By dknezev on

Hi all,

I was wondering if someone could help me understand a bit better the capabilities of Drupal and whether my wishes can be fulfilled. What I would like to do/have are the following without going into to much detail:

- Website where users can create an account.
- Accounts will include fees, which will have to be paid via credit cards.
- Account fees will need to be tracked.
- Website will have to integrate with an SMS service of some sort in order to receive and read SMS messages (possibly gnokii).

Thank you for your time and patience in advance, your help is greatly appreciated.

Comments

mm167’s picture

mm167 commented

integrate SMS with Drupal is NOT difficult.

but the key point is how to host your web site plus your applications.

note most of the low cost hosts will NOT allow u to run your own application.

2nd issue is, depends on the traffic, u may send/receive the SMS using your own mobile phone (for example, using gnokii ), OR connect to your Mobile phone Service provider.

dknezev’s picture

dknezev commented

Hi,

Thanks for such a quick reply. As this is a project I am working on, for the time being I will be just localhosting so running my own applications is not a problem so it is great to hear that I can integrate the two . I was planning on using my own mobile phone however I am open to suggestions.

Are the any how to documents around that you can point me too so that I can get a better understanding of how to integrate the two.

Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

mm167’s picture

mm167 commented

there are 2 options :

1. use your own mobile phone
2. use a service from your mobile phone service provider

some simple points u may need to aware;

1. for local test on your PC, option 1 is easy and simple. But, unless u will setup your web server inhouse for production, otherwise, this option may not be practical.

2. for option 2, depends on your budget and your local phone service provider. where are u from?

is it just a self study? or u have to put it in production in phase 2?

dknezev’s picture

dknezev commented

Hi,

At the moment it's just a self study however phase 2 is not out of the question. Fortunately changing the setup from using my own mobile phone to an SMS service from a mobile phone provider won't much of a hassle once the project is implemented and working (at least a hope so). For the time being however I would like to set everything up so that I can see a finished product with which I can then play trying to improve operation and settings.

I am from Australia so there are quite a few SMS service providers which I could use, however once again as I am using my own mobile phone for phase one of the implementation they are of no interest to me at the moment.

What I would like to really know is how SMS is integrated with Drupal whether that be gnokii or some other type of application?

Thank you for your quick replies they are much appreciated.

mm167’s picture

mm167 commented

Unfortunately ..option 1 and option 2 are 2 totally different ways to go.

option 1 : using your own phone
there are 2 sub options :
1a : use AT commands to control your phone to send / receive the SMS
1b : buy a 3rd party "SMS Gateway" and use their API to send / receive the SMS. This may cost you AUD$200+

option 2 : the service provider will provide their API, mostly likely u can use POST URL command to send out SMS, and they will take care of the retry.

to send out 1 SMS is very easy if you dont need to take care of the retry / line busy.
if u need to care about the retry / line busy, u may need to have a "Gateway".

So....review what u are going to do before u start your 1st step.

good day.

dknezev’s picture

dknezev commented

Hi,

For the time being it will have to be just my own mobile phone hence why I would require an application like gnokii. I am just interested in getting the web side of things functioning properly and receiving SMS messages at the moment. Hence why my initial question was whether I can integrate SMS with Drupal and how to go about doing this?

If you do know of any good how to documents let me know as I would like to get started asap.

Thank you.