Before you can use MessageSender to automatically forward your phone messages to your cell/mobile phone via SMS (Short Message Service), you need to establish an account with an SMS gateway provider.  In this article, we are going look at doing this using SMS Global.

Generally, you don’t have to sign any contracts or sign up for a specific amount of time.  You just purchase the number of credits you want, and replenish these when they run low.

The first thing to do is visit the signup page on the SMS Global website.  You need an account that allows sending SMS messages via HTTP.  Once you have created your account SMS Global, you should have the following details:

• Username
• Password
• Sender ID

We will need each of these things to set up MessageSender.

1. Run MessageSender Manager.
2. Select SMS Settings.
3. Under General SMS Settings, select SMS Global for the SMS Gateway.
4. Select the SMS Global tab.
5. Enter your SMS Global Username in the Username field.
6. Enter your SMS Global Password in the Password field.
7. Enter your Sender ID in the Account ID field.
8. Click Save Settings.

That’s it.  If you have any problems, please contact us at support@cybercom-software.com

We have had a lot of questions asked about why the PhonePad help files don’t work.  Although this has been answered in the PhonePad Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and in the online Knowledge Base, I thought I’d also discuss it here.

So here’s the deal.  If you are running PhonePad from your computer’s hard drive, ie. you have PhonePad physically installed on your computer (which is what we recommend for peer-to-peer networks), then you shouldn’t have a problem with the help files.

But…..if you are running PhonePad from a shared folder on your network, then you probably see a screen like this when you try to access PhonePad’s help:

So why does this happen?  It’s all due to Microsoft Security Update 896358.  A vulnerability was discovered with HTML Help files (the format used in Windows XP and later) that could allow remote execution of malicious code.  In other words, it was feared that the bad guys could possibly use help files to run their nasty code.

You can follow the link and read Microsoft’s article if you like but the basic story is that Microsoft killed the execution of HTML help files located on network drives.  This security update is why the PhonePad help files (and any other HTML help file) won’t work if it’s on a network device.

What can we do about it?  Well, in the past we have come up with a couple of solutions that involved a bit of leg work by network administrators.  With PhonePad Version 4.15 we have made it much easier to get your help files working again.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Select the Help menu.

2.  If you are running PhonePad from a network drive, you will see an option entitled Install Help Files.  If you are running PhonePad from a local drive then the option will be grayed out as your help files should already be working.

3.  Select Install Help Files.

4.  The following screen should appear:

5.  Click the Install button and the help files will be installed to your local hard drive.

Now when you access PhonePad’s online help, it should look something like this:

Problem solved.  By the way, did you know you can also access PhonePad help online?

With PhonePad’s Receptionist mode, users can access the Inboxes of other users.  This is how you set it up:

Navigate to the PhonePad folder and run PhonePad Admin.  Login using the default administrator account (or an administrator account you have created).

Select a user from the list of users, then select the Edit User option in the sidebar.

Make sure the Receptionist checkbox is checked, then click OK.  With the same user still selected, click on Receptionist Access on the sidebar.

You can give the selected user access to another user’s Inbox by selecting names from the list on the left and adding them to the access list on the right (using the arrow buttons).

Click Close to close the Receptionist Access window.

When the selected users logs in to PhonePad, a list of users will be displayed (next to the Inbox message list).  They can then access other users’ Inbox by selecting their name from the list.

When you first install PhonePad, a default administrator account is automatically created for you.  The login details are:

Username:          Admin

Password:           admin

Use this account to login to PhonePad Admin.  Once logged in, it is recommended that you change the password or create a new administrator account and delete or disable the default account.

If you can’t remember your administrator account details, contact support and we will give you instructions on how to reset it.

You can’t do much with PhonePad if you don’t add any users.  Without users, you won’t have anyone to send phone messages to or receive phone messages from, so let’s go through the steps for adding users.

The first thing you need to do is run the PhonePad Admin module and log in using a PhonePad administrator account (you can’t login to PhonePad Admin using a non-admin account).  PhonePad Admin should be located in your PhonePad folder.

