Outbound SMS using SMTP protocol

[nickholden]

The SMS set-up page offers 'smtp' as one possible API type. But the only documentation and existing extensions I can find relate to using http APIs. Is there anyone so far successfully using smtp protocol to send SMS messages? We're looking at doing so using the NHS net service, which requires certificated secure SMTP connection, so I'd be grateful for any clues as to how we could get CiviCRM to reference the certificate as part of the transaction.

[Donald Lobo]

i'm assuming u mean the provides set=up page.

Not heard of anyone doing it via SMTP. This will need to come in via a community contribution. No changes to CiviSMS for 4.5

lobo

[nickholden]

Hi lobo, yes, I mean the provider set-up page. I've looked at the code for the extension that provides clickatell as a provider, and the code sets $this->_apiType = "http" and then in the 'send' function looks for that attribute to be set to http in order to configure the transport mechanism correctly. Although no other values are checked for, this would appear to give the possibility of a single provider having multiple transport mechanisms, one per API protocol.

So presumably an equivalent extension written explicitly to access the SMTP interface of our SMS provider would be an acceptable way to proceed?

[Donald Lobo]

yeah that should be fine. Ideally if a provider provides multiple transport mechanism, the same extension should handle all of them

lobo

[nickholden]

Done! 

Well, my first every CiviCRM extension is live on our test server, and sending SMS messages through the NHSmail gateway.

Not sure whether any other Civi users work in the NHS, but I decided the right thing to do was to publish the extension anyway, just to get into good habits early on. Someone might have a use for it.

https://civicrm.org/extensions/nhs-email-sms-gateway-client-civisms

Suggestions, bug reports (and fixes) and all contributions welcome. It needs some documentation, of course.

[Donald Lobo]

awesome and congrats ...

thanx for getting into the good habits early on

lobo