Clickatell 2011 Personalized Priority Messaging Awards
We’ve entered fmSMS, our SMS/text messaging solution that lets you send and receive SMS messages using FileMaker Pro, in the Clickatell 2011 Personalized Priority Messaging Awards. We would love to get your support for fmSMS – you can vote for us by clicking on the image below and voting for fmSMS. Just find “Databuzz” in the list of entries (should be #29 – have to scroll down to find it) and click the Vote Now link:
Thanks for your support!
Clickatell launches new US small business SMS messaging package
Clickatell, a global leader in mobile communications specialising in SMS messaging, has launched a new monthly service for US small businesses, starting at just $24.95 per month, which includes a dedicated number and up to 1,000 free outbound text messages per month. Additional outbound text messages are as little as 2¢ per message, and all incoming customer messages are free of charge.
Clickatell was the very first SMS Gateway supported by fmSMS and they have a very comprehensive developer API that allows us to integrate sending and receiving of SMS/TEXT messages from FileMaker Pro (receiving will require hosting by FileMaker Server v9 or higher with Custom Web Publishing/PHP API). This new offer, combined with fmSMS, provides a turnkey solution for US small businesses to be sending and receiving SMS messages from FileMaker Pro in minutes.
According to Clickatell SMS messages have been proven to generate 10x or higher direct response rates than other media, averaging between 15-45 percent versus a typical 1-5 percent for popular forms of direct marketing. Text messaging also has a 5x higher open rate than email (98 percent vs. 20 percent). Text messaging is capable of reaching 91 percent of people and is used by 64 percent of the U.S. population, versus only 26 percent using Twitter and 42 percent using Facebook. In addition, mobile messaging enables much more targeted, personal interaction and receipt notification than popular social media engines.
Click on the graphic below for full details or visit the Clickatell US Small Business website at http://www.clickatell.com/solutions/business/us_small_business.php
Databuzz releases fmSMS – Send and Receive SMS/TXT Messages in FileMaker Pro
Just a quick note to say that we’ve finally got fmSMS out the door. It represents everything we’ve learned in over 10 years of FileMaker/SMS integration. We’d love to hear your feedback – you can download a trial copy now from the fmSMS website at http://www.fmsms.com. We’re already working on some new features and improvements for the next version.
Here’s the official press release:
Sydney, Australia – February 10, 2011 – Databuzz today announced fmSMS, a new solution that lets you send and receive SMS/TXT messages from within FileMaker Pro.
fmSMS allows you to send an SMS from FileMaker Pro to almost any mobile phone in the world via one of the supported SMS Gateways, reaching over 800 networks in more than 200 countries. SMS is great means of direct communication with customers, staff, suppliers, and students.
SMS traffic is growing at an exponential rate – an estimated 2.3 trillion text messages were sent in 2010. One billion text messages were sent in one day alone in Beijing this month on the eve of the Spring Festival, China’s biggest festival. fmSMS allows FileMaker users to be part of this growing and important means of communication.
SMS is perfect for appointment reminders, phone messages, promotions, segmented marketing, school absence alerts, and password confirmations. With SMS you can reduce your costs and play less “telephone tag”.
fmSMS works with multiple SMS Gateway providers internationally and supports the following features*:
- Send single and bulk SMS messages (messages are typically delivered in under 15 seconds)
- Send long messages (greater than 160 characters)
- Works with over 20 SMS Gateway providers internationally
- Delayed Delivery – send a message now for delivery at a future time
- Alphanumeric Sender ID
- Message Logging – track the history of all sent messages
- Message templates – create an unlimited number of pro forma templates
- 2 Way SMS – allow recipients to reply to messages and have them appear in fmSMS
“We’ve been helping customers integrate SMS with their FileMaker solutions for over 10 years,” said Andrew Duncan, Director of Databuzz. “fmSMS can be used as a standalone turnkey solution or can be integrated directly into a customer’s existing FileMaker solution.”
Praise from independent FileMaker developers
“As a vertical solution provider, there is no point in re-inventing the wheel. fmSMS provided us an accelerated learning curve and bolt on schema saving us loads of time in development. A great investment.” Andrew Markham Xercise Pro
Availability, Pricing, and Compatibility
fmSMS is available now from the fmSMS website at http://www.fmsms.com. A 14 day trial version is available for both Macintosh and Windows. Workgroup Licenses start at AUD $495.00. fmSMS requires FileMaker Pro v10 or later.
