fmSMS and Emoji Support 😀

At the recent FileMaker Developer Conference I was doing one of my fmSMS demonstrations to an attendee which involved me sending a message from fmSMS to their mobile phone (showing how you can use FileMaker to send SMS messages) and then having them send a reply back to demonstrate how you can use fmSMS to receive incoming messages directly into FileMaker. Normally the reply is a simple text reply of a few words, but this one was a bit different as you can see here:

screen-shot-2016-10-21-at-10-42-30-pm

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Emoji reply had made it all the way back from their phone to fmSMS via the SMS Gateway and the PHP page that is used to convert the incoming reply into a FileMaker record without me having to do anything to handle the Unicode characters – it just worked! I decided to do a bit more research into this to see how different SMS Gateways handled Emoji characters as a way of testing their Unicode support (there are now hundreds of Emoji characters encoded in the Unicode standards).

It’s important here to understand the history of SMS – back when the GSM standard was being adopted the mobile phone industry decided on a standard set of characters called GSM 03.38. Support for this character set became mandatory for all GSM handsets and network elements (carriers etc). The GSM character set includes the English alphabet ( A-Z ), numbers (0 – 9) and some special characters, and the size of a single SMS was limited to 160 characters. The 160 character maximum actually comes from the fact that you can encode 160 7-bit characters into 140 bytes – 140 bytes being the limit for the size of a message.

Unicode characters use several GSM characters to describe each Unicode character which means that you won’t be able to send as many characters in your SMS when include Unicode characters. Depending on which special characters you’re sending, you may only be able to send between 35 and 70 characters. To send a message that is longer than the 160 characters/140 bytes limit the message needs to use Concatenation, which involves breaking up the message over multiple SMS messages.

Thankfully most SMS Gateways and mobile phone handsets support concatenation where multiple messages are joined together to form a single message on the handset, even though that single message is greater than 160 characters (or 140 bytes). As each message needs to broken up into individual 140 byte messages the SMS Gateways will charge you for each individual message, even though they appear as a single message to the recipient.

Here’s an example of such a message using the GSM character set which is 312 characters but appears as a single received message on the phone:

long-message

SMS Gateways that handle the encoding of Unicode characters make life easy for us developers – we don’t have to do anything when sending or receiving messages from FileMaker. One such SMS Gateway is Twilio which I used in my tests and was able to handle the Emoji characters with ease – they have a number of articles on their website that go into the details of their support for Unicode. I created an outgoing message in fmSMS with some Emoji characters (FileMaker Pro 7 and later being a fully Unicode aware application):

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and sent the message using a number of different SMS Gateways. Where the SMS Gateway supported Unicode the message appeared exactly as it was sent:

emoji-received

 

 

I tried with some SMS Gateways that don’t have native support for Unicode characters and on the handset here’s what the same message looked like:

no-emoji

I then sent some replies containing Emoji characters back to fmSMS which has a “chat view” that shows all the sent/received messages to an individual contact – here’s our Emoji conversation:

screen-shot-2016-10-21-at-10-33-36-pm

As you can see the incoming message containing Emoji characters was received successfully using the Twilio SMS Gateway once again.

Unicode support isn’t only important for Emojis – if you need to send accented characters or messages in Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc then you will be thankful for Unicode support as well. Just remember that when sending messages containing Unicode characters the standard 160 character test doesn’t apply – I’m yet to find a way to have a Unicode character check that converts back to the GSM character set in FileMaker so I can accurately count the number of credits required for each message, regardless of whether it contains GMS or Unicode characters). If anyone knows of a way please let me know in the comments below. 😃

fmSMS Gateways Update – Over 60 Supported Gateways

We’ve just finished updating fmSMS to support 2 more SMS Gateways:

That brings the total number of supported SMS Gateways to over 60. If there are any SMS Gateways that you would like us to support please contact us and let us know the details – we can usually add a new SMS Gateway in a few hours.

fmSMS and FileMaker Pro v14

We’re pleased to report that fmSMS v3 is compatible with FileMaker Pro/Pro Advanced v14 that was released today. We haven’t encountered any issues so far in our testing and have been able to send single and bulk messages successfully.

If you encounter any issues with fmSMS v3 and FileMaker Pro v14 please let us know.

Databuzz to Exhibit at the 2014 FileMaker Developer Conference

FileMaker Inc. have recently released the schedule for the 2014 FileMaker Developer Conference, to be held in San Antonio, Texas from July 28-31, 2014. We’re excited to announce that we will be once again exhibiting at the conference, showcasing fmSMS v3, our 2 way SMS solution for FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go and FileMaker Server.

devcon_14_banner_horz

fmSMS v3 was completely rewritten from the ground up for FileMaker Pro v12, and with the release of FileMaker Pro v13 we’ve also added support for some of the great new v13 features including Perform Script on Server and WebDirect. 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 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.

fmSMS Updated with Additional SMS Gateways Support

We’ve just released v3.3 of fmSMS which now supports some additional European based SMS Gateways. We’re working on adding a few USA based SMS Gateways but our most recent additions include:

  • fastsms – based in the UK and can delivery to more than 180 carriers in over 90 countries
  • Wireless Services – based in The Netherlands with coverage of more than 550 networks in 170 countries

Most SMS Gateways will delivery to international destinations so their location normally doesn’t limit the countries to which they can delivery messages. You can get the full list of supported SMS Gateways from the fmSMS website at:

http://www.fmsms.com/sms-gateways/

You can also download a trial version of fmSMS from the fmSMS website at:

http://www.fmsms.com/download/

Our Getting Started Guide will also help you get up and running with the trial version – most SMS Gateways offer a trial account which you can use with the trial version of fmSMS to send some free test messages.

