Inbound message with reply

The flow of a typical incoming SMS consists of the following steps:

• The incoming SMS message is routed to the Short Message Service Center (SMSC) that is located in the cloud. The SMSC is registered with cell phone providers as the owner of the short code or long number to which the message is addressed.

• SMS Processor maintains an open connection to the SMSC and receives a deliver event for the new message.

• SMS Processor launches the Orchestration Designer SMS application on an application web server based on Short Code or Long Number and optional message content keywords as specified in the application configuration on the EPM.

• The SMS application can gain access to the details of the incoming message by examining a variable called Message that has fields related to the SMS message: To, From, and Body. The Message variable is similar to the Session variable, but only contains fields related to a message, such as email and SMS messages.

• The Orchestration Designer application can generate a reply using the Prompt tag mechanism or generate a new outbound SMS by using the notification connector. Both methods cause the Orchestration Designer runtime to communicate with the SMS Processor to send an SMS message.

Outbound message

The Application Interface Web service is enhanced to provide a launchSMS method and a sendSMS method.

The launchSMS method is a web services request that calls an Orchestration Designer SMS application. The launchSMS web service request succeeds when the Orchestration Designer application begins to run. The launched Orchestration Designer application sends an SMS message by invoking the notification connector. After the message is sent, a sendSMS web service call is created.

The sendSMS method enables an application that can make web service calls to send SMS to an SMSC through the SMS Processor. The web service call succeeds when the processor accepts the message. An SMS application can be notified when the message is delivered to the SMSC. These SMS notification messages are sent to the Notification URL specified when configuring the SMS application on the EPM. Voice applications that call sendSMS must specify the name of a configured SMS application to receive notifications. In addition, an application can send the message with a delivery receipt request. If the application is configured on the EPM to support delivery message types and if the cell phone provider of the recipient returns the delivery receipt, the message is routed to the original sending application. For more information about the notification application, see the Orchestration Designer documentation.

For more information about these new web service methods, see:

• LaunchSMS method

• SendSMS method