# SMS (Text) in and out software for business



## drmike (Nov 7, 2013)

Anyone here heavily use SMS/text in their business or have a client that does?

Looking for a solution and recommendations for software (ideally Android + Linux --- although hosted cloud may work).   Software that will receive, all response to and do meaningful sorting, searching, etc. with texts.  Ideally, allow texts to be managed more like a business asset much like we all use email.

I am *NOT* a text fan, but seems to be oh so popular with many and increasing usage around me.

Tell me what you use/recommend.


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## MartinD (Nov 7, 2013)

I can't recommend anything in particular however we use something that was coded in house and uses the clickatell API. Been in use for a good few years now and is pretty reliable.

I think there are a few opensource systems based on clickatell out there.


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## trewq (Nov 7, 2013)

https://www.nexmo.com/ is cheap and has a very easy API to build around.

If I was in your situation I would make a script that feeds all SMSs through to an email client and the other way around. Easy to manage and you are using what's available.


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## NodeBytes (Nov 7, 2013)

Twilio is awesome. I've had great success with them.


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## WebSearchingPro (Nov 7, 2013)

nexmo looks really nice, the pricing is attractive too compared to others.


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## Leyton (Nov 7, 2013)

NodeBytes said:


> Twilio is awesome. I've had great success with them.


+1 for Twilio. I've also heard good things about Tropo, but haven't tried them myself properly yet.


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## drmike (Nov 8, 2013)

trewq said:


> https://www.nexmo.com/ is cheap and has a very easy API to build around.
> 
> If I was in your situation I would make a script that feeds all SMSs through to an email client and the other way around. Easy to manage and you are using what's available.


Price looks right with Nexmo!  Cheap!

Trying to wrap my head around integrating this into email.

Looks like the API for inbound sends a request to a webserver (my webserver).  From there I could take the info and pipe in into a mail server.  That direction seems approachable.

Now sending from email program outbound is foggy and seemingly complex.   Mail program ---> local mail server ---> rule on local mail server to pipe the info to a script that talks to remote API... Sound right?

Anyone doing something like this currently?


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## peterw (Nov 8, 2013)

drmike said:


> Now sending from email program outbound is foggy and seemingly complex.   Mail program ---> local mail server ---> rule on local mail server to pipe the info to a script that talks to remote API... Sound right?


Send email to a email address and use a cron that pulls and deletes the messages and transforms them into api calls.


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## trewq (Nov 8, 2013)

peterw said:


> Send email to a email address and use a cron that pulls and deletes the messages and transforms them into api calls.


Messy and slow. Everything should be instant.


Receiving: nexmo -> script -> email (sending number should be email subject)


Sending: same as above but reversed.


I can whip something together in php if you like? Already been messing with the nexmo api.


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## peterw (Nov 8, 2013)

trewq said:


> Messy and slow. Everything should be instant.
> 
> 
> Receiving: nexmo -> script -> email (sending number should be email subject)
> ...


Googled and found that you can define an alias in postfix


1. sudo vi /etc/aliases
2. add:
[email protected]: "| php -q /home/user/script.php"
3. newaliases
4. /etc/init.d/postfix reload

Check that nobody can run the script.


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## KS_Phillip (Nov 8, 2013)

I use Twilio + OpenVBX


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