Creator Help

Sending SMS from a Zoho Creator Application

You can now use the SMS messaging capability supported within Zoho Creator to send instant messages to your customers. Refer this help topic for more information.

 

One feature request that we receive frequently from our customers is the ability to send SMS from Zoho Creator apps. The solution is to have a third-party SMS Gateway service that supports HTTP(s) or SMTP API integrated with the Zoho Creator app.

Clickatell is one such service and we'll explain below how a Zoho Creator application can be configured to use Clickatell's SMTP API to send SMS. We have created a simple Zoho Creator application for this. The script (.ds file) for the application is available here. Download the .ds file and open it in a text editor of your choice. In the sendSMS function,

  1. Replace clickatellusername with username of your Clickatell account
  2. Replace clickatellpassword with password of your Clickatell account
  3. Replace APIKEY with API ID of your Clickatell account

void sendSMS(int to, string text)
{
sendmail
(
To : "sms@messaging.clickatell.com"
From : zoho.loginuserid
Subject : "SMS"
Message : "user:clickatellusername\npassword:clickatellpassword\napi_id: " +
"APIKEY\nfrom:ZohoCreator\nto:" + input.to + "\ntext:" + input.text
Content type : Plain Text
)
}

After doing the above changes, import the ds file to your Zoho Creator account. The SMS feature can be tested by adding a record in the SMS Details form. Once the sendSMS functionality is tested, this SMS app can be integrated to any other Zoho Creator application by invoking the sendSMS function and passing the mobile number & the text message as arguments.

For example, in an Order Management application built using Zoho Creator, let's say an SMS is to be sent to a customer whenever a new order request is placed. The function sendSMS should be invoked with the mobile number of the Customer from the onSuccess action of the Confirm Order form.

Please note that you can use any SMS provider by modifying this example SMS application.

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