ActiveXperts SMS Messaging Server

ActiveXperts SMS Messaging Server is an SMS and e-mail messaging framework to allow companies to send, receive and process SMS and e-mail messages.

For low/medium volume SMS, use a GSM/GPRS modem and a regular SIM card.
	+		+		=
SMS Messaging Server + Custom Script		GSM/GPRS Modem		SIM Card		Custom SMS Project (Low/Medium vol.)

For high volume SMS, use an SMPP provider (SMS delivery to provider through TCP/IP).
	+		=
SMS Messaging Server + Custom Script		SMPP Subscription (through external provider)		Custom SMS Project (High vol.)

The framework is designed support any scenario where low- and high volume SMS and e-mail messaging is required:

• Send and receive SMS messages - Low-volume (GSM/GPRS modem) and high volume (SMPP or HTTP)
• Send and receive mail messages - Support for SMTP and POP3
• Process incoming SMS and e-mail messages - fire custom scripts upon message receive
• Database oriented - Messages are stored in a central database (MS Access, MS SQL or MySQL)
• Programming Interface - Programming interface with samples for .NET, VB, C++, Java, Delphi and more
• Runs as a service on a Windows platform - Runs on Windows 2008/2003/2000/7/Vista/XP platform as a service

The product ships with a collection of sample projects that work out of the box! You can send and receive a limited number of SMS messages through an SMPP Demo Server, for free.

Case Studies

Our case studies give you insight into how customers use the SMS messaging Server solution.
A small selection of the projects running at our customers:

• SMS notification system - Student notification system, retrieving numbers from Active Directory, MS SQL or Excel
• SMS song voting system - SMS song voting system for Hotradio, a music station
• SMS Man of the Match - "Man of the Match" SMS voting system for a european premier league football club
• SMS temperature query system - Query temperature in a computer server room using SMS
• SMS reservation system for a sports center - Squash court reservation system. Book a squash courts via SMS
• SMS trivia for Worlcup Soccer 2010 - Implementation of an SMS trivia for Worldcup Soccer 2010, South-Africa
• SMS trivia for a radio station - Implementation of an SMS music trivia for a radio station
• Remote command system for ICT system administrators - Remote ICT management using an SMS
• E-mail to SMS forwarding system - Forward e-mail messages from various POP3 e-mail boxes to SMS
• Haiti Earthquake 2010 - SMS based system to help people in Haiti after the earthquake
• Marina IDCC clinic Botswana - HIV patients daily medication confirmation system
• Haiti Elections in 2009 - SMS system related to the elections in Haiti 2009, in cooperation with Votident
• Kosovo Elections - Kosovo SMS text based vote processing system
• Specialist Hospital Abuja Nigeria - Drug efficacy and HIV positive caring system
• Greenbar, Costa Rica - SMS Text based ordering system
• Vienna Sanitation - money registration system for a toilet rental company
• PhixionFinancial - transaction scratch card processing system
• Breakaway - special event notification system
• Many other projects. ActiveXperts is happy to in assist in your project implementation

Architecture

The Message Database and the Configuration Database play a central role in the SMS Messaging Server (see also figure 1).

The Configuration Database contains all configuration parameters, like communication devices, scripts, general settings, etc. The Message Database contains all incoming and outgoing messages. This can be any OLE/DB compliant database, including MS Access, MS SQL and MySQL.

Fig. 1: SMS Messaging Server Schema [larger…]

The SMS Messaging Server ships with two graphical applications: the SMS Messaging Server Manager view messages and configure the system (see Figure 2) and the SMS Messaging Monitor to monitor all communication channels, real-time (see Figure 3).

Fig. 2 - SMS Messaging Server Manager	Fig. 3 - SMS Messaging Server Monitor	Fig. 4 - ActiveXperts SMS Messaging Server	Fig. 5 - Create a new channel using a wizard	Fig. 6 - Create a new project using a wizard

The SMS Messaging Server allows you to create, delete and modify in/outgoing messages, as well as process incoming messages. The API can be used in any ActiveX/COM compliant development language, incl. VBScript, Javascript, Visual Basic, Visual Basic.NET, Visual Basic, Visual C++, ASP, ASP .NET, PHP, Delphi and more.

The API sample in Figure 7 illustrates how to create SMS messages from a script. The API sample in Figure 8 illustrates how incoming messages can be processed.

Fig. 7: API sample: create SMS messages [large...]	Fig. 8: API sample: process incoming messages [large...]

Features and requirements

SMS

• Send and Receive SMS messages on multiple communication lines simultaneously
• Support for GSM Modems and GSM phones (GSM 07.05 and GSM 07.07 specifications) for low-volume messaging
• Support for SMPP-compliant SMSC centers (SMPP 3.x) for high-volume messaging, according to Industry Standard SMPP 3.x for external and internal connections
• Support for multiple SMPP/SMSC connections and multiple GSM modems/phones running simultaneously
• Support for multi-numbering formats
• Support for multi-part messages, to allow messages longer than 160 characters
• Support for SMS delivery verification
• Support for Unicode, to support foreign languages like Chinese, Turkisch, etc.
• Support for WAP Push messages and WAP Bookmark messages
• Support for traffic limitations (maximum number of SMS messages per day)
• Full TAPI (Windows Telephony) support
• Incoming SMS messages are stored in a central, vendor-independent message database (default: MS Access)
• Outgoing SMS messages are fetched from the message database and sent through an available GSM/SMPP communication channel
• All SMS communications can be viewed real-time using the SMS Messaging Monitor application

E-mail

• Send and Receive e-mail messages on multiple network connections simultaneously
• Native SMTP- and POP3 support
• Incoming e-mail messages are stored in a central message database (default: MS Access)
• Outgoing e-mail messages are fetched from the message database and sent through an available SMTP communication channel
• All E-mail communications can be viewed real-time using the SMS Messaging Monitor application

Database

• All configuration information is stored in a central, vendor independent database. An MS Access based configuration is installed by default. SQL scripts are provided to streamline migration to MS SQL or any other vendor-independent database
• All incoming and outgoing messages is stored in a central, vendor independent database. An MS Access based message database is installed by default. SQL scripts are provided to streamline migration to MS SQL or any other vendor-independent database
• The SMS Messaging Server Manager enables you to define different views of the database
• An API is provided to allow custom scripting. The API provides full access to the Configuration Database and the Message Database

Scripting

Scripting plays a very important role in SMS Messaging Server. Each incoming message (SMS or e-mail) will be processed by the system

• VBScript is the default scripting language
• Each incoming message is processed by the system. Depending on the Script configuration in the Configuration Database, one or more VBScript programs are triggered to process the message
• The SMS Messaging Server API can be used in VBScript. A lot of sample code is included, showing how to use the API in VBScript

Monitoring, Logging and Tracing

• The Monitor applications shows the real-time activity of the Channels; all modem operations and network operations (SMPP, POP3 and SMTP) can be viewed real-time
• Logging can be written to ASCII files, an MS Access database, MS SQL server or any other OLE-DB/ADO compliant database. Product is shipped with an Access database file that works out-of-the-box
• Maximum Log size is configurable.
• Message tracing allows you to see exactly what happened with a message, at what time. For instance, you can see at what time a message was received by a POP3 server, at what time it was received by SMS Messaging Server and at what time it was processed by the system

System requirements

The SMS Messaging Server service must be running on a Windows server platform, and must meet either of the following requirements: