Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

So i'm working on a new app, and I'm just throwing this out there to see if there is any interest.

At my new job, I'm frequently without my mobile, but I have email - so I wanted a way to know if people were calling or texting my phone.

So i'm developing an application that will be able to send notifications to an email/sms upon a missed call or new SMS event. It can also forward email/sms to an email/sms, as well as automatically respond to a missed call/sms/email via email/sms. It's pretty much a virtual winmo secretary. There will be the capability for multiple "profiles" for handling the notification/forwarding/response rules, an in each profile you can define custom rules based on contacts.


Example use case:
1. I start the app
2. I enable the "work" profile
3. I leave the phone on in my car and go to work
4. Somebody tries to communicate with me
4.1. by text message
4.1.1. the app forwards the text message to my work email
4.1.2. the app responds via text message with my custom away message
4.2. by calling
4.2.1. the app sends a notification email to my work email with the details of who called and when
4.2.2. if the caller is in my contact list and has a mobile telephone number, the app responds via text message with my custom away message
4.3. by email
4.3.1. the app forwards the email to my work email
5. I leave work, get into my car, and disable the app, and use my phone normally





How's that sound? Ideas and feedback welcome.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

This sounds interesting. Hooking into the received message in windows and forwarding to an e-mail....Yes, I'd be interested. I'd set up another gmail account just to archive my text msg's. Go for it!

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Hmm I hadn't even realized the archival possibilities till you just mentioned that... hehe. The capability to do that is already there, just need to configure it.

I'll make it so that the format for the forwarding and responding is configurable.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

This app sounds awesome. So will i have to run this in the background or will it be more like touchflo enable/disable. This would also be nice for when the girls come over so my boys dont interupt and of course work as suggested. Nice Idea will be watching the development.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

The app shouldn't be required to be open in order for it to work - all the notification handlers work w/o the app, but they will launch the app if necessary.

I'm also going to have a history list of events: who called when, if the messages were forwarded, if they were responded to, etc.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

I think the hardest part is going to be coming up with a name for it :)

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

How about SMSforward....? or not that name.....?

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Nah, it's more than just SMS forwarding, it's notifying, it's responding...

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Switchboard? Operator? Secretary?

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

what pocket secretary or is that taken

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

I think it's iSecretary and that is an answering machine for your phone.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

I love this idea, I have tried a couple of application to do the following and nothing can do it. I wok for a large hospital and all the outgoing calls start with the same prefix, lets say 565-XXXX. During the day, I receive calls from them but would like to set something up for after hours that would recognize the prefix, send out email/text and notify me. If it could do this, I could spend less time looking at my phone when it rings.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

That would be an awesome app.
And speaking of names, could name it something like "Awesome Phone App"....I would just love to somebody an app they made that.....

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Would love to have an app like that. I love the idea and its good for people who are always in meetings like myself. Sometimes people don't like to leave v/m's. When do u think u will have beta for this program? I would love to test it out. Great idea put it down b4 someone else takes ur idea.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Hmm, I never thought of detecting calls by prefix, i'll definitely add that in!

MedOne, can you give me a use case of how you'd like the program to work? I think I see where you're going with it but I want to be sure.

Here's what I think you mean:
1) You get off work and you don't want to look at your cell when it rings, unless it's the hospital, which is probably important.
2) If a missed call happens where the number is 565-xxxx, then send an email, or a text to a different cell phone than you use when you're not working.

So am I close?

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

that sounds good would love to see that made

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

I have a half-beta that I've been using on my phone for the past 2 months, it does the trick very well, but it's buggy.

I'm in the middle of a major refactoring right now, but it should be a lot more stable and a lot easier to add functionality down the road. I'm hoping to have that out in the next few weeks, but i'm going to be very busy with life for the next few months :(

As an aside, this application is shaping up to be worth actually selling (like for $10-$15), so I am thinking about how to do that. Don't worry, i'll hook up people who help me beta-test with free copies. But i'm stuck deciding between handling the payment infrastructure on my own via setting up a web site w/ google payments or paypal or something, or should I let handango or pocketgear handle that for me and take 40%?

Any other developers have any insight with this decision?

