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Run a campaign from the command line

You can find out how to configure and run campaigns from the SMS Server manager here.

This document explains how to run an existing campaign from the command line.

1. Create a script to run the Campaign

First we’ll create a small script that will run the campaign. In this example we use VBScript.

Copy and paste the following script into notepad and save it as ”C:\AuronScripts\SendCampaign1.vbs”.

Create the ‘AuronScripts’ directory if it does not exist.

Set objCampaignManager = CreateObject("AxMmServer.CampaignManager")

nBatchID = objCampaignManager.Run("CAMPAIGN1", "Automated run")
If objCampaignManager.LastError <> 0 Then
  WScript.Echo objCampaignManager.LastErrorDescription
  WScript.Quit 1
End If
WScript.Echo "Campaign completed; BatchID: " & nBatchID

The script file uses the SMS Server API to create an instance of the CampaignManager and run the given campaign.

If you are familiar with scripting you can use JavaScript or Powershell to do the same.

The text ‘CAMPAIGN1‘ needs to be changed to the name of your campaign.

2. Run the script

To run the campaign we just need to run the script.

There are two ways to run the script:

  1. Run it by double-clicking in the explorer
  2. Run it from the command line using ‘cscript’

The difference is that when running from the explorer all ‘WScript.Echo’ lines will cause a pop-up to display while running from the command line will just print those lines to the console.

Most of the time running from the command line without pop-ups is more convenient.

To run the script from the command line first open up a command line by typing ‘Windows-R‘ and ‘cmd<enter>‘.

Next type:

cscript c:\AuronScripts\SendCampaign1.vbs

The script will run and display the BatchID when it ends.

Run campaign from commandline - Result

Run campaign from command line – Result

3. (Optional) Improvements

You can customize the message text used in the campaign. This can be useful if you want to use the same set of phone-numbers or e-mail addresses to send different messages to but you don’t want to configure all of these as different campaigns.

To customize the message we will have to make the following change to the script:

Set objCampaignManager = CreateObject("AxMmServer.CampaignManager")

objCampaignManager.CustomSmsMessage = "Hello %FirstName%, this message was customized at the last moment"
'objCampaignManager.CustomSubject = "Regarding %Subject%"
'objCampaignManager.CustomPlainTextMessage = "Hello %FirstName%, this message was customized at the last moment"
'objCampaignManager.CustomHtmlMessage = "Hello <strong>%FirstName%</strong>, this message was customized at the last moment"

nBatchID = objCampaignManager.Run("CAMPAIGN1", "Automated run")
If objCampaignManager.LastError <> 0 Then
  WScript.Echo objCampaignManager.LastErrorDescription
  WScript.Quit 1
End If
WScript.Echo "Campaign completed; BatchID: " & nBatchID

Also, we now have to learn one thing about VBScript to make the best use of this: The lines starting with a single quote: “‘” are commented out. And will be ignored when running the script. To make those lines take effect you will need to remove the single quote.

Depending on whether you are sending an SMS or an e-mail you can enable / disable the appropriate ‘objCampaignManager.Custom..’ lines. In the custom message you can use the same placeholders to refer to the fields in the data source.