must be true to return a contact.

For example, a query of ((FIRSTNAME = 'ROB') AND (FIRSTNAME = 'PETER')) will not return any contacts as no person has both firstnames.

Alternatively, a query of ((FIRSTNAME = 'ROB') OR (FIRSTNAME = 'PETER')) will return any contacts who has a firstname of either ROB or PETER.

Refer to the section Scheduling a Bulk SMS to see how Contact Groups are utilised.

SMS Templates

SMS Templates define the text that will be sent with Bulk SMS's. The EasySMS Service allows you to insert database fields into the sms text. For example, an sms text template defined as 

Hello [FIRSTNAME], your member number is [MEMBER]

would expand on generation when sent to Robert whose membership is 10213 as

Hello Robert, your member number is 10213

Refer to the section Scheduling a Bulk SMS to see how SMS Templates are utilised.

SMS Schedule

SMS Schedules define the dates and times at which Bulk SMS's are generated and are used to create repetitive Bulks. Note that if a schedule is not assigned to a Bulk SMS, the Bulk will only be generated once.

The following schedule types can be defined.

Daily	The bulk will generate on a multiple of days. ie: Daily or every 3 days.
Weekly	The bulk will generate on a multiple of weeks. ie: Every week or every 3 weeks. The day of the week can be specified.
Monthly	The bulk will generate on a multiple of months. ie: Every month or every 3 Months. The day of the month can be specified.
Annually	The bulk will generate on a multiple of years. ie: Annually or every 3 years.The day of the year can be specified.
Specify Dates	The bulk will generate on a specified list of dates

You can also define a date constraint for a schedule. The date constraint will limit the period to which the schedule applies. For example, if a repetative schedule is defined, with a date constraint to end on the 31st March, the Bulk sms will stop generating Batches after this date, and will change from the Pending Status to the Generated Status.

When scheduling a Bulk SMS, you will be asked to specify a generation and send date-time. If an SMS Schedule is assigned to the Batch SMS, the time between the generation and send times will persist for the lifetime of the Bulk SMS. For example, if you shedule a repetative Bulk SMS to generate at 11:00 and send at 13:00 every second day but in the SMS Schedule you specified a send time of 12:00, then the Bulk SMS will generate at 10:00 and send at 12:00.

SMS Blacklist

To stop the EasySMS Service from sending sms's to a number, add the number to the BlackList. This list of numbers is universal to all users on the system. So if user Peter were to add 27827867102 to the Blacklist, the system would stop Rob from being able to send to that number as well.

Please note that numbers will be converted to follow the international format without a preceeding 0. ie: so 0827867102 will be converted to 27827867102.

Numbers may also be removed from the Blacklist as required.

User Management

The EasySMS Service provides user functionality to control access to functions within the system. Users may also be divided into different groupings that limit the sharing of contacts within a specified group.

The EasySMS Service allows for multiple SMS accounts. SMS accounts provide access to sending and receiving SMS via Dev Squared Designs. Each SMS account can support both local and international SMS channels. In addition, each account may have a number of source numbers defined. Each source number provides a private outgoing and incoming sms channel to a user. Users may share a source number, but in this case, the incoming sms's can be viewed by both users.

Accounts and their associated source numbers are defined in the EasySMS Service configuration file. Do not change these.

Creating a User

Each user can be assigned specific user rights based on the SMS role they will need. These are:

- Guest:	Can only send single sms's.
- Normal User:	Can perform most functions but cannot send BULK sms's.
- Advanced User:	Can perform all SMS functions.
- Administrator:	Can perform all SMS and Administrative functions.
- Power User	Can perform all functions and authorize Batches

Before adding users, create any user groups required. This is not necessary if user groups are not required.

When creating a new user do the following:

• Fill in the user details
• Select whether the user needs their Batches of sms's to be authorized before sending
• Select the required User Rights
• Assign a User Group (if required)
• Select the SMS Account that the user will use to send sms's with as well as the subscriber number.
• Assign a short code to the user, if appicable. Note that short codes do not support outgoing SMS's so any replies to incoming SMS's (either from the user or via an SMS Plugin) will be sent using the user's subscriber number.
• Add the user.

User Groups

User Groups can be defined to limit contact sharing. Users can then be allocated to user groups. If a user in a user group shares contacts, the shared contacts will only be visible to users in the same group.

Users can be assigned to a group when adding a new user, or by editing an existing users account.

User Credit Management

Each user is assigned an sms account that indicates the number of sms credits they have available. Every time an sms is sent by the user, their account is deducted.

There are two types of credit accounts:

Closed Accounts
When the user with a closed account has no more credits left, they cannot send sms's. Please note that if a batch of sms's is generated, and the user does not have sufficient credits to send the whole batch, no sms's from that batch will be sent. (ie: Partial batches are not sent)

Open Accounts
Users with a open account are not resistricted by the number of SMS Credits available to them when sending sms's. The system will deduct credits from their account as per usual but will allow the users credits to run into the negitive.

A user can be assigned a open or closed Account when adding/editing the user.

The Power User and Administrators may add credits to a users account regardless of whether it be open or closed. Administrators however can only add credits to users who have user rights lower than the Administrator privilege.

Administrative Functions

The Administration Panel is only available to the Power User. The following functions are provided:

• Access to view EasySMS Service logs and error logs
• Access to SMS Account Credits for each SMS account. This indicates the number of sms credits remaining on the displayed accounts
• Authorization requests. This page can be used by the Power User to authorize batches of sms's. Click on the 'Detail' hyperlink to get more information on the batch. Note that batches can also be authorized by replying to the authorize sms and including your password in the sms. The password must be typed in between the >< characters.