The module is one of a kind and offers functionality to dynamically prioritize sending through the available sending gateways for certain geo-specific zones. SMSPlus enables to setup of the sending environment with the APIs of multiple sending gateways, i.e. Infobip, Clickatell, Twilio, etc, and service providers with international sending scope always prefer to setup a system with two or more sending gateways. Considering the fact that the system can have multiple sending gateways, SMSPlus offers this functionality to dynamically prioritize sending through the desired gateway for certain countries/networks that fall in some Priority Zone.
A zone can comprise one or more destination countries and their networks, with an ability to line-up available sending gateways for priority based sending. To learn more about how you setup a zone, let’s discuss it in more detail.
Learn Setting up Sending Gateways...
Admin Main Navigation -> Setup -> Destination Zones
The page that would appear on your screen after clicking Destination Zones on the main navigation will show you a tree-view of all currently available zones. If there is no zone setup, the default zone still appears in the tree view. Apart from just viewing the existing zones, you can also organize the zones, can dig the prioritized sending deeper, and setup different levels of preferences for priority based sending.
1) Zone Based Sending Preferences (Top Level)
2) Network Based Sending Preferences (Child Level)
Later in this article, we'll discuss the organization of the zones and setting up top-level and child level priorities. But the first thing that we will discuss in this article is how you setup a new destination zone. Click "Add a Zone" right above the right side of the Tree View of existing zones.
On Add a Zone page, there are four portions each with a few fields/options that you would need to fill/select. Let's see each one of these portions.
You start by providing the basic zone details this includes.
Zone Name
Zone name is the mandatory text field that you need to fill with a preferred name of the zone you are creating. For example, if you are setting up a zone comprising of Asian Countries, you can name it like Asian Zone or Asian Zone 1, etc. something that would help to keep its reference and to better identify the zone while you are on “Organize Zones” page. Provide the preferred name of the zone and proceed.
Status
The dropdown is offering three simple options, first one is to keep the zone Status as “Active”, the second option to mark its status as “Inactive” and the last option is to “Block” a certain zone. The system will take “Active” zones into consideration while it processes sending of the campaign. The application will ignore all the preferences of a particular zone marked as “Inactive” and will apply default sending settings for sending messages to the countries in an “Inactive” zone. And the system will block sending to the countries that fall in the “Blocked” zone and will show an error message.
Countries
Besides the first portion of Zone Details, you find this option to select the countries for this destination zone. You may select one, two, or multiple countries to establish a geo-specific destination zone. You would need to tick the checkboxes alongside the country name to make a selection. You can use the suggestion box to quickly search a specific country from the list to make the selection.
This area beneath the Zone Details is showing the active gateways you have configured your system with. These are the gateways among which you would need to select one as first priority, another for the second and this goes on. But you first need to make a selection among the available active gateways which ones are you really want to use for this zone. Tick the checkbox along with the Gateway name to make a selection.
Next to the Active Gateways, this area shows you all the gateways you have selected for this specific zone. You will notice that the gateways you select from the Active Gateway section will immediately start appearing here in this area.
Gateway that appears on top among the three is considered a primary gateway to send to countries in this zone, a gateway that comes second will be considered a secondary priority for sending, and down in the list is the gateway considered tertiary in priority. If the primary gateway fails due to some reason, the system will automatically apply the zone preferences and will take the secondary gateway down in the line, and if somehow both primary and secondary sending APIs fails due to some error/ technical issue, the system will automatically shift to the tertiary gateway for sending.
To change and update the current line-up of the gateways, the drag and drop function will work. Keep hold of the certain gateway with your mouse click, drag it upwards and down in the order to reposition the gateway and so its sending priority according to your sending preferences for a certain zone.
Through the “Organize Zones” function, you can delve more deeply into the structure of prioritized sending to assign a separate gateway to a specific network carrier within a country. Continue reading this article, and you will learn more possibilities.
Now you have learned to enter a new zone, let's now discuss the first page that we started this article with. The page where the tree view of all available zone appears. All currently available zones with the hierarchical tree of child elements are listed on the left side under “Zone Name” each level in the hierarchy that has the cog icon can carry its separate sending preferences. The cross button can be used to delete a particular zone from the list.
