Bandwidth Integration

• Bandwidth Integration – We have now integrated Bandwidth into UltraSMSScript for US and Canadian clients! This gives you another option when choosing your SMS and voice API provider and for anyone that wants to use Bandwidth, but doesn’t have the tool/interface to do so. Bandwidth is a communications API provider with its own nationwide carrier network and doesn’t rely on 3rd party carriers which passes more savings on to you. Their outbound SMS prices start at $0.005 and go down from there depending on volume.
  NOTE: It’s best to have Bandwidth enable queuing on your account. Queuing is disabled by default and without it enabled, bulk SMS is sent to Bandwidth at a rate of 1 SMS/Second to be processed as they impose rate limits. When queuing is enabled, the platform sends them messages at a faster rate to be processed. Read more on Bandwidth rate limits.
• Each User Account Can Use Their Own SMS Gateway Account – We have had some clients ask if each of their users can use their own SMS gateway account instead of theirs(admin). You now have that ability if you choose. Some people prefer to have each of their users use their own gateway account and then simply charge them a small monthly fee to use the platform. If you wanted to do this, you can create their user account from the admin panel, select the gateway they wanted to use, and enter in their API details and that’s it. If you don’t have their API details entered, it will just use the admin’s gateway account like it does today.
• Optionally Charge for Incoming SMS – We now have a new flag in the admin config that you can turn on/off depending on if you want to charge for any incoming SMS. If turned on, then it will deduct a credit from each user account when they receive an incoming SMS. Previously it would deduct a credit when only using Twilio as the gateway since they charge for incoming SMS, but some of our clients wanted the flexibility to charge for incoming SMS for the other gateways as well, regardless if they charge for incoming SMS.
• Credit Rollover Option on Monthly Credit Packages – Previously, all credits rollover from 1 month to the next so users never lose credits they paid for. However, some wanted the flexibility to set this themselves on the monthly credit packages, so now you can choose whether or not credits rollover. If “Yes”, then each month when they are automatically charged, credits that existed in their account will remain. If “No”, then any existing credits will be lost and their account is reset each month with that package’s credits.
• Bulk SMS Runs as a Background Process – It is now required when sending bulk SMS to schedule it so that sending runs as a background process. This is a better and more efficient way to handle bulk SMS without tying up the front-end. If you want to send your bulk SMS campaign now, just leave the schedule delivery field to the current date/time it will default to (according to the timezone you have set on the user account) and it will be sent next time the cron job is ran. If you’re on a VPS, the cron job can be set to run every minute.
• Track User Responding in 2-Way SMS Chat Window – Previously from the 2-way SMS chat window, it would always display the parent account name in the conversation window, regardless if it was a sub-account user responding to any messages. Now, it will track what user is responding, whether it is the parent account or any of its sub-accounts, in the chat conversation window.
• Bulk Release Numbers – You now have the ability to bulk release all numbers from a user account inside the admin panel users module. This had to be done 1 by 1 previously. Of course if the user closes their own account from inside the user panel, it will bulk release all numbers as well, this just gives the admin another option from the admin panel to release all numbers at once if they wanted.
• Regenerate API Key – You now have the ability to regenerate the API key inside the user panel API page. If for some reason someone obtained your API key without your permission, or you simply wanted to turn off access to someone that had your key, you can now just easily generate a new one.
• Add Last Login Username and Last Login Date/Time – We have now added last login username and last login date/time fields to the admin panel users so you can see the last person that logged into that user account and when that was.
• View Full Image on any Incoming MMS – You can now view the full image of any incoming MMS by clicking on that image from the SMS chat conversation window. Previously it would only display the thumbnail, but there was no way to expand or view the full image. You now have that ability.

IMPORTANT: Bandwidth has switched to their V2 APIs and for new Bandwidth accounts going forward will only be able to use V2. We are integrated with Bandwidth using V1, so the script will not be compatible when using V2 as of yet. We plan on integrating with V2 later this year when they officially sunset V1.