1) Create your SMS
Enter your message
On the messages listing, click on the button "new" to create a new message.
- Subject : This field won't be visible for your users, it's just a quick way for you to organize your messages.
- Category : You can create several messages categories if you have different kind of SMS communication, this field is optional.
- Created Date : Creation date of the SMS
- Sender Profile : Each message has to be sent using a sender profile. By default JoomSMS created a "test" sender profile so you can use it to simulate the send process but nothing will be really sent.
- Enter your message in the phone picture
You can see the number of characters and the number of messages used based on the text you wrote.
If you use tags in your message, the number of characters will change for each receiver! Make sure you don't reach the limitation if your sender profile does not enable you to send long SMS messages.
Insert personal information in your SMS
JoomSMS has a powerful tag system. You can insert tags in your SMS which will be replaced based on the receiver information when the SMS is sent.
That way each user will receive its own personalized message.
Simply click on one of the available tags and it will be inserted in your message where your cursor was.
This tag interface is developed based on plugins so you could create your own tags without having to hack JoomSMS.
Test your SMS
Once ready, click on the "Preview / Send" button to access the preview screen.
On the preview area, you can select a user using the green pencil and then send a test to the selected user.
Once successfully tested, you're ready to send it!
2) Send your SMS
JoomSMS can use its own users but also users from other Joomla components... You first have to select the integration where JoomSMS will pick up your users.
Based on the selected integration you will see additional filters to enable you to send your SMS to users matching your criteria.
JoomSMS doesn't display the integration's dropdown if only one integration is selected in the configuration. So don't worry if you don't see this dropdown.
There are several types of SMS:
- Draft : the message is just a draft... you can save it and edit it later on.
- One Time Only : the message you just created will be sent one time to your users, at the same time for all users (either in the future or right now)
- Automatic : the message won't be sent to all your users at once but it will be sent only when the user matches criteria... (birthday Newsletter, order notification, welcome SMS...)
Standard message (One Time Only -> send now)
Click on the "One Time Only" option to send your SMS to your users.
Based on the selected user integration, you will see additional filters above the send button to select a subset of your users.
Schedule your SMS (One Time Only -> send it later)
You can schedule your SMS by selecting the "send it later" option and entering a date in the future.
Once done, click on the "send" button and will automatically deliver your SMS at the specified date.
This system works with a cron task... don't forget to enable your cron task via the configuration page.
Automatic message
You can select the "Automatic" to create an auto-SMS which will be sent at a different type for each user.
The automatic SMS you can create depend on the user integration you selected.
For example if you select an e-commerce user integration, you will be able to configure the SMS to be sent when the order is confirmed.
Most of auto-SMS require a cron task to be set up to handle automatic actions... Please don't forget to enable it on your configuration page.