* Not all SMS Gateways support all features of fmSMS. Some features might incur additional charges by your selected SMS Gateway. Some features require hosting by FileMaker Server v9 or later with Custom Web Publishing using the PHP API and a static IP address. See our website at http://www.fmsms.com for more details.
Media/Customer Contact:
Andrew Duncan
Phone: +61 418 468 103
sales@databuzz.com.au
http://www.fmsms.com
http://www.databuzz.com.au
About Databuzz: Databuzz is a long standing member is a member of the FileMaker Business Alliance and has been developing and deploying FileMaker solutions for clients in Australia and internationally since 1999. Our clients are individuals, small-medium businesses, government agencies and multi-national corporations. Databuzz was founded by Andrew Duncan, a Certified FileMaker 11, 10,9 and 8 Developer. In 2010 Andrew presented a session at the annual FileMaker Developer Conference on integrating SMS/TXT Message Integration with FileMaker. For more information please visit our website at http://www.databuzz.com.au.
###
FileMaker is a trademark of FileMaker, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Using FileMaker Plug-ins with Instant Web Publishing
I normally don’t work with FileMaker’s Instant Web Publishing (IWP), preferring to work with Custom Web Publishing and the PHP API which gives me more flexibility without the limitations of IWP. I was recently working with a client that had deployed an IWP solution hosted by FileMaker Pro (not FileMaker Server Advanced) and wanted to integrate our fmSMS solution, which allows you to send/receive SMS/txt messages in FileMaker. I quickly found a problem though – the plug-in that we use to send the SMS messages was not being recognised by the IWP clients/browsers, despite it working fine in the FileMaker Pro client. The problem took a while to locate but the solution was simple and was not something I could find documented anywhere else so I thought I would write it up here in case this helps someone else out there having the same problem.
As I started to test whether we could deploy our SMS solution via IWP I wasn’t too confident to start with as I wasn’t sure whether plug-ins were supported under IWP in the first place, and had already worked out a backup plan if that was the case. I first checked the FileMaker 11 Instant Web Publishing Guide to see if it mentioned the compatability of plug-ins with IWP, and was encouraged to see the following: “Typically, third party plug-ins can be used for web published databases if they do not attempt to display information to an end-user’s screen, if they do not require direct end-user interaction, if they do not interact with the FileMaker Pro user interface, or otherwise require interaction from end users”. I was bolstered by this as our plug-in doesn’t involve any user interface interaction – it simply communicates with an online SMS Gateway and returns the result into a field via the Set Field script step. As fmSMS is a multi-file solution that was never designed with IWP in mind I decided to create a quick test file with only the basic tables, fields, layouts and scripts necessary to test it under the IWP environment. I made sure all the scripts were IWP compatible, tested it in FileMaker Pro Advanced as the host successfully then was ready to test in IWP.
My first test in IWP returned a “?”, which I know usually means the plug-in was not installed or enabled. However I could see the plug-in listed under the FileMaker preferences and knew it was loaded as FileMaker Pro Advanced was able to run my scripts successfully and return the correct result. I wasn’t getting puzzled at this point and spent a few more hours modifying scripts, creating new plug-in tests to ensure it was loaded but I always ended up with a “?” everytime I called a plug-in function. I gave up for the night and decided to sleep on it.
The next day I started again and continued to get the “?” result no matter what I tried. I was almost ready to give up and pronounce that this plug-in was not compatible with IWP but decided to try one last test. By default I always install (or FileMaker Server installs for me via it’s Auto Update feature) all my plug-ins in the user’s Application Data folder, which is located at the following for each of the supported platforms:
- Windows XP: C:\Document Settings\User Name\Local Settings\ApplicationData\FileMaker\Extensions
- Windows Vista/Windows 7: C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Local\FileMaker\Extensions
- Mac OS X: Macintosh HD/Users/User Name/Library/Application Support
I moved the plug-in from here to the traditional location inside the FileMaker Application folder, which is usually one of these for each platform:
- C:\Program Files\FileMaker\FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced\Extensions
- Macintosh HD/Applications/FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced/Extensions
After relaunching FileMaker Pro Advanced and quickly tested everything worked fine I started what was going to be my last test via IWP and it worked! I’m not 100% sure why this is the case as I can’t find any documentation from FileMaker Inc about this but I suspect it relates to the FM Web Publishing application. The FM Web Publishing app is located at either:
- C:\Program Files\FileMaker\FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced\ExtensionsWeb Support\FM Web Publishing.exe
- Macintosh HD/Applications/FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced/Extensions/Web Support/FM Web Publishing.app
and it appears that the FM Web Publishing app can only see plug-ins that are also in the FileMaker Pro Application Extensions folder – at least in the case of the plug-in I’m working with, I haven’t tested this with other plug-ins under IWP. If you’re hosting your IWP solution under FileMaker Server Advanced you won’t encounter this as it only applies to hosting IWP solutions with FileMaker Pro/Pro Advanced – you install plug-ins in different locations for FileMaker Server Advanced hosting.
