Advice - Receiving Inbound message threading

Advice - Receiving Inbound message threading SearchSearch
Author Message
Chris
New member
Username: Chrisc

Post Number: 9
Registered: 12-2008
Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 11:54 am:   

We have a scenario where we send 2 messages using the same originator to a single recipient.

If they respond to one of the sent messages, do you have any suggestion on how we can track to which outbound message the user responded to?

Regards
Chris
Des - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Desosms

Post Number: 367
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 06:14 pm:   

Hi Chris,

This is one of the most frustrating limitations of SMS.

The only sure-fire solution is if you have multiple sender addresses associated with your application.

You cycle through available sender addresses and use a different sender address for a different thread to the same recipient. (Eventually you cycle back to the beginning and reuse a sender address previously associated with an inactive thread.)

Essentially, this is how operator SMS e-mail gateways that support replies work in the US. Each new e-mail message goes out with a different sender address, so that on reply, the gateway knows which message is being replied to ... based upon correlating the recipient address in the reply with the originally used sender address.

This tends to be a more expensive solution, requring multiple sender addresses, but it's the only sure-fire solution.

Alternatively, you include text in your messages telling users that they need to reply with a short prefix to verify which message they are replying to.

--
Des
NowSMS Support