Receiving Delivery Confirmations and Incoming SMS

There are two ways to receive both incoming SMS messages and delivery receipts for messages you have sent. The method you prefer can be set up online by logging into your account on our website.

Whichever method you choose the data will be sent back to you in the same format.

The data will be formatted as follows.

Example

2#MESSAGE1#MESSAGE2

Notes:

• 2 - This indicates the number of SMS messages and/or delivery receipts to follow and can be anything up to 100.

You can download delivery receipts/SMS messages in blocks of up to 100 to maximise efficiency efficiency.

Each reply message will be in several parts, so MESSAGE1 in the previous example would actually look like this example if it were a delivery receipt:

Example

37058:AcmeSMS:44789735533:1:[errorcode]:114523012007:MyReference:

Notes:

• 37058 - This is the message ID which this receipt is referring to.
• AcmeSMS - (options) This is the originator the message was sent from
• 44789735533 - This is the destination the message was sent to
• 1 - This represents the status of the message
• [errorcode] - (If applicable) This describes the error the message encountered, if any
• 114523012007 - The date/time
• MyReference - (optional) The reference the original message was sent with
• The last field is unused

Originator is optional, as is the reference, depending on what options the message was sent with. If the delivery receipt returns with an error (i.e. if the status value is not 1) then an error code may be included to help you determine what happened. For more information please see our question "I'm receiving an error code, what causes this?".

If MESSAGE2 were an incoming SMS, rather than a delivery receipt, it would look like this example:

Example

-1:447897355333:447897355444:1::114523012007:[UDH]:Hello

Notes:

• -1 - This indicates that the message is an incoming SMS
• 44789735533 - This is the originator of the message
• 44789735544 - This is the destination the message was sent to
• 1 - This is the message data coding (DC) scheme
• The next field is unused in incoming SMS
• 114523012007 - This is the date/time
• [UDH] - This is the User Data Header (optional)
• Hello - This is the message text

Originator is optional and the UDH (User Data Header) will only be present if the message data coding (DC) scheme is binary.

For more information on binary messages you can check the article on Binary Messages or for more information on data coding schemes you can consult the HTTP SMS Specification Document.

There are two methods you can use to retrieve incoming messages and delivery receipts.

Firstly you can arrange for the system to make an HTTP callback- a callback URL can be configured on your account and our server can then POST the data to your own server.

You can set up HTTP callback by logging into your account on our website, clicking on Services > Active Services, selecting the applicable HTTP SMS service and then setting the Account Configuration delivery receipts option to Callback. For more information about HTTP callback you can download the HTTP SMS documentation.

The second method for retrieving delivery receipts and incoming SMS is using client polled retrieval- you can do this simply by making an HTTP SMS request to:

http://sms1.cardboardfish.com:9001/ClientDR/ClientDR?UN=USER&P=PASS

Where USER and PASS represent your HTTP SMS username and password.

You can set up client polled retrieval by logging into your account on our website, clicking on Services > Active Services, selecting the applicable HTTP SMS service and then setting Account Configuration delivery receipts option to Client Polled. For more information about the client polled retrieval method you can consult the HTTP SMS Specification Document article.

Client polled retrieval is selected by default.