So in summary if you’re working with plug-ins for solutions hosted by FileMaker Pro/Pro Advanced and deployed via IWP and can’t get the plug-in functions to work correctly, make sure you have installed the plug-in in the FileMaker Pro/Pro Advanced Application Extensions folder not in the user’s Application Data folder. Note that if you have the same plug-in installed in both locations the user’s Application Data folder will take preference over the Application Extensions folder so make sure to remove it from the user’s Application Data folder.
Databuzz eNews – July 2010 Released
We’ve just released our eNews newsletter for July 2010. You can view it online at:
http://www.databuzz.com.au/enews/enews_072010_generic.html
If you want to be added to the newsletter mailing list just leave a comment below and we’ll add you to the list until our new automated subscription service is operational.
FileMaker Announces Schedule for FileMaker Developer Conference 2010 in San Diego
- what is required to start sending SMS messages from FileMaker Pro – how to use simple FileMaker Pro native technologies to send an SMS (e.g. scripts steps, Script Triggers and Web Viewers)
- when to consider using external plug-ins instead of native technologies and which plug-ins to use
- when to consider using a hardware modem and how to configure ESS for this
- how to receive incoming SMS messages directly into your FileMaker Pro solution
Attendees can save US $200 on the conference price by registering by May 21, 2010. You can get all the details at the DevCon website
Cleaning up Smart Quotes in FileMaker Pro v10
One of my pet hates is the use of “smart quotes” in FileMaker Pro. Smart quotes are the curly quotation marks and curly apostrophes and are usually entered in 2 ways:
1. the setting for smart quotes is enabled by default for the creation of new .fp7 database files on Mac OS X but not for Windows XP, so anytime you enter an apostrophe or a quote mark you will be using smart quotes.
2. pasting in text from Microsoft Word, which also has a preference setting for smart quotes and which is also enabled by default (you can get instructions for how to turn this off on Windows here)
Here are some examples of how they appear:
Single Left Smart Quote: ‘
Single Right Smart Quote: ’
Double Left Smart Quote: “
Double Right Smart Quote: ”
The smart quotes setting in FileMaker Pro can be found by opening a database file and going to the File menu > File Options, and click the Text tab (note that you must log in using the Full Access privilege set to edit items in the Text tab). Here you can toggle smart quotes on and off- if you enable smart quotes when it was previously off this will only affect new typing as any existing data will not be edited automatically.
For many users smart quotes are not problematic, but when it comes to exchanging data with other database platforms (e.g. SQL) and systems (particularly web based systems) their presence will often cause data exchange processes to break or for text not to be displayed correctly, which means you then have to deal with any smart quotes in your data. I was recently working on submitting FileMaker data to on online system and was required to URL encode my data. Everything was working well until one day data was being truncated for no obvious reason. After many tests I realised that some of the apostrophe and quotation characters were not being URL encoded correctly (I was using this handy custom function to URL encode the data before submitting it via HTTP POST). Once I zoomed in on the text to 400% and changed the font to a sans serif font all was clear – the text was using smart quotes which the customer has enabled as this was the default setting for a new .fp7 file on Mac OS X. I quickly turned that off which meant any new data entered directly into the fields would not be using smart quotes, but all the existing data needed to be cleaned up. I created a new custom function RemoveSmartQuotes (text) which uses one of the new functions in FileMaker Pro v10 to reference a character without having to actually type/enter the character into a calculation.
The following calculation uses the Char function to identify any instances of the single and double smart quotes/apostrophes and replace them with plain (straight) quotes and apostrophes:
Substitute (
text ;
[ Char ( 8216 ) ; "'" ] ; // left smart quote
[ Char ( 8217 ) ; "'" ] ; // right smart quote
[ Char ( 8220) ; "\"" ] ; // left double smart quote
[ Char ( 8221) ; "\"" ] // right double smart quote
)
I’ve dcreate a custom function that uses this calculation that you can copy/paste into your file which should appear shortly on Brian Dunning’s custom function site. This custom function can then be used in a number of ways to clean up text that cannot have any smart quotes in them, for example as an auto enter calculation on a field or in a script that transforms data. If you’re using a version of FileMaker Pro before v10 you simply need to change the use of the Char function with the actual smart quotes themselves and remember to escape the double quotes.
