The SMS notifications are useful for users that are not connected on the internet or away from their computers. Having this in mind we have created a scalable architecture that can support multiple SMS clients with easy to configure settings.
The default SMS client we are using is Twillio, because it provides powerful messaging features. To configure Twilio in the wMobile Notification Service you must first go on the Twilio website and receive an Account SID and Authentication Token.
To be specific, after creating the Twilio account, the Account SID and Authentication Token can be found under Dashboard \ Project Name (see Figure 1: Twilio Credentials).
Figure 1: Twilio Credentials
After getting the credentials, for the Twilio account to work you need caller phone number and some verified caller IDs.
Eg: phone x sends messages to phones y and z
The caller phone number can be found under Phone Numbers / Manage Numbers (see Figure 2: Getting caller phone number).
Figure 2: Getting caller phone number
Now that we have the caller phone number (phone x in example above) we need the verified caller ids. Those numbers can be found under Phone Numbers / Verified Caller IDS (see Figure 3: Verified Caller IDS(1) and (2)). This might be your own corporate cell phone number for testing. When you’re ready to go live, each user that will be sent SMS texts from wMobile must be added here.
Figure 3: Verified Caller IDs
Now that we have the caller phone number (phone x in the example above) we need the Verified Caller IDs. Those numbers can be found under Phone Numbers / Verified Caller IDS (see Figure 4: Verified Caller IDs). This might be your own corporate cell phone number for testing. When you’re ready to go live, each user that will be sent SMS texts from wMobile must be added here.
Figure 4: Verified Caller IDs (2)
In Figure 3 it is shown how a Twilio user can modify or add an existing receiver phone number.
After this step, proceed to the wMobile Manager Console with your wMobile user account and under the Notifications Services locate the SMS Settings (see Figure 5: Notifications SMS Settings).
Enter the data as follows:
Figure 5: Notifications SMS Settings
After the data is inserted you can test the data or save it. Now the wMobile Twilio SMS Service is running and the users can receive notifications SMS.
The wMobile Notification Service has a built-in SMS rule that must be active in order for SMS sending to work. This rule can be found in the Rules section under the Notification Services in wMobile Manager Console (Figure 6: SMS Notification Rules). Individual rules can be enabled or disabled.
Figure 6: SMS Notification Rules
In Figure 5 we highlight the “SMS on alarm expiration” rule. This rule sends an SMS when an activity alarm in wMobile occurs. In order to work, this rule needs the “Alarm Expired Monitor” to be enabled. This can be found in the Monitors section under the Notification Services in wMobile Manager Console (Figure 7: SMS Rule Monitor). See also the Notification Monitors section in the related blog post (“wMobile SMS Notifications ”).
Figure 7: SMS Rule Monitor
Sometimes, the system will not be able to send SMS notifications. Maybe the SMS provider is down or is not accessible or the server settings have been changed, but in the end your notifications will not be sent.
By default, the system will try to send a notification for a specified number of times. Once that number is reached and the notification cannot be sent, it will be moved into a list of Failed Notifications.
This list is accessible from Manager Console and the notifications can be further managed as follow:
Figure 8: SMS Failures
In order to receive an SMS, the phone number must be placed in both Twilio and wMobile.
First, the phone number must be registered into Twilio under Manage Caller IDs (See Figure 3: Verified Caller IDs).
After that the wMobile user must insert the mobile phone number into his or her wMobile settings. The location of the setting is in Tools / Options / Personal (Figure 9: wMobile User Phone Number).
Figure 9: wMobile User Phone Number
Although we have presented how our SMS notifications work with Twilio, we can easily integrate other SMS services with wMobile.
Applies to wMobile version 3.1.2.843 and above
Note: This is presented in conjunction with the wMobile SMS Notification Services blog post