Connect your SMS gateway to your IT system

After you have known how to connect your IT system to the mobile network on the previous page, this article outlines information on how you can connect your corporate IT system to an SMS gateway. You can read the possible connection alternatives and find helpful links to read more about these practices.

Introduction

If you decide to use SMS technology in your company you will be able to send useful and important information to the mobile phones of your employees, customers or business partners. In this way they will receive your messages even in cases when they are on the move.

With this solution you can enjoy the benefits of SMS communication. This technology is the quickest and simplest one today. Therefore SMS messages are welcomed in everyday life but they are also often used in corporate communications. With a simple SMS message you can solve several critical cases. For example, in case of system errors the competent person can be reached in time by sending him an SMS so he can immediately intervene. SMS technology also makes it possible to be effective, up-to-date and always available. In this way you can always react to important messages of your customers or business partners.

To use SMS functionality in your company you need to setup an SMS gateway software. This gateway will make it possible to send and receive SMS messages from your corporate IT environment. But first you need to connect the SMS gateway to your IT system to operate properly. This article describes the possible connection alternatives.

SQL databases

With an SMS gateway software you can add SMS functionality to your corporate database. With this solution you can transmit and receive SMS messages from your database. In most of the companies database servers are the basics of the IT infrastructure (such as Oracle, Access, MySql, MS SQL, Postgres, Sybase, etc). This solution makes several corporate processes easier. Your database and in this way your company will be well-organized and more effective because in an SMS message you can send any data and information to competent people in any time.

With this solution you can also track down your sent and received messages. It is possible because there is a service which serves as an eventlog in the system. It logs all the messages that are sent or received. You send and receive several types of messages with this solution from your database such as any kind of information, notifications, alerts, etc. You can read further benefits of adding SMS extension to your database in the SQL database overview.

To send and receive SMS messages from your database you need to do the follows: First you need to connect your SMS gateway to your database by ODBC or OLEDb connection. You can configure it by a connection string and you also need to create a database user. The best way to achieve this function is if the SMS gateway communicates with the database server and sends and receives SMS messages with the help of two assigned database tables. So first you need to create these tables: the "ozekimessagein" and "ozekimessageout". If you would like to send a message from your database you just need to insert a record into the "ozekimessageout" table. This will be read by the gateway which will send out the message. If there is a response to this message it will be stored in the other table, "ozekimessagein", and the gateway with an SQL select command will read it. This configuration is called "SQL to SMS" Gateway. For further information on how to send SMS from databases please visit the configuration guide of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway into databases.

Text files or HTTP requests

You can also send and receive SMS messages with the use of text files or HTTP requests. Text files or HTTP requests are commonly used in corporate communication processes so there are advantages of adding SMS functionality to them. These are called File to SMS and HTTP to SMS configurations. With this function of SMS gateways you can send text files in SMS or SMS with HTTP request. SMS with HTTP can be important if you want to send messages from, for example, a web browser, or if you want to provide free SMS service to your customers and partners on your website. To send SMS from a website you just need to provide the addressee's phone number, the message type and the message data and your message will be sent through a given port. To use this solution you need to configure your SMS gateway. For a quick configuration guide, please visit our Ozeki NG HTTP Interface page.

E-mails

With an SMS gateway software you can also send e-mail messages as SMS messages. If you already use a notification system which is able to generate reports or notifications, you can add SMS extension to your IT system. Notification systems are usually able to notify the user with an e-mail if a problem occurs or they send e-mails about reports. In these cases you can use the E-mail to SMS configuration. In this case the SMS gateway converts e-mail messages into SMS messages and sends them to a pre-defined phone number or to the phone number defined in the e-mail message. The incoming SMS messages will be converted into e-mail messages and sent to an e-mail address. This e-mail address is determined in the SMS message. It is possible that the maximum length of the outgoing messages are limited; in this case only the subject line and a few sentences of the message body will be sent in the SMS message. It usually happens in case of longer e-mail messages. To configure your SMS gateway to send e-mails as SMS messages please visit our Ozeki NG E-mail interface page.

Developers

If you have IT developers in your company then the different developer interfaces can be frequently used. These interfaces are the follows: C#.NET SMS API, PHP SMS API, ASP SMS API, etc.

Ozeki NG SMS Gateway

The use of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway makes it possible to use all the above mentioned connection types. All these solutions can be easily configured into the software. The delivery reports can be forwarded to the corporate network depending on the connection interface. With the configuration of Ozeki NG SMS Gateway you will get a reliable, stable and well-functioning system.

More information