E-mail to a phone number

This guide describes how to set up Auron Omni to e-mail a phone number. The e-mail arrives as an SMS on the target phone.

We assume that you already have Auron Omni set up on a local Windows Server. You also have a Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes server set up to relay messages to a given subdomain on this server.

Jump to section:

• Set up an e-mail server
• Pickup incoming e-mails
• Set up SMS channel
• Forward e-mail file to SMS
• Testing our solution

Set up an e-mail server

First we set up an e-mail server on Auron Omni. This e-mail server is the relay target on your central Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes server.

To set up the e-mail server, you can enable the SMTP server in Windows Server like this:

Install SMTP Server

Add a domain alias to the SMTP server by using IIS Manager:

Add SMTP Domain Alias

If you run into issues while editing SMTP properties from IIS Manager, have a look at this FAQ item.

An easy way to test the e-mail server is to create an SMTP e-mail channel. You can then send a test message through this channel to see that it arrives in the drop folder on your server.

By default, this configuration works:

Set up test SMTP channel

Send a new e-mail with the test channel and verify that it arrives in the drop folder:

Test E-mail in Drop Folder

By default, the drop folder for incoming e-mail in the SMTP server is:

C:\Inetpub\Mailroot\Drop

Pickup incoming e-mails

Now that we are capturing incoming e-mail, we need to introduce them into Auron Omni. The best way to do this is with a File channel.

Set up your file channel like this:

Create a new File Channel

Set up SMS channel

Before we can start forwarding, we’ll also need an SMS channel to forward to. This can be either GSM, SMPP, HTTP or Android or a combination. You can choose what is most convenient for you.

By now you should have at least three channels:

Auron Omni Channels

Forward e-mail file to SMS

We now have a situation where you can send an e-mail to a phone number and that e-mail appears automatically in Auron Omni as a file. In this step we automatically forward this e-mail as an SMS by creating a new trigger.

We start by creating an empty VBScript trigger that runs when a file is received:

Empty VBScript Trigger on File

Next go to the VBScript tab and edit the script:

CONST STR_DEBUGFILE     = "C:\ProgramData\Auron\Auron Omni\Log\TRIGGER1.txt"
CONST B_ENABLE_DEBUG    = True

' // ========================================================================
' // Function: ProcessMessageEx
' // ------------------------------------------------------------------------
' // ProcessMessageEx trigger function to process incoming messages
' // ========================================================================
Function ProcessMessageEx(objMessageIn, objMessageDB, dctContext)

  Log ">> ProcessMessageEx"

  Set objFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
  Set objFile = objFso.CreateTextFile("c:\temp\in.eml", True)
  objFile.WriteLine(objMessageIn.Body)
  objFile.Close

  Set objEmail = CreateObject("AxEmail.Message")
  objEmail.LoadMime("c:\temp\in.eml")
  If objEmail.LastError <> 0 Then
    objMessageIn.AddTrace "Error while opening MIME"
    objMessageIn.StatusID = "FAILED"
    Log "Error while opening MIME"
    Log "<< ProcessMessageEx"
    Exit Function
  End If

  Set objSms = objMessageDB.Create("SMS")
  objSms.ToAddress = Left(objEmail.ToAddress, Instr(objEmail.ToAddress, "@") - 1)
  objSms.Body = objEmail.BodyPlainText
  objMessageDB.Save(objSms)

  Log "<< ProcessMessageEx"

End Function

This script reads the e-mail file into an e-mail object and creates a new SMS using the plain text body of the e-mail. The e-mail message object is part of the Auron e-mail component that comes with Auron Omni.

Testing our solution

We are ready to send a test e-mail to our new e-mail server and verify that it is sent as an SMS.

First create a new outgoing e-mail through our test SMTP channel:

Send a test e-mail

If you have correctly integrated with your Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes configuration, you can send an e-mail to a phone number from any e-mail client in your office.

Verify the handling of incoming e-mails:

Verify e-mail forwarding to SMS

The last screenshot shows two successful results:

1. The e-mail is sent on the test SMTP channel
2. The e-mail file is picked up from the drop folder by the File channel
3. The file is converted into an SMS and sent by SMS channel