A default administrator account is automatically created for you when you first install PhonePad:

Username:     Admin

Password:     admin

Login to PhonePad Admin using these login details, or if you have changed this or created a new administrator account then login using those details.

Once you have logged in, PhonePad Admin’s main screen displays a list of all users.

Adding a user is simple.  Click on the Add User option in the sidebar on the left side of the window.  The Add User window will be displayed.

Enter a name for the user.  You should make the name unique within PhonePad to avoid confusion.

Enter a password for the user in the Password and Confirm fields.  The Confirm field will be highlighted in red if the two passwords don’t match.

Select the Admin checkbox if you want this user to be a PhonePad administrator.

Select the Receptionist checkbox if you want this user to be able to access other user’s Inboxes.

The Login Enabled checkbox should be checked unless you don’t want the user logging in.  The Hidden checkbox can be checked to prevent a user from appearing in the To: field in phone messages and text messages, and therefore prevent other users from sending messages to that user.

Click OK and you have created your first PhonePad user.  Rinse and repeat.

We’ve had a few support emails recently about connection problems when using PhonePad in “Local Mode”.  These have been caused by mapping issues with the PhonePad data folder.

Here’s how it typically happens.  PhonePad is installed on a shared drive on the server.  When the connection setting is done, it is based on the mapping of the user’s (ie. the person doing the installation) network drive.  The problem is, other users may have different drive mappings.

For example, the person installing PhonePad has their network folder mapped as G:, with their PhonePad data folder set to G:\PhonePad\Data.

But other users may have the same folder mapped as J:\PhonePad\Data.  This is will cause problems when the other users try to connect to the PhonePad database.  The usual error message will be:

The error message may look a little complicated but it simply means that PhonePad is unable to locate the PhonePad database in the specified location.

This can be easily solved by using a UNC (Uniform Naming Convention or Universal Naming Convention) path.  Run DBConnect (it’s in your PhonePad folder) and click the UNC button to change the mapped path into a UNC path.

Occasionally clicking the UNC button doesn’t convert the path to a UNC path.  If for some reason it doesn’t work for you, you will need to manually remove the drive letter and add the name of your server.  The format is \\<servername>\<phonepad data folder>.  Using our previous example, the path would change from G:\PhonePad\Data to \\MyServer\PhonePad\Data.

Once this has been done you should find that, no matter what drive mapping each user has, PhonePad will be able to successfully connect.

I don’t know if you’ve tried this, but PhonePad can alert you to new messages by playing a sound.? Select Preferences from the Tools menu.? Under the Messages-1 options, you will see the Notification Sound option.

Any .wav file can be used as a notification sound that is played whenever new messages arrived.? Sure beats the boring Windows beep.

If you always send messages to the same users in PhonePad, you can save time by setting up some default recipients using the Auto Address option. Select Preferences from the Tools menu, then select the Messages-3 options.

Simply add users using the Add User button, and then select the type of messages the default recipients should be used for, eg. Phone Messages, Text Messages or Phone & Text Messages (this option can be disabled at any time by selecting None). Once this has been done, messages will be automatically addressed to the default users whenever you create a new message.

PhonePad Inbox messages can be filtered so that only the messages you want to see are displayed. The default setting is All Messages. Right-clicking on the Inbox header will display the filter menu, allowing you to select which message filter to apply.

You can set the default message filter to use under Tools/Preferences/Messages-1.

Message filtering provides an easy way to see just the messages you want.

PhonePad has been designed to be as flexible as possible to cater for all sorts of network configurations. However, with that flexibility can come complexity. Some users have found the various installation and configuration options overwhelming. To simplify the process of installing and configuring PhonePad we are pleased to announce the release of the PhonePad Easy Setup wizard.

The wizard will guide you step-by-step through the process by asking you a series of questions to determine the best way to install PhonePad on your network, and will then do theinstall for you!

You can download PhonePad Easy Setup from the PhonePad download page now!

Please note: PhonePad Easy Setup works in conjunction with the PhonePad installer (PhonePad4Setup.exe). You need to download both the PhonePad installer and PhonePad Easy Setup.