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[Proposal] Andoid/iOS Companion App to Sent SMS #257
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This is a clever idea for the cost issue, but I'm not too optimistic that anyone would really use this. Firstly, it's money from their own pockets and secondly, they'd be letting an app send messages from their phones which is very very rare for apps. I've only ever seen this during UPI account verification. Maybe one day when simplq has good reputation, people would trust it enough to allow sending messages, but the cost for them is still an issue. What are your thoughts on a whatsapp bot instead. I'm not sure, but I think it's currently free for use. This way, we don't have any cost issue (if it is free), we take care of notifications, and there would be no need for an additional app, at least for now. |
Whatsapp vs SMS: SMS is more universal, everyone who has a mobile number would receive text messages. Imagine a clinic in Kerala wants to use SimplQ, and the receptionist would add patients to queue manually, and then telling them, "Uncle, your token number is 18, you will also recieve receive an SMS on your mobile with token number." might cover 90% patients, while a lot of people might not have mobile data, or Whatsapp etc.
we want to avoid all these conversations. Cost: For a business user, cost is not an issue, if something adds value. If we pitch to a hospital owner and ask him if he wants a whatsapp message to be send, which we can do for free, vs we can set up SMS for you, but you have to pay the SMS charge, he will go for the SMS option is what I think. I randomly checked online, and Jio lets you send 9000 SMS for Rs. 499 for three months. This is negligible cost for a business user. But we could definitely think of integrating Whatsapp, @maaverik would you like to take this up and explore how to integrate WA in a separate thread? |
I’ve assumed people less than 10k income don’t have smartphones which may not be the case often. The number maybe off by a bit, but is this a big deal , assuming
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@sajmalyousef what's the conclusion? Should we have SMS or not? We should definitely integrate Whatsapp alerts if that's possible, but it is not straightforward to do that for our use case from my research. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/faq
We might be able to integrate Whatsapp in a different usecase, but it won't work for us here for free |
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Usecase
Sending SMS to the people in the queue when they are added to the queue, and when their turn is up, will be a value adding feature.
We had explored paid SMS services and have realised:
Proposal
Shifting responsibility of sending SMS to the queue manager / client side would mean that we won't incur costs, won't have to protect/meter/bill this paid resource and also not have to worry about how to deliver SMS globally.
Idea is to have a companion app, that the queue manager can optionally install on his mobile phone, which will allow him to optionally send out SMS from his phone in the background.
The Flow
When a user is added to the queue, he will then get a SMS with the token status page link:
When notify button is pressed by the queue manager, the app sends an SMS from the configured phone.
The App
We will have to build a very simple app for both iOS and Android, with a single screen:
Once the app is linked with the queue, it will then receive push notifications from the backend on events, and the app will then send SMS from the device.
Future Enhancements
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