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A very popular option that works in any location is to set up an Android Gateway using systems like Telerivet and a local SIM and Android device. This is our recommended approach to setting up a gateway for CommCare. Other Android gateways are available, including with Twilio. |
SMS gateways are used by CommCareHQ to send and receive text messages. Each SMS gateway is represented by a phone number - normally a gateway is setup for each country, but some gateway providers will let you send messages to many countries.
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Overview
You can setup your own Android SMS gateway with Telerivet, and integrate it with CommCareHQCommCare. An Android SMS gateway will use an Android phone and its SIM card to send and receive messages for CommCareHQ.
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If you have a phone that meets those criteria, you can get started by navigating to Messaging -> SMS Connectivity in your project space. At the bottom of this page, click "Add Another Gateway". CommCareHQ will then walk you through the steps to setup a Telerivet SMS gateway and connect it to your CommCareHQ project for sending and receiving SMS:
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Read these Important Tips for using Telerivet with CommCare Messaging
When creating your Telerivet account, check to see where your project falls under Telerivet's pricing. It is important to set up the right pricing structure before your project goes live. For example, it's important to ensure that the number of contacts you will be sending to falls within the limit allowed on the account. If you want to set your Telerivet pricing to a non-free plan, make sure that when you use your credit card to add funds to "Select a plan" that you want to use.
It's important to be aware of the maximum number of stored messages that your Telerivet plan allows. For example, the Test Telerivet plan only allows 500 messages to be stored in the account, so after sending and receiving 500 messages total, the account will stop sending new messages until old messages are deleted. To have your Telerivet account automatically delete old messages, you can update the "Message Retention" setting for your Telerivet project (Dashboard -> Edit Settings).
When sending outbound SMS, you may need to throttle the rate at which you send SMS in order to comply with regulations in the country you are sending. A good rule of thumb is to not exceed the rate of 1 SMS per second, though you should check with the regulations in the country you wish to send SMS. In order to enforce the rate limit, in the Telerivet Android app, go to Phone Settings -> Message Sending Parameters -> Delay after message sent (ms), and enter the number of milliseconds to wait between sending each SMS. For example, enter 1000 to send SMS no faster than the rate of 1 SMS per second.
No matter what plan you sign up for with Telerivet, there is an initial limit of 100 outgoing SMS messages an hour. This is important to be aware of, especially for larger project or big training days when a lot of SMS messages will be sent in a short period. In order to change this, open the Telerivet app on your Android phone, click SMS rate limit, and install an SMS expansion pack(s). Can download multiple.
If you have a large project, it is likely that your Telerivet gateway phone will eventually hit a memory capacity from storing all incoming and outgoing messages. To avoid this, you'll want to change the settings on Telerivet's website. Log into Telerivet, click "Phones" on the left side panel, select the phone that you are using, click "Edit Settings" on the top right, and click the following question from "Yes" to "No."
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