Is there a way to use SMS with the Appt Reminder?

I have a request to be able to use the appt reminder in order to call and remind of an appointment, but they also want the ability to send Text messages as well.

Not yet but it’s on the road map.

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Send SMS to cell phones on other systems, or receive SMS on local phones?

The former is hard, time consuming, and expensive (at least in the US) because of the certification process required. My daughter-in-law’s company just went through an SMS-Origination certification process so they could “just send” SMS messages. It was messy and took a lot of paperwork and time. The cost of the certification was a little ridiculous too.

My VOIP Provider has added an SMS-Email gateway that sends any SMS for any of the numbers I specify to an e-mail address. This means that whenever anyone sends an SMS to my main number, I get it as an email, the same as I do my message notifications. Works reasonably slick.

I can’t think of a scalable way to do what I think you need done. If it was me, I’d look at the Appt Reminder code (it’s in /var/www/html/admin/apptreminder/ or something similar - IIRC) and add a “send to pager” option that takes an e-mail address that can be associated with a cell phone. For example, my email address for SMS is [email protected] (assuming my phone number is 9876543210). Most mobile providers have some kind of mail-to-SMS gateway set up.

I haven’t looked into this in a couple of years. After Sandy Hook, I got a lot of calls about emergency calling trees, and one of the notification methods was going to be pagers/SMS. There might be an easier way to do this now that so many people are relying on SMS for day-to-day notifications of things.

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Thanks guys for the relpies. I am pretty sure this is a Dr office and they want to use ALL known ways to make sure the patients know when to come in and give them money. I am finding it is not widely used from an Asterisk standpoint. We will wait for Appointment Reminder I guess.

Is this still on the road map ?

It’s been four years, I would say that road map got lost. Also asking tm1000 won’t help, he’s not with Sangoma any more (been almost a year) so he’ll have no answers.

Oh thanks for the information, that’s sad to know …

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