If there are SMS Gateways that you would like us to support just let us know. We can normally add a new SMS Gateway in a few hours.

Where are fmSMS users located?

fmSMS allows you to send an SMS from FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Go to almost any mobile phone in the world via one of the supported SMS Gateways, reaching over 860 mobile networks in more than 220 countries. We thought it would be interesting to see where our customers are located (we’re based in Sydney, Australia) and created a simple map using a FileMaker database that plots the addresses on a Google Map:

 

Looks like we need to get some customers in China, South America, eastern Europe and Africa to complete the map!

fmSMS and FileMaker Pro v13

We’re pleased to report that fmSMS v3 is compatible with FileMaker Pro/Pro Advanced v13 that was released today. We haven’t encountered any issues so far in our testing and have been able to send single and bulk messages successfully.

We’re planning a small update to fmSMS to take advantage of the new Perform Script On Server script step, which will remove the need to have a FileMaker Server scheduled script running every x minutes on the server to send messages that were generated on FileMaker Go v13 clients. Using the Perform Script On Server script for FileMaker Go v13 clients will allow them to compose an SMS and have it send immediately, rather than waiting for the scheduled server side script to send it on it’s next scheduled run.

If you encounter any issues with fmSMS v3 and FileMaker Pro v13 please let us know.

fmSMS now supports more than 40 SMS Gateways Internationally

Earlier this year we released fmSMS v3, a complete rewrite of fmSMS for FileMaker Pro v12. So far the feedback has been great and we have customers from all around the world using fmSMS to send and receive SMS/TXT messages everyday from their FileMaker solutions. We had a great time at the recent FileMaker Developer Conference in San Diego where we were able to demonstrate how you can send and receive SMS messages to attendees from many different countries.

Since the release of fmSMS v3 we’ve also been busy adding support for more SMS Gateway providers around the world. We now support over 40 SMS Gateway providers around the world, allowing our customers greater choice over which SMS Gateway provider to use in conjunction with fmSMS. Some of the more recent additions include:

  • Twilio – based in the USA, can deliver to over 1,000 carriers internationally
  • Nexmo – offices in San Francisco, London and Hong Kong. Can deliver to over 1,000 carriers around the world in over 200 countries
  • iTagg – based in the UK
  • HQSMS – based in Poland
  • Quiubas – based in USA/Mexico
  • Expert Texting – based in the USA, can delivery to 222+ countries
  • SMS Solutions Australia – based in Australia
  • Silverstreet – has offices all around the world, including The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russian Federation, Australia, Poland and Thailand
  • CDYNE – based in the USA
  • txtNation – has offices all around the world, including USA, UK, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Spain and Finland
  • MobiWeb – has offices in UK, USA and Latin America

Most SMS Gateways will delivery to international destinations so their location normally doesn’t limit the countries to which they can delivery messages. You can get the full list of supported SMS Gateways from the fmSMS website at:

http://www.fmsms.com/sms-gateways/

If there are SMS Gateways that you would like us to support just let us know. We can normally add a new SMS Gateway in a few hours.

Databuzz at FileMaker DevCon 2013

We are exhibiting for the first time at the FileMaker Developer Conference 2013 where will be showing fmSMS v3 and how easy it is to send and receive SMS/TXT messages with FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Server and FileMaker Go. If you’re attending DevCon make sure you stop by our booth for a demo of how fmSMS works or if have any questions about integrating SMS functionality into your existing FileMaker solution.

We’re also offering a special DevCon discount from now until the 16th August, 2013 – you can get 10% off fmSMS using our special DevCon purchase link at:

http://www.fmsms.com/devcon/

Even if you can’t make it to DevCon in person you can still take advantage of this offer. I look forward to catching up with as many attendees as possible – please stop by our booth and say hello.

Databuzz SMS Solution featured in FileMaker Asia Pacific Newsletter

A 2 way SMS solution we built for a client is featured in the latest FileMaker Asia Pacific Newsletter:

http://www.filemaker.com/au/newsletter/archives/2013/q4/FM_pages/page_02/FM-News_AU_02.html?#CD

The solution allows people interested in a property for sale with a real estate agency to “subscribe” to that property by sending an SMS with the property code to a dedicated virtual number that they see advertised on a billboard or website. For example if you were interested in a property you would send an SMS with the property code (e.g. L1234) to the advertised number.

This incoming message – MO (Mobile Originated) – is then pushed to a webpage hosted as part of the real estate agency’s FileMaker Server Custom Web Publishing deployment. The php page processes the incoming request, creates a record in the Subscriptions table linked to the property they are interested in, the sends back a custom message with details about the property and the agent who is handling the listing.

Follow up messages can be sent to everyone that has subscribed to the property – for example details about open house times, price changes or upcoming auction details.

For more information about 2 way SMS and FileMaker please visit the fmSMS website.