SMS

Complete

OpenVPMS supports sending SMS messages. The SMS messages are sent using plugins or via 'email to SMS' gateways provided by various companies.

SMS messages can be sent to any customer or supplier who has a Phone Number Contact with "Allow SMS" ticked.

SMS messages can be sent by clicking the SMS button:

in the Customer Summary panel on the left of the screen
in the Customer's Phone Number contact display (on the Customers|Information screen)
in the Supplier's Phone Number contact display (on the Suppliers|Information screen)

SMS can also be used for both Appointment Reminders and Patient Reminders.

The message length is limited to the Maximum Parts setting on the SMS Configuration. By default this is 1, which allows for 160 GSM characters*, or 70 unicode characters. If a message contains a character that cannot be represented using GSM, it will be sent as unicode.

If the SMS provider supports multi-part messages, this can be increased. E.g.

Parts	GSM characters	Unicode characters
1	160	70
2	306	134
3	459	201
4	612	268
5	765	335

* GSM characters are 7 bit, so 160 characters usually fit into a single SMS. In practice, a few GSM characters need to be escaped and take 14 bits, so the actual length may be less.

Note that providers will charge each part in a message as a single SMS.

Two companies are supported via tailored configuration screens, SMS Global and Clickatell. Other companies can be accomodated via a general configuration screen.