How to send sms from Clickatell

This page provides information on how to send and receive sms with Clickatell using Ozeki 10 SMS Gateway. Clickatell is an SMS service provider based in Cape Town, South Africa, so it provides SMS service to organizations in Africa. The customer service of Clickatell talks in English, so it is not too complicated to subscribe to their service. If you have installed Ozeki 10 SMS Gateway, it is very easy to configure a connection to the Clickatell SMS service. Use the following instructions to setup this connection in 3 minutes. This guide provides the setup instructions.

How do you send sms from Clickatell (quick steps)

To send sms from Clickatell let's start with these plain, simple tutorial steps:

  1. Visit ozeki-sms-gateway.com and Download Ozeki 10 SMS Gateway, then setup the downloaded exe file. Click on the Ozeki 10 icon to open the GUI. To send sms from Clickatell you need to proceed with the configuration in this management console.
  2. In the Ozeki management console start the SMS Gateway app. You can achieve this by navigating to the app in the Ozeki Start menu or by clicking on the desktop icon. The SMS Gateway app is needed to send sms from Clickatell.
  3. To send sms from Clickatell the only thing left is to setup the Clickatell connection by by clicking on the 'Add new connection...' page.

How does Clickatell SMS work?

Clickatell provides sms messaging service through the Internet. They operate a server computer in a hosting facility that accepts sms from users in the form of HTTP requests. They setup sms connections to other SMS aggregators and to GSM networks and they negotiate good SMS prices. Clickatell makes its income by reselling the text messages at a premium rate. Clickatell provides a secure HTTP SMS API, that lets you to use to their text message service using web requests. When sms are sent to their sms service, a unique web request is created for each message.

Is there any Clickatell alternatives?

If you look around, you will find a lot of alternative SMS services on the Internet. If you install Ozeki SMS Gateway, you can Connect to several SMS services and GSM telephone service provider simultaneously. It is beneficial to use multiple providers, because it gives you the freedom to switch providers if you find better conditions and it allows you to reach mobile network that are only accessible directly. The most popular alternative to using Clickatell is to connect an Android mobile phone to your SMS Gateway PC and send sms directly to the mobile network (Figure). This will let you system operate even if Clickatell fails.

How to handle Clickatell service failure?

Since Ozeki can be setup on multiple computers in your premises, and Ozeki lets you to reroute texts to other SMS aggregators automatically, with the help of Ozeki SMS Gateway, you can build a reliable, fail-safe SMS service. All you have to do is setup multiple SMS service provider connections and configure one of the SMS routing options: to do load balancing, least cost SMS routing or backup routing. All of these SMS routing options will ensure that your SMS messages will be delivered even if a particular SMS service is out of operation.

Detailed instructions to send sms from Clickatell

To send sms from Clickatell:

  1. Navigate to ozeki-sms-gateway.com
  2. Click on download to download Ozeki 10 SMS Gateway
  3. Unzip and setup the downloaded installation package
  4. Start the Ozeki dashboard
  5. Open 'Add new connection...' in the 'Connections' panel
  6. Locate Clickatell connection, hit install
  7. Ozeki 10 SMS Gateway will send the sms using this link
  8. Type in the Clickatell account details
  9. Make sure the settings are fine, if they are not correct, you won't be able to send sms messages
  10. To send sms, use the Test tab
  11. Type in the recipient, the text and click send
  12. Read the event logs to see if your texts were sent

Configuration steps in Ozeki 10 SMS gateway

To configure an Clickatell connection follow the instructions on the screenshots below.

open the ozeki management console
Figure 1 - Open the Ozeki Management Console

setup the clickatell connection
Figure 2 - Setup the Clickatell connection

configure the clickatell account
Figure 3 - Configure the Clickatell account

send sms from clickatell
Figure 4 - Send SMS from Clickatell

sms sent successfully
Figure 5 - SMS sent successfully

Protect your phone number list

Your customer phone number list is a very valuable asset. You must make sure you take good care of it and you protect it. When you send text messages through Clickatell or any other on-line SMS service provider, your customer phone numbers, and the message texts will be visible to Clickatell. It is a good practice to setup connections to multiple SMS service providers and to distribute your messages among them to make sure no entity has all your data. It is even a better practice to send messages wirelessly directly to the mobile network using an Android mobile phone or GSM modem attached to your computer with a phone-to-pc data cable. Note that this option is only viable if you send less than 10 000 SMS per day. Ozeki 10 SMS Gateway has a version that can be installed on an Android mobile. It is called Android sms gateway. It also offers the same APIs (e.g. C# SMS API), as the desktop version, it allows Office clients to connect, you can create E-mail to SMS configs, and you may even provide an Android SMPP SMS gateway service

How to save the messages sent through Clickatell into a database

You can configure SQL logging for a Clickatell connection. This is very useful, because it will help you keep track of all the SMS messages you have sent or received through the Clickatell connection. This database log, can not only be used to lookup old message in case of disputes, but it can also be used to create weekly or monthly reports. These reports will let you know which user or application in your system sent the messages and what was the pattern of your sms traffic.

