These guides explain what you can do with the gateway once it is installed, and where to do it in the dashboard. If the gateway is not running yet, start with the installation guide.
The notions in two minutes
The product rests on a handful of notions. Once they are clear, every screen of the dashboard reads naturally.
| Notion | What it is | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Gateway | The program you installed on your machine. It holds your data, serves the dashboard and the API, and gives orders to the phones | The whole dashboard |
| Device | An Android phone running the app, paired with your gateway. It is the one that actually sends and receives the SMS | Devices |
| SIM | A SIM card inside a device. A dual-SIM phone gives you two SIMs, each with its own number and its own daily quota | Devices, Routing |
| Message | One SMS, outbound or inbound. An outbound message goes through several statuses before it reaches the recipient | Queue, Conversations |
| Queue | Every outbound message waiting to leave, being sent, or that failed. This is where you watch and relaunch | Queue |
| Conversation | The thread of every message exchanged with one number, like on a phone | Conversations |
| Contact | A directory entry: a number with a name, a company, labels, custom fields. Contacts are gathered in groups | Contacts, Groups |
How they fit together:
- You write a message (quick send, conversation reply, campaign, API call or automatic reply).
- The gateway puts it in the queue.
- It chooses a device and a SIM that can send right now: that is the routing.
- The phone hands the SMS to the carrier and reports back. The status in the queue follows: sent, then delivered when the carrier confirms.
- When the recipient answers, the phone passes the reply to the gateway, which files it in the conversation with that number.
Nothing of this goes through our servers. The messages, the numbers and the contacts stay on your machine and your phones.
Finding your way in the sidebar
Every screen is in the sidebar on the left, grouped by section: Main, Messages, Audience, Automation, System and Help. On a small screen the list is longer than the window: a More menus below button then appears at the bottom and scrolls it down; it disappears once you reach the end. Click a section title to fold or unfold it. Your choice is remembered on this computer, and the section of the page you are on always stays open. The icon button at the top left of the page, next to its title, reduces the sidebar to its icons.
Who can do what
The dashboard has three roles. What you see in these guides depends on yours.
| Role | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Superadmin | Everything, including pairing phones, editing SIM quotas, routing rules, settings, accounts, API keys and the licence |
| Operator | Sends, replies, manages contacts, templates, rules, campaigns and webhooks, without touching accounts or settings |
| Read only | Sees everything, changes nothing |
Accounts and roles are described in Users and roles.
The guides
Phones and sending
- Devices: pair a phone, follow its state, set the daily quota of each SIM, see the local time of each phone, and keep it running around the clock.
- Sending messages: quick send, pasted lists, scheduled sends, the queue, the statuses, the retries and the night pauses.
- Routing: which phone and which SIM carries each message, and how to send some numbers from a chosen SIM.
Talking with your correspondents
- Conversations: read and answer the threads, sort them, pin and archive them.
- Contacts and groups: the directory, groups, CSV import and the opt-out list.
- Templates: reusable messages with variables.
- Campaigns: send one message to a whole group, paced and scheduled.
- Automation: rules, the auto-responder and its master switch.
- Short links: trackable links in your messages.
Running the gateway
- Forwarding received SMS: forward the SMS you receive to one of your applications, from the Webhooks page.
- Activity log: who did what, and the technical logs.
- Users and roles: accounts, roles and passwords.
- Settings: time zone, display, notifications and sending behaviour.
- License: activation, offline use and changing machine.
To drive the gateway from your own software, see the API guide.