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Use two-way SMS communication

SMS two-way communication enables communication between a mobile phone and the MobileFirst Server, over an SMS channel. SMS messages that originate from the mobile device can be sent to the MobileFirst Server through an external SMS gateway. The MobileFirst Server can then send a response message back to the originating mobile device.

To run SMS two-way communication, the mobile device must support SMS functions.

Keywords or shortcodes should be configured with the third-party SMS gateway. The gateway should be configured to forward SMS messages to the SMS servlet of the MobileFirst Server, either directly or through a reverse proxy URL, based on the topology in the environment:

http://hostname:port/context/receiveSMS

The SMS messages sent from mobile phones are forwarded to an adapter procedure on the MobileFirst Server, which is configured by the developer. The adapter procedure can include the logic to process the request, or the procedure can forward the request to a back-end system for processing. The response is returned using the MobileFirst notification framework. See Push notification.

The two-way SMS architecture is summarized in the following figure:

Figure 1. Two-way SMS architecture

  1. The adapter registers SMS event handlers on the MobileFirst Server.

  2. SMS messages are sent from mobile devices to the SMS gateway, which is configured with an SMS servlet of MobileFirst Server.

  3. The SMS gateway forwards SMS messages to a configured MobileFirst URL.

  4. An SMS servlet on MobileFirst Server matches the parameters with filters that are defined in SMS event handlers, and calls an adapter callback procedure.

  5. The adapter processes SMS messages and sends an SMS message to the mobile device using the SMS API.

You use a series of server API methods to send and receive SMS messages:

WL.Server.createSMSEventHandler

Create an SMS event handler.

WL.Server.setEventHandlers

Set event handlers to implement callbacks for received events.

WL.Server.subscribeSMS

Subscribe a phone number to the specified event source.

WL.Server.unsubscribeSMS

Unsubscribe the phone number from the specified event source.

WL.Server.getSMSSubscription

Return an SMS subscription object for a phone number.


Parent topic: Push notification