sms-links-possibly-not-working-for-android-os

Support forumCategory: Questionssms-links-possibly-not-working-for-android-os
mark_trevino asked 6 years ago
Nikola, I sent a client an appointment request this week and noticed it stayed in pending status.  When I spoke with the client they said they clicked the Confirm Link but never received the confirmation text (which I have set up and is working).  I re-sent a new SMS appointment request and the same thing occurred.  To troubleshoot, I had them copy/paste and text me the msg EA sent them.  I clicked the link from my phone and the status changed to Confirmed and they immediately received the confirmation txt on their phone.  What I noticed was that the text they forwarded to me came in as 3 separate texts (not segments).  Found out they are using an Android, which to my knowledge will be the first client I have sent a msg to using android (all others appear to be iPhone). I noticed another open/unanswered ticket in the blog titled \"SMS Confirm / Cancel links broken\" from about 2 weeks ago, which references androids. Is sounds like it may be the same issue and just wondering if you\'ve had a chance to look at it?  Surely EA should work for all SMS phone OS\'s? Thanks Mark
3 Answers
Nikola Loncar Staff answered 6 years ago
Hi Mark, looks like another issue that could be solved with URL shortener. In that case you would not have more then one message. Best regards, Nikola
mark_trevino answered 6 years ago
Nikola, Thanks for the feedback.  I have done a bit more research and it looks like sms is limted to 160 Characters before breaking it up into segments.  It looks like some phones, like androids, have a setting to use MMS instead of SMS.  However, there is no way of knowing what the end user will be using to receive the intended SMS msg.  Looking at just the "accept link" portion of my SMS message that is being sent out, it works out to be 101 characters.  So that doesn\'t leave enough room for any additional placeholders for #worker #date, #time, #location much less any additional message instructions that may need to be in the text.  It looks like you have suggested URL shorteners in several posts, however I did not see any suggestions or instructions on how to implement that with EA specific to the SMS setup.  All of the other setup has been very well documented, but I\'m wondering why this isn\'t a bigger topic with a workaround or fix as I would assume it would be affecting anyone sending SMS to androids.  The other thing I noticed going back to my original post is that the 3 segments that the android use received, had the entire "Accept Link" in the 2nd segment (Unbroken), and therefore should have still worked.  Right?  So I'm not sure that character length, # or segments or phone type is really the issue.  I'm suspecting that any "Word" that breaks the 160 character barrier, SMS will carry that word (or in this case the Accept Link) over into the next segment. So.  While URL shortener may be the workaround, I'm not sure it explains why when they click on the accept link, it forwards them on to the main URL, but does not change the status of the appointment from pending to confirmed. Any thought you have on further troubleshooting or instruction on how to use URL shortening with EA would be appreciated. Thanks. Mark
mark_trevino answered 6 years ago
Nikola, Just following up to see what you thought about my last comments.  Basically wondering why an android, even if it breaks up the SMS message into multiple segments, would redirect the user to the correct site after clicking the accept link, but not update the status of the appointment from pending to confirmed? Thanks.
Nikola Loncar Staff replied 6 years ago

I am not sure for that one. Can you copy/paste that here from your mobile (link on that SMS)?

Best regards,
Nikola