Scenario
Imagine you are the secretary of an ABC Association that rotationally holds its weekly meeting at its members’ residence. You have been mandated to send an SMS to the host of the week every Thursday before the meeting on Sunday. You are also to remind the host of the refreshment menu.
While the Sender ID will be same, the message content and times of delivery will be different.
The CSV file
The CSV file might look like the one below.
The CSV Format
- Notice that the first column contains the phone numbers with the header as PHONE.
- The second column contains the day and time of delivery with header as XTIME
- The third column header is XMESSAGE and it contains the messages.
These are required to ensure delivery of this type of SmartSchedule.
The SmartSchedule Web Page
In this case, the SmartSchedule web page will look like the sample shown below.
Sender ID : This is what will be seen by recipient as the sender of the message.
Message : Since the message has been defined in the CSV, you need to enter ## in the message to direct the system to the CSV for the message content.
Select CSV file : The CSV file we created above will be uploaded to this box.
Use Common Year : This is not necessary in this case as the year in the CSV file is correct. Therefore it will be left blank.
Common Time : We want all the messages to deliver by 8:00am, therefore we selected a common time for all the messages.
DND Management Option : This can be set at desired.
Finally, we click the SEND SMS button. The messages will be uploaded and scheduled as desired. The next page, after successful schedule shows the messages and their time of delivery. This gives you the opportunity to ensure that the messages have been scheduled correctly.
To use this powerful app is simple as that. Kindly let us know what you think of this feature using the comment box below.
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