How you can track down your sent and received SMS messages

If you use a well-functioning SMS gateway software there is a possibility to track down your sent and received messages in your IT system. With this function you can be informed about the message transmissions of your company as SMS messages are stored for later reviews. This article provides information on this tracking function of SMS gateways.

Introduction

There are several benefits of using SMS technology in a company. SMS messages can be delivered immediately and you can send your message to the intended person. It is widely used in corporate communication systems because it is fast and simple. But if you operate with SMS messages there can be cases when you need to track back your sent or received messages. It is especially important in case of delivery reports. With this tracking function you can trace back any messages. Furthermore, this function makes it possible to get any information about the messages such as the date of delivery, or any further data.

To achieve this functionality you need a powerful SMS gateway software. This gateway will provide the SMS extension to your corporate IT system. Moreover, it enables your system to track down your message transmission. In this article you can read more about this function of SMS gateways.

Tracking messages

If you use an SMS gateway to transmit and receive SMS it is important to be well-informed about your messages. If you get notifications about the status of your messages you can avoid several critical cases. For example, it can be a problem if your customer does not get an important message. In this case you can trace back the exact way of the message from your computer to the mobile phone. It can occur that the message has not been sent or it is just delaying.

Delivery reports can be the proper solution for such problems. Delivery reports are messages which report the status of your sent messages. With the help of this function you can always be informed about the delivery of your messages. In cases of emergency it can be a convenient and fast solution. You will get a delivery report if your SMS has been successfully sent. You also get one if your message has not been sent because of problems occurred with the address (for example, the address does not exist)

An SMS gateway is usually a two-way software. It is because it enables your computer to send messages, and at the same time it is also able to handle delivery reports as SMS messages. Such a two-way SMS gateway is Ozeki NG SMS Gateway. With this software you can easily track down the sent and received messages regardless of the used application. It handles delivery reports in the following way:

The gateway has logfiles in which it stores different kinds of data. In these logfiles you can find logs that belong to the provider and also there are logs that belong to the user. Therefore in these logfiles you can search for the logs of both the provider and the user. You can also check which envelopes has not been delivered yet. The software generates two basic delivery reports about each outgoing message. In this way there is a report about the delivery of the message to the mobile network and there is a report when the message is received to the mobile phone. With this function the message sending process is always traceable.

In this way the first report is generated when the mobile network takes over the message. In this time the mobile service provider acknowledges this take over with a receipt. This is called "deliveredtonetwork" or submission report. The other report is sent to the user or the given application if the message is delivered to the recipient's mobile phone. This type of reports is called "deliveredtohandset" or SMS delivery report. There is a third report which is generated in case of errors. The program is able to display the fact that there is an error in the delivery process. Furthermore it notifies the user about the reason of the error. For example, errors can occur such as the mobile network is busy, or there is not enough money on the account of the subscriber and because of this s/he cannot send SMS messages.

Beside the delivery reports there is a detailed log for every message. This log can be queried in any time. You can know from this log all the important information about a given message such as: what happens with it, when the program takes it over to be sent, when the mobile network takes it over, and when it is received on the recipient's mobile phone.

Ozeki NG SMS Gateway for SMS message tracking

In larger companies this excellent function is welcomed as there can be problems caused by mis-sent or not sent messages. These problems can be easily tracked down and solved in time with a powerful SMS gateway software. Another problem can occur if you want to send longer SMS messages than 160 characters. These are called multi-part SMS messages as they are sent in more than one parts. With Ozeki NG SMS Gateway you do not need to worry about them as it is able to track down such kinds of messages also. It reports them as one message but at the same time you can query information about all the parts of the message. The delivery report is sent only after all the parts of the message have been arrived on the recipient's phone.

Furthermore, Ozeki NG SMS Gateway keeps detailed logging about the whole SMS transit in your IT system. By default, the logging happens in the file system but you also can configure logging to SQL databases. With the help of this logging you can trace the transit of your IT system and track down concrete SMS messages. In case of SQL logging you can generate any number of reports. For example a pre-defined query is available in the system which is able to indicate the exact number of sent and received messages of a user or network connection in a given time.

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