Key-Data Gold offers a sophisticated sms message delivery and reply feature. Before the feature may be utilised the following should be completed:

a) Go to the 'SMS Setup' tab of the 'Mainscreen/Edit/Company Details/Address & Names' record

i) an email address that will carry the outgoing sms

ii) an SMTP address for the sending email account

iii) the password for the sending email account

iv) the Send Domain for the sms messages (This will have been set automatically for you and should not be altered without notification from Key-Data Systems

v) the POP3 account for email replies back to the sending email address

b) Contact Key-Data Systems sales who will setup a sms text account for you and supply you with account details. There is a small annual cost for this and our sms provider partner supplies sms credits at a very competitive rate.

Once the above steps have been completed, clicking the 'send sms' button to the right of mobile numbers in 'Key-Data Gold' will generate a message screen that allows you to enter body text for the sms message and a 'Send' button.

When the 'Send' button has been clicked and the sms message sent, by default a send receipt is automatically sent to the sending email address notifying the user that their message has been successfully sent, (or alternatively was not delivered if a problem occurred in the delivery). If the receiver of the original sms message chooses to reply to the sms message from their mobile device, then their reply is sent back to the sender email account. If the agent sets up the sender email account in their chosen email client, then all send receipts and replies will be sent to that email account.

Although this mechanism works well in practise, it is not without problems:

:- The agent needs to manage all sms replies outside of Key-Data Gold using a third party software product. This means that it can be problematic and time consuming trying to establish the person that replied to the sms message as only the mobile number is referred to in the reply email (although the transcript of the message may give a good pointer).

:- An audit trail of inbound replies is not maintained in Key-Data Gold. This means that if the agent needs to restore their system from backup due to PC failure, then all sms replies will be lost (as they were maintained in the third party email client).

To overcome the above shortcomings, Key-Data Systems have invested heavily in technology and infrastructure. We can offer our users an optional 'SMS Messaging Management Module' to compliment their 'Key-Data Gold' system. This module automatically brings in sms reply emails, processes them and imports them into an 'SMS Inbox' that is integrated into Key-Data Gold. Furthermore the module offers a fast client location mechanism that allows you to select an sms message, click a 'locate' button and be taken to the record screen of the appropriate. Please contact us for the costs of this feature.