Send texts from MSSQL or another database from Clickatell

If you have a Clickatell connection setup, you can easily Send texts from MSSQL or another database server. You can use Microsoft SQL Server, SQL Express, Access, MySQL, SQLAnywhere, PostgreSQL, SAP HANA, Foxpro, MongoDB, SQLite or any other ODBC/SQL compatible SQL database server. This functionality is available through two database tables: ozekimessagein and ozekimessageout.

The ozekimessagein table shall be used to store incoming sms and the other, the ozekimessageout table is used for sending sms. If you want to send an sms, all you have to do is create an SQL table entry using an SQL INSERT command in the ozekimessageout table. Ozeki SMS Gateway will automatically pick up the sms and it will send it to the gsm network. During the delivery procedure it will update the status field and timestamp fields in the database table to inform you when the SMS was sent from your system, when was it received by the mobile user and if an error occurred, why wasn't it delivered.

save sms into a database server
Figure 6 - Sms to SQL database server

This solution is great, because no code is needed to match incoming submit reports, delivery reports and status reports to send messages, because Ozeki 10 does this for you automatically. Everything related to the sms is stored in the corresponding SQL record. Another benefit is that most business applications are database driver, so it makes sense to use the database for SMS as well.

How to send sms using C# .Net through Clickatell

Computer driven text messaging solutions work significantly better than human staff. Because of this fact many businesses choose to use automated text messaging services. Ozeki's C# SMS API provides an excellent tool to come up with communication systems based on automated algorithms. This C# api is great because it also allows you to use a gsm modem or an android sms gateway to send and receive sms. By implementing this single API, you can reach many SMS services with a single code base.

send sms from c sharp sms api
Figure 7 - Send SMS from C# through Clickatell

How to send sms using text files through Clickatell

Every software developer can create and read text files. Text files provide the simplest interface to send and receive SMS messages. Whether you use SAP or a custom-built business application, you will likely have the option of exporting data in the form of csv, excel or plain txt files. If you have this option, you can send and receive SMS messages using Ozeki 10 SMS Gateway through Clickatell. In this case two directories will be created, one for storing SMS messages to be sent, and another for saving incoming sms messages. Ozeki can be configured to save incoming SMS in the file format you prefer, and it can pick up text files containing SMS messages to be sent. Once a text file is read, SMS messages are created, and they are sent to the mobile network through the Clickatell connection.

Setup email to sms with Clickatell

If you configure Clickatell, you can easily provide an email to sms and sms to email service to your customers. Any email user that can send an email to an e-mail address can send sms. The email address format is phonenumber@email.domain.com. An example e-mail address may look like this: 079591538@domain. The recipient mobile number can also be put into the subject line. In both cases the body of the email is going to be sent as the sms to the specified telephone number.

Final thoughts

Now, you can pause and catch your breath. We hope you didn’t get lost in the explanations. By following the above directions, you can configure the connection quickly. Now you can use the sms messaging service provided by Clickatell to send and receive text messages, and you can see how easy it is to use Ozeki 10 SMS Gateway to connect to such a service. The HTTP SMS service of Clickatell is not difficult to setup, and although it does not provide the same performance as an SMPP sms service, it is still a good option to use in 2021. The biggest benefit of Clickatell is that an account can be setup in a few minutes on their website.

With Ozeki 10 SMS gateway you get access to cost control, which is normally not provided by SMS service providers. You can limit the number of messages leaving your system, so you don't have to worry about getting overcharged. To achieve this you can setup SMS credit limits for your customers, employees and SMS applications. To generate monthly or weekly reports, you can use SQL logging and reporting. With the Ozeki SQL logging you can save all your SMS messages into your own SQL database. This gives you the ability to keep an eye on and control your SMS communication, and you will be able to trace back any SMS in case a problem occurs.

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