Bulletin TXT Messenger

Executive Summary

Overview

Bulletin Messenger is a two way SMS messaging solution able to be accessed through multiple interfaces; Email, Web, Widget, API and Mobile Originated (MO) SMS.
It is a fully integrated solution with the interfaces sharing a common address book and message logs. Each interface has shared and specific functionality that can be utilised however your organisation wants.

Business Challenge

Large and small enterprises all have differing and changing requirements for their mobile messaging needs. Changing internal systems to use a message service should be avoided and with Bulletin Messenger's range of options it offers SMS messaging to suit.

There is no longer a necessity to use one provider for person to person messages and another for application broadcast messaging. Bulletin Messenger covers all your message requirements with a centralised message archive and security options to suit.

Target Market

Bulletin Messenger is primarily aimed at organisations that have a need to broadcast to many people or send targeted messages to individuals. Bulletin Messenger has been successful in large enterprises and SMB's with a growing number of vertical markets becoming heavy users due to the simplicity of the product (eg Real Estate and Leisure/Sports Groups).

Solution Description

Bulletin Messenger enables messages to be broadcast to many people instantly or targeted directly to individuals. It provides status tracking information and, using mTag^TM technology, reply messages are seamlessly linked. Bulletin Messenger delivers powerful web and email interfaces as well as integrating with the TXTmail PC application. Bulletin Messenger has proven very successful with large enterprises and SMBs. It is also offered directly by Service Providers under their own brand.

The Bulletin Messenger consumer componentes are:

1. Web 2 SMS
2. Email 2 SMS
3. SMS Mobile Group Messenger
4. CSR Administrator

In addition you can down load one of the simple widgets for SMS messaging from your desktop, or develop your own based on the easy to use API.

Web 2 SMS

The Bulletin Messenger web site is the central management portal for messaging. The company administrator has many options to manage access and security at a fine grained level if necessary. Regardless of the interface used to send the message all messages are available here to the administrator.
Bulletin Messenger users can also use one of the simple widgets or make use of the API to SMS enable their existing tool suite.
If users do not require web access then they need never be aware that it exists. Email to SMS users can simply send and receive messages with no need to login thus avoiding high administration overheads that come with account managment.

Email 2 SMS

To use the email interface an enabled user will simply add "@BulletinMessenger.com" to the mobile number they want to send a SMS message to when addressing an email, and use this as the contacts Bulletin Messenger email address. E.g. 64421123456@BulletinMessenger.com. This email will be sent to the mobile phone number 021123456 as an SMS message. The mobile phone user can reply to this SMS message and the reply will be returned back to the Bulletin Messenger user's Email Inbox.
The user can also send an SMS message to a contact or group in their Bulletin Messenger online Address Book. This can be accomplished by addressing the message to the Contact or Group. E.g. sales@BulletinMessenger.com.

SMS Mobile Group Messenger

When sending messages from their registered mobile, the user can quickly compose an SMS using a keyword, contact alias and message content (or canned message alias). Using this feature and taking advantage or the Bulletin Messenger online Address Books, users can initiate hundreds of messages with a single simple SMS.

CSR Administrator

The primary interface for managing the entire system is simple to use, allowing administrators to quickly grasp the basics while at the same time allowing for detailed administration and trouble shooting when necessary.

Desktop tools

Using one of the interfaces such as email2sms or the API various desktop tools are available or can be easily created.
The Bulletin TXTmail for Windows is a install that allows a Bulletin Messenger user to simply address messages to the mobile phone number. E.g. 6421123456 or access their Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes contacts that have mobile numbers.
Using the simple API various widgets have been created that allow 2-way messaging using Vista, Yahoo! or the Apple Dashboard. The API is simple enough for a developer to utilise and integrate into you existing systems.

Solution Benefits

With Bulletin Messenger, you can maintain your company and personal online address books, schedule messages to contacts or groups and view/maintain your message logs for messages both sent and received whether they were generated from email, widget, API, TXTmail or online via web2sms.

Features and Benefits

Technical Specifications

Web, Email and Mobile Interfaces

Bulletin Messenger is available from muliple interfaces; Web (including an API), Email and Mobile and widget.
All interfaces have access to the integrated Address Book and all interfaces log there messages sent and received in the one integrated Message Log. To send from the Web, logon to the www.BulletinMessenger.net website and use the "Send Message" page. To send from Email, send to the Email address local_part@BulletinMessenger.com where the local_part can be a phone number or address book entry. To send from Mobile, send a quick message to the allocated short code in the format "GM recipient message_text" where the address is a mobile number or an entry from the address book.

System and Company Administration Applications

Bulletin Messenger is administered by Carrier CSRs using the system administration application. This application provides features such as Company and Admin user account maintenance, billing/account number registration, comprehensive account searching, system limits maintenance, canned messages maintenance, activity reports, Email authorisation, user views and so on.

The Company Administrator user has additional options available to them when they login, including user account maintenance, security management, activity reporting, email address assignment to accounts, and controlling user access to features.

Bulletin Messenger Website

The user can logon to the Bulletin Messenger Web directly. Logon requires a user ID and a password. The user ID is setup by the company administrator, or in the case of the company administrator by the carrier CSR. The user can change their password and view their settings online.

