User Guide

Table Of Contents
1065
CHAPTER 44
Using the SMS Event Gateway
This chapter describes how to develop an application that uses the short message service (SMS)
event gateway type provided with Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7. It briefly describes SMS and
the tools that ColdFusion MX 7 provides for developing SMS applications. It then describes how
you can configure the SMS event gateway and write and test an application that uses the event
gateway.
This chapter assumes that you are familiar with ColdFusion event gateway principals and
programming techniques, as described in Chapter 42, “Using Event Gateways, on page 1019. It
does not assume that you are familiar with SMS, but a basic knowledge would be helpful.
Note: ColdFusion MX Standard Edition does not support event gateways. ColdFusion MX
Developer Edition limits connections so that each gateway can send messages to only a single SMS
address.
Contents
About SMS and ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1065
Configuring an SMS event gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1071
Handling incoming messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1073
Sending outgoing messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1075
ColdFusion MX SMS development tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1080
About SMS and ColdFusion
Short Message Service (SMS) is a system designed for sending short, often text, messages to and
from wireless devices, such as mobile phones or pagers. SMS is widely used in Europe and Asia
and is becoming increasingly popular in the United States and elsewhere. Some uses for SMS
include the following:
Performing banking transactions
Sending authentication codes, for example, to be used to access web resources
Voting, such as popularity voting for reality television shows
Initiating an action (such as a server reboot) and getting a response