Based on feedback from people like you we have added a couple of new features that will allow you to spend more time with your family (disclaimer: may not apply to all families).

Release 0.8.10 gives customers with their own numbers the option of sending an email (with an attachment) to an address TXTed in by the mobile. Advertise "Send your email address to [your number] and we will send you a voucher for an extra piece of fish with your chips!". Use this in conjunction with the advanced 'Email Address' keyword class and you never have to respond in person again.

Those of you feeling left out because you don't have your own number can contact us to help improve your brand with dedicated premium numbers and also take advantage of some of the advanced features of mQuery.

Also in this release, we have started to provide some remote reporting access so that you do not need to login to mQuery each time you want up to the moment data from one of the reports. Think of it as the gift that keeps on giving. Once you set it up (we will work on improving that, so feel free to let us know what you think) then you can sit back and watch your MS Excel spreadsheet update in front of your eyes.
If you already have a reporting tool then mQuery offers a number of export options (e.g. CSV, XML or HTML) that can be harnessed using this remote reporting feature.

There have been a handful of minor improvements too that will help you navigate the site better and manage your keywords more efficiently. If you notice something out of sorts or have a suggestion then please feel free to let us know.

So, now that mQuery has taken care of a few of the house keeping issues you can move on with more important things!

Version 0.8.9 of mQuery released today gives some more dynamic control to people using dedicated numbers/MSISDNs. If you have your own Number routed through mQuery you can now route types of keywords (aka Advanced keywords) such as email addresses and numbers.

So, now you can ask mobile users to send in their email address and forward those sorts of messages to your web application (then send out an email to them with more information or vouchers).

An additional secret advanced feature (contact us for more info) is the option to have keywords that start with a common string.

Why would you do you use this? Basically it could be like this. You want your SMS users to send in a vote during a talent contest that has 20 contestants. You have several of options

1. Setup 20 keywords such as c1, c2, c3 ... and 20 different unique actions
2. Setup one keyword such as talent, ask everyone to start their message with this and then the contestant number.
3. Setup a starts with keyword that treats all messages starting with "c" as the same class of keyword and then you can report on these and even use a dynamic response to reply with.
   I recommend this method but you need to be careful if you have a lot of keywords as the order of precedence needs be be taken into account.

That is the why, now how do I do it?
Easy. Unlike the other Advanced Keywords this one needs to be entered manually.

1. Figure out what you want to start each keyword with. In this case lets say everything for a clown contest starts with "clown", eg clown1, clown2, clown3 and so on.
2. In the mQuery keyword list setup a new keyword using the following special string

   startsWith:clown
   

   See how that works? Basically, anything starting with "clown" will match this keyword if it doesn't match other keyword you have explicitly configured.
   Now you may want to send an SMS to confirm the vote for the clown and there is a special dynamic response tag you can use to sort of personalise it.

   Thanks for you vote for clown number $!{keyword-remainder}. Please vote again and help make their pain go away.
   

As always, feel free to ask us questions or provide feedback.

mQuery has just been updated with a couple of new Dynamic tags that are useful for interaction with websites (either your own or publicly accessible ones).

We also added an option for the forward to mobile action so that a reply doesn't have to be sent. We still recommend sending a reply SMS as this acknowledges that the system has received it and processed it so the user doesn't try and try again.

One of my favourite improvements is simple. When you type in a new keyword and hit enter you are told if the keyword already exists and gives you the option of editing it (defaults to a static reply action). This takes a few clicks out of the process and is great when managing a big list of keywords.

Once again, thanks for your input. If there is anything you would like to see in mQuery then let us know and we shall see what we can do.

Based on feedback from users we have made the automated acknowledgement SMS optional for the Forward to Email action. This means that people wont be told that their message has been forwarded to your email address but tt also means that you wont pay for those auto acknowledgements!
The easiest way for you to reply to these SMS2Email type messages is to use Bulletin Messenger. Simply subscribe and get your email address validated by our support team and then you can start to have a two way conversation with a cellphone from your email.
Also in this wee update for the Forward to Email action is the option to have the email sent as plain text to reduce the likelihood that it gets marked as spam.

The Forward to REST action got a little love as well and now allows you to define a SMS reply from mQuery. This brings it in line with the other actions and is a good addition as it allows you to setup a REST endpoint that doesn't necessarily need to send a SMS now (e.g. it just collects data).
For people that want to respond with what their server returns in response to the SMS, consider using the SMS an Extract of a Web Page action.

If you have any questions or comments please contact us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Some of you may have noticed that we snuck out an update last week that added some simple reports to mQuery. These are accessible under each number section of the menu and allow you to extract data and see summary information based on a date range you provide. The data can be saved in various formats and we will be building upon this as time goes on. If there are specific reports you would like to see then let us know.

We have also just added a new enhanced action that lets you maintain information in a structured file that is hosted by mQuery and do a Lookup action on it. This action is similar to the popular Extract Web Page action but you control the data directly in mQuery. This is useful if you have a lot of information that is in a consistent format that can be exported from a CRM system (eg. addresses) or a database (eg. PLU prices).