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Do it yourself... I have a great cart that works with paypal that I can help you with. It let's you charge less because paypal doesn't take out nearly what handango does. You lose the advertising that handango MAY do for you, but with handago I've sold 5-6 items since February of this year. On my own site with virtually no advertisement I sell more than that each month.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

This is exactly what I need! Been having to use 2 diffrent apps to make this work. I'll be more than willing to be a beta tester. Let me know when you start rolling out the beta's. Thanks

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Since interest in this project seems to be picking up, let's stoke the fire a bit.

In addition to the functionality mentioned previously, i'm adding the following:
-Remote administration via SMS (lookup contact info, current/next appointments, send SMS, toggle profiles, get GPS coords)
-Keyword responders - respond with canned text or execute a subset of the remote administration commands
-Low battery notification
-voicemail notification
-appointment reminder notification

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

well, all it took was the bump at the right time.. ;) but those new features will make this a must have, esp for those of us with 2 phones.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Hey what about not only forwarding to your email but forwarding any missed call info and missed txts to your work phone?

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

You can notify on missed calls by SMS to another mobile and/or email.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Just letting you all know I am in full-fledged testing/debugging mode now. Once I get the mechanics down pat, I have to do some bit of clean-up and then it's off to beta-testing land.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Sweet man! =D>

Let me know if you need help with testing!

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

ill help with testing too

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

this sounds like a great app, since you have a profile for different things, how about having it also test when you don't want it to send to another location

like custom notifications locally for sms, etc..

willing to be a beta here if you need more

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

i'll test it! lol if you need someone to beta test

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

You can add me to the list if you need people to test. It does sound like a useful app to have.....

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

this sounds like the perfect program for me. i hate to answer my phone as it rings all day but i have no problem checking email on the pc in from of me.....could i be on the beta list if it is not full?

thanks

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

This program sounds wonderful. I am a Lieutenant Fire Fighter and when we leave for a call I leave my personal phone (Sprint Mogul) at the office and I carry my work phone on me (nextel i680). Sometimes we're at a scene for prolonged periods of time investigating and I tend to miss important texts and calls. It's also happened (about twice a week to be exact) that I'll rush out from my residence to head to a call and forget my personal phone at home. I'll then head to my station and do paperwork on my computer. It'd be wonderful to be able to respond to texts from my work email. I appreciate you're hardwork and can't wait for a beta. If you'll still be needing testers, I'd love to help out.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

in the meantime you may want to try dashwire, if your like me, you probably forget the phone on the charger.. fyi, dashwire will consume battery on auto mode.
but hopefully it sounds like we won't have to wait to much longer for this..:protest:

j/k, i'm sure you got your work cut out for ya, so take your time ZaijiaN.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

I have long been looking for a program to run on my Treo 700wx that will auto-forward SMS messages to specified e-mail addresses based on assigned criteria.

For example:

Rule #1 - If I get a text message from XX, with the word XX in it, then autoforward to XX@xx.com.
Rule #2 - If I get a text message from YY, with any words in it, then autoforward to YY@yy.com.
Rule #3 - If I get any text messages between 11pm and 6am, then autoforward to ZZ@zz.com.

You get the point...

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Rules #1 & #2, my program can do.

Rule #3, not yet, but that's a good idea - auto enabling/disabling at certain times. May have to wait before I get around to implementing it, however.


Update:
Just fixed a major bug, testing is going pretty fast now. I'll pick a few beta testers and let you know here in a few days.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

That's fantastic! I'd be not only happy to beta test it, but happy to market it on my website, which averaged 50,000 this month so far, geared towards Public Safety folks (Police, Fire, EMS, Haz-Mat, OEM)...

Good luck!

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

Question for those interested in this application -

What .NET compact framework are you running, or would be willing to run on:
1.0, 2.0, or 3.5?

I'm currently developing it in 2.0, but I'm running 3.5 on my 700wx (since it's backwards-compatible).

If enough people are running 3.5 then i'll go ahead and upgrade the development to 3.5 and take advantage of the new features; otherwise i'll stick with 2.0.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

stock roms are mostly 2.0. 80-90% of custom roms have 3.5.

What advanced features you talking about?

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

I have a couple of referenced projects where I was lazy and tried out auto-implemented properties. They're nice but it's not a big deal for me to revert to 2.0 code. I was also going to try some linq but I'm going to concentrate on getting a solid 2.0 version out before updating for 3.5.

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

I have an app that requires 3.5 so it doesn't make much difference to me what ver you code.
can't wait to give it a go.. :)

Re: Developing app for sms forwarding, missed call notification, auto-responding
 

netcf 3.5 