You will need to have Moodle installled before continuing. You can get further help with this stage from the Moodle website.
You can download the SMS plugin from here.
Once moodle is installed we will need to create the database tables as specified in the install.xml located in the DB folder using your database manager. This will create the necessary tables that the plugin needs to store data.
Next edit the sms.class.php in the plugins classes folder. You need to input the database host, database username, database password and the specific database to use.
In your Moodle web directory go to /blocks and un-compress the extension tar file. This will create a new directory msms.
Finally we will need to edit the settings available in Moodle. To access these using the web interface while logged in as the admin user, select from the left hand menu:-
Site Administration > Plugins > Blocks > mSMS
Please set the above fields accordingly
| originator | this will appear as the 'from' field for messages you send, and can be set to either a (max) 16 digit number or a (max) 11 digit mix of numbers and letters. This is best set to the number of your inbound messages as it will allow phones to group all messages. It could however be set to institutions name. |
|---|---|
| username | is the username of your aql account |
| password | is the password of you aql account |
| virtual number | is the number that inbound texts will be received on. |
| techers number | This needs to be a list of all the teachers' mobile numbers that wish to be able to send messages using this plug-in. Each number needs to be separated by a comma. |
Once this has been set-up the plug-in will be available to all accounts other than students.
The inbound virtual number will also need to be set to send incoming messages to the Moodle website with the addition of /blocks/msms/process_inbound_message.php
Eg. If www.moodleishere.com is your base Moodle directory then your URL would be
www.moodleishere.com/blocks/msms/process_inbound_message.php
To send a message click on Send SMS Messages in block located on the right side of the course page.
This takes you to the page below. From here you can input a message and send it to an recipient by highlighting an entry in either list.
You can send the message to multiple people by holding the CTRL key (option key on Mac) and highlighting multiple people.
You can send the message to a class by selecting one from the right hand list.
You can also send to a mix of people and classes.
Note: if you select a person that is also in a selected class they will be sent the message multiple times.
Once you press the send button you will be shown a page similar to below detailing the recipients and the content of the message.
Clicking 'View Received Messages' will display a page similar to the one below. This page details the history of all the outgoing messages that have been sent using the add-on. It shows the person sent to, the message content and the time of sending.
The status will change depending upon the delivery report received. If the message has been delivered to the phone then the status will be updated to delivered and the delivery time updated.
The status can also be set to buffered if the phone has not yet received the message (is switched off, out of service, etc) but the message has been sent to the end network. This status will be updated once the message has been delivered (staus will be set to delivered) or times out (status will be set to rejected).
This add-on allows courses to receive feedback from students using SMS. Students can be given a text in number and a course code to text with feedback or questions to their teacher. If a student was given the text in number 01133202027 and a course code of COMP1000, they could send a message to the teacher of the course by texting 01133202027 with a message in the form "COMP1000 "+ message. The teacher would be notified of this by Moodle. 
You can filter the displayed messages by selecting the course from the drop down list and clicking the button. 
If a teacher has need to send a message to all people on a course, they can send a text message to the inbound number, starting the message with the keyword INFO followed by the course code and it will be relayed on to all people on the course list.
If you look at the received messages page it will show all messages that have been sent to the inbound number. This includes teachers outgoing relay messages and any messages that students may have sent.
The message COMP1000: lecture is cancelled today due to weather will be forwarded on to all people on the COMP1000 course via SMS.