Databuzz eNews – December 2008 Released
We’ve just released our eNews newsletter for December 2008. You can view it online at:
http://www.databuzz.com.au/enews/enews_122008_generic.html
If you want to be added to the newsletter mailing list just leave a comment below and we’ll add you to the list until our new automated subscription service is operational.
fmSMS . . . Coming Soon
We’ve been hard at work finalising a new product of ours – fmSMS - which is the combination of over 7 years of experience integrating FileMaker Pro with SMS (Short Message Service/TXT) gateways to allow you to send single/bulk SMS messages at the click of a button from a FileMaker Pro database. I can still remember the excitement when I sent my first SMS message from a FileMaker Pro v5 database to my mobile phone and seeing it arrive within seconds. That same “wow factor” is also seen by all of our clients when they first implement SMS with their FileMaker solutions and see how easy it is to sent short messages to their customers.
We’ve decided to start from scratch and combine all the great features of FileMaker Pro 9 with the power of SMS communication. With fmSMS you will be able to:
- send an SMS message to a single Contact which is typically received in under 10 seconds
- send a bulk SMS to a group of Contacts using templates and merge fields so each message is personalised
- check on the delivery status of each message that you have sent
- schedule a message to be sent up to 7 days in advance (for example you could send an SMS today and have it delivered on the weekend or holidays. Make it look like you’re in the office on XMas!)
- check your available SMS credits
- purchase additional SMS credits
There’s a stack of other great features that we’re finalising now. You will be able to access over 700 mobile networks in over 200 countries with SMS prices around AUD 6-8 cents each.
We’d love to hear about any must have features that you’d like to see in fmSMS in case we’ve missed anything – just leave us a comment below. If you’d like to be added to the notification list when we release fmSMS just leave a comment with your name and email address and we’ll take care of the rest.
UPDATE: fmSMS has now been released and you can get all the details at www.fmsms.com. A trial version is available to download.
FileMaker Pro and SMS/TXT Messages
Update: we’ve released a new product – fmSMS – that allows you to send/receive SMS/TXT messages from FileMaker Pro. See the website at www.fmsms.com for full details.
We’ve been integrating FileMaker solutions into SMS/TXT message gateways for many years. We sent our first SMS from a FileMaker database in 1999 (back then it involved lots of integration with third party software and modems etc). In 2002 we integrated a CRM solution into one of Australia’s largest SMS Gateway providers using one plugin – simply type your message in your FileMaker database, click a button and within seconds the SMS was sent and received on the recipient’s handset.
SMS messages are an effective communication tool for many users – you can use them to send appointment reminders, alerts (e.g new pricing specials), internal office messages and promotional material to your customers. At around 8c each they are also much cheaper than phone calls and letters (around 40c each) and when used appropriately can save you and your business money on wasted phone calls and mailouts. You are generally limited to 160 characters so you need to keep your messages short and to the point. There’s also none of the hassle with mass email mailings and dealing with anti spam software/filtering and limits on how many messages you can send at once. You know within seconds whether your message was sent successfully.
Databuzz has now partnered with the world’s leading SMS Gateway provider – Clickatell – to bring integrated SMS/TXT message sending into any FileMaker Pro solution. Using the Clickatell SMS Gateway we can send messages to over 700 different mobile networks in over 200 different countries, usually within seconds. We can also offer delayed SMS sending (send a message for future delivery for up to 7 days in advance) and message verification to ensure your message was received by the recipient’s mobile handset.
Clickatell also offer great pricing – messages cost around AUD $0.06-0.08 cents and there are discounts if you purchase in bulk. You can get more information about Clickatell and their coverage/pricing by clicking on the link below:
If you need to integrate SMS/TXT message functionality into your FileMaker Pro 7, 8, 8.5 or 9.0 solution contact us for an obligation free quote. We can setup SMS sending for one/multiple recipients, allow you to use merge fields and templates and tracking the delivey of sent messages. If you’re using FileMaker Server 9 we can also leverage it’s script scheduling feature to have it send the messages after hours to free up workstations.