Drag & Drop
Manage countries in a zone by using the drag and drop feature. For example, if some of the countries are part of the “Default Zone” that you want to add to a particular “Destination Zone”, all you need to do is to keep hold of the country from your mouse and drag it to the zone to which you want to add it. It is how you can conveniently manage and organize the countries in the zones.
Default Zone
As mentioned earlier, the default zone appears at top of the tree above all currently available zones. Countries that aren’t part of any other zone are automatically made part of the default zone. But the default zone can’t carry any country that has already been made part of any destination zone.
To update zone level sending priority, clicking the Cog button will popup setting with the following fields/preferences.
Zone Name
Name of the zone that you earlier provided while setting it up on the “Setup Zone” page, zone name was the first mandatory field to fill. You however have the ability to update that zone name and can provide a new name here in this field.
Status
Zone status as it was marked while it was first setup using “Add a Zone”. From here, you can update specific zone status from Inactive to Active, Blocked to Inactive, or maybe Active to Inactive or Blocked. Your selected status will affect sending in one of the following ways.
Prioritize Among Active Gateways
Underneath the status, there is an area for you to select among the active gateways for the top-level priority. And next to this, you will use the drag and drop as discussed above, to prioritize among the gateways you have selected for the top level.
Countries
The country’s list would show a number of countries that were selected for a particular zone while setting it up, however, if you want to add more countries in the zone, or exclude a few of the already selected ones, you can use the checkboxes along with the name of every country in the list. Tick the checkbox to add a country in the zone, and uncheck the checkbox to exclude the country from the zone. Use the suggestion box to search particular countries from the list.
Options
Being on top of the hierarchy, zone level settings and preferences can be applied recursively to the child level (Network) down in the hierarchy. So if you select the checkbox next to the label “Options” the preferences will apply recursively to the network level down in the hierarchy of the zone. And leaving the checkbox unchecked will keep these preferences to the zone level sending only.
Save & Exit
Click to save the updated preferences for the specific zone.
Close
Click to close the popup window without saving the updated preferences.
Countries and the networks operating in these countries appear down in the hierarchy of the Zone Tree. SMSPlus automatically populates the regional networks operating in a specific country that you can see by clicking the country name in the tree. Moreover, when the system detects a new/unsaved network carrier, it automatically and accurately lists it under its country.
Other than the zone level sending preferences, you can apply separately sending preferences for the networks down in the hierarchy. Click the country name to expand its networks, and then clicking the cog button next to the network name to pop-up the setting window on your screen. The Popup window will carry the following fields.
Network Name
The field isn’t editable and just showing the name of the network carrier for which you are applying custom sending preferences.
Prioritize Among Active Gateways
Underneath the Network Name, there is an area for you to select among the active gateways for the child level priority. And next to this, you will use the drag and drop as discussed above, to prioritize among the gateways you have selected for the network level sending.
Save & Exist
Click to save the sending preferences for a specific network carrier.
Close
Click to close the popup window without saving the sending preferences.
As we have learned to implement the zones and organizing the different hierarchal levels of setting up sending preferences, let’s now discuss how priority-based sending actually works?
Whenever a client account attempts sending to a destination covered by a zone, the system looks and considers network-based sending preferences on priority, if it fails to identify with the network-based sending preferences, it detects the country from the country code in the number and will look for the zone which particular country falls in. In case of successfully tracing the zone, the system applies the sending preferences of the zone. If the detected country isn’t part of any destination zone, then the sending preferences of the Default Zone will be applied. Default zone appears at top of the tree and it includes all the countries that aren’t part of any zone.
Make sure that to be able to apply network-based sending preferences; the system should be able to recognize the network carrier first. And it is only possible when the client validates the contacts before scheduling a broadcast. Because when the client validates the contact, the system acquires and saves certain information with regard to the contact number, which includes the contact’s network carrier name and destination country. So the way the application identifies the destination network before sending is through contact validation. If a system doesn’t identify the destination network before sending, network-based sending preferences will be ignored and the system will look for the country to apply zone-based sending preferences or will send from the Default Zone if the country isn’t part of any zone.