Users can quickly generate recipient lists from their online address books or add recipients on the fly by mixiing phone numbers, contacts and groups and then sending their message. Recipients will only receive one message even if they are in more than one of the groups selected.

Canned messages (templates for user, company or system access), media links and signatures can be added when composing a message.

Messages can be sent immediately or scheduled for future delivery allowing important event reminders to be setup before it is too late.

Message limits are checked when messages are created so costs can be controlled and the company administrator can set their own limits within the system parameters

A company can set-up and maintain as many company address books as they like, each with as many contacts and groups as they require. They can also control which users have access to which address books. Likewise, a user can set-up and maintain as many personal address books as the like.

The online address books allow power users to harness the power of a single message from email, online or via their mobile to generate messages to multiple contacts.

Message Replies

Using Bulletin's patented mTAG^TM replies to all messages are returned to the source of the message whether they are sent via email or online. The integrated online message log also captures replies and threads them to the original message for instant point of reference.

When sending messages from the Website the user has the ability to determine where the reply is sent to. The default is that the reply is returned to the Web but the user can stipulate that the reply is returned directly to the Account's mobile phone or indeed to another mobile phone registered with the company.
All reply handling is transparent to the user and is achieved by using Bulletin's unique and patented mTAG^TM temporary reply address technology for SMS messaging.

Message Delivery Status

All messages sent are tracked through to delivery to the mobile phone (if this information is provided by the carrier). The messages are updated with incremental status changes and the most common are described here:

Knowing the status of your message allows you to escalate or use alternative channels if necessary.

Company Administration Features

• Security of email2sms messaging by restricting message origination to specific IP addresses.
• Restriction of messaging to accepted contacts only via email or online
• Shared and restricted access to online address books
• Message volume limits

Authenticate Bulletin Messenger email usage

The Company Administrator can authenticate usage of the Email interface by adding IP addresses against the company. Therefore if an Email is to be sent to the destination mobile phone then it must have originated from one of the IP addresses in the list. This facility also logs attempts to use Bulletin Messenger Email from IP addresses not in the list (whenever an IP address is newly discovered) and the CA is notified by email. Thus a company administrator is able to add the logged IP address to the authentication list if it is ok. This feature also enables the Company Administrator to detect unauthorized usage.

Assign Bulletin Messenger email addresses

The Company Administrator can assign Domains, IP addresses and Email addresses to user Accounts. As each user Account is attached to a unique billing number this has the effect of utilizing separate cost centers. For example if the domain, xxxxx.com, has been authorized then the Company Administrator could assign joe@xxxxx.com to one account and xxxxx.com to another account. In this situation emails to Bulletin Messenger from joe@xxxxx.com would be billed against a different mobile phone.
Assignment of addresses (Domain, IP or Email) against different accounts also affects the logging of messages. Messages are logged against the account the address is assigned to.

Enforce Bulletin Messenger System and Company Limits

System limits are maintained by a Super Admin. Company Limits are maintained by the Company Administrator and must be less than those set by the Bulletin Messenger Super Admin. Every time a message is sent these limits are checked. If a limit is exceeded then the message is not sent and has an error status code attached to it.

SMS Mobile Group Messenger

With Bulletin Messenger a user can send messages from their registered mobile. The real power here is that this feature provides access to their online address books and all their canned messages. In addition all messages generated are recorded in the online message history.
The user formats the message as follows:

GM Alias messageText

The Alias group or contact alias from the users online address books. The messageText is either a custom message or may be a canned message alias that the user has configured online. GM stands for Group Message.
The message is sent to a dedicated number (shortcode). This number is routed to Bulletin Messenger which then looks up the address book for the account the senders number is assigned to. The message(s) are then dispatched to the phone number, contact or group requested.

System Administration

System Administration is carried out by the service provider or its agents (e.g. Carrier or ISP). The seperate secure website is easy to use and offers access to all user features to allow effective management and customer assistance in all facets of Bulletin Messenger.

Enable Bulletin Messenger for Email and Authorise Usage

The ability to send from email makes Bulletin Messenger so accessible and simple to use and is enabled by default for new companies.

Once Bulletin Messenger is enabled, the CSR needs to authorize access by the company for one or more domain, email or IP addresses. For example, in the simplest case, a company's mail domain may be authorized (as in the case of "bulletin.net").

Create and Maintain Company Accounts

The CSR can create new company accounts and modify existing ones as well as running reports at system, company or account level.

Custom Development

Bulletin Messenger has been customised for a number of Network Operators. Customisations include

• integrated billing
• work flow integration
• network specific functional changes
• reskinning and changes to look and feel for corporate branding

The range of messaging avenues provided by Bulletin Messenger make it an easy sell, one that with minimal setup costs can be tailored to fit within and add value to, your product portfolio.

More Information

For the latest information about our product and services, please see the following resources:

Web Sites

http://www.bulletinwireless.com/
http://www.bulletinonline.net/

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Case Studies

Our latest case studies can be viewed at www.bulletinwireless.com

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