fmSMS Now Supports Bandwidth SMS Gateway

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fmSMS has been updated to support the Bandwidth SMS Gateway – you can send and receive SMS messages using the Bandwidth SMS Gateway and fmSMS. Bandwidth offer a free trial version so you can use the trial version of fmSMS to test the Bandwidth SMS Gateway.

Bandwidth are based in the USA and can also deliver to international numbers. They offer very competitive pricing  – at the time of writing (April 10, 2017) their prices are in US dollars:

  • $0.35 for the virtual number you use to send messages from
  • $0.005 for every outgoing message
  • all incoming messages are free

You can download a trial version of fmSMS from here – please get in touch if you have any questions about using fmSMS and the Bandwidth SMS Gateway.

fmSMS Chat View

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One of our favourite features in fmSMS is the Chat View which we introduced back in July 2015. This shows you the sent and received messages for an individual Contact in a much more graphical interface compared to a traditional FileMaker view using portals. The Chat View is similar to how iChat/Messages works on the Mac and iOS platforms – the messages are displayed in a threaded view so you can see them as a conversation and quickly type a message using the defaults without having to leave the Chat View screen.

Here’s a screenshot showing the classic view of the SMS History for a Contact with 2 portals for the sent and received messages:

When you have multiple sent and received messages it can be quite hard to track the replies to a sent message and follow the conversation. Here’s the Chat View of the same Contact record:

We are colour coding the sent messages in blue and the replies in green to easily distinguish between the outgoing and incoming messages, and all messages are sorted by timestamps so they appear in reverse chronological order. When you have multiple sent/received messages you can easily scroll though the complete history and see all the messages that this Contact has received and all their replies in the one screen.

Here’s a quick video showing the fmSMS Chat View in action to send an appointment reminder and receive the reply back into fmSMS:

fmSMS End of Year Xmas Sale – Everything 20% Off

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It’s time for the fmSMS End of Year Xmas Sale – All fmSMS Licenses are now 20% Off. The sale runs until the end of the day on the 31st December, 2016 (Australian Eastern Daylight Time).

All our prices are in Australian dollars – if you’re purchasing from outside of Australia you’ll also get to take advantage of the low Australia dollar (1 Australian Dollar equals approximately 0.74 US Dollars).

Discounts are applied automatically – no coupons required! Click here to start shopping.

SMS Text Messaging in the US 2016 Election

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There’s an interesting article on the Plivo website about the role SMS/Text Messaging has played in the 2016 USA Elections. It’s an interesting read covering what worked for different candidates and what hasn’t worked:

https://www.plivo.com/blog/how-sms-text-messaging-won-the-2016-us-elections/

fmSMS SMS Gateways updated – Zipwhip

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We’ve just updated fmSMS to support the Zipwhip SMS Gateway. Zipwhip is a bit different to most SMS Gateways – they allow you to enable text messaging for your existing business phone number (Landline or Toll-Free Phone Number). This allows you to have one number for customers to call you and text you – normally you would need to get a dedicated virtual mobile number to handle the incoming text/SMS messages.

This brings the number of SMS Gateways supported to 75 – if you would like us to support you preferred SMS Gateway please contact us with the details.

fmSMS Updates – SMS Broadcast Gateway (Australia)

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We’ve updated fmSMS for some changes to the SMS Broadcast Gateway (Australia) including:

  • added support for delayed message delivery
  • added 2nd SMS Broadcast Gateway record for use with 2 Way Shared Numbers
  • included PHP files for Message Status Updates and Message Replies

Clickatell SMS Gateway TLS Changes

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Clickatell have notified customers that they will be performing scheduled system maintenance on 14 August 2016. Following these changes they will no longer be supporting SSL 2.0 or SSL 3.0 but are adding support for TLS 1.2.

This only applies to HTTPS requests (not HTTP) made to the Clickatell API. We’ve completed some initial testing using their test TLS server and are happy to report all messages were delivered successfully. If you’re using fmSMS with Clickatell and HTTPS requests everything should continue to work after the 14 August 2016, but please let us know if you encounter any issues.

See fmSMS at the 2016 FileMaker Developer Conference

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We’re excited to announce that we will once again be exhibiting at the 2016 FileMaker Developer Conference where we will be showcasing fmSMS, our 2 way SMS solution for FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go, FileMaker WebDirect and FileMaker Server. This year’s DevCon (the 21st) will be held in the same location as last year – Las Vegas, Nevada – from July 18-21, 2016.

The Exhibitor Hall will be in the Gracia Ballroom this year, which is the same location where breakfast and lunch are served. This is the same format from previous DevCons so you can grab lunch then spend some time visiting the exhibitor booths.

fmSMS allows you to send an SMS from FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go, FileMaker WebDirect and FileMaker Server to almost any mobile phone in the world, reaching over 800 networks in more than 200 countries. fmSMS v3 was completely rewritten from the ground up for FileMaker Pro v12 and is compatible with FileMaker Pro v12 – v15.

If you’re coming to the conference please stop by and say hello and we can demonstrate how you can send and receive SMS/TXT messages using FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go, FileMaker WebDirect and FileMaker Server. We hope to see as many of you there as possible and look forward to answering your questions about FileMaker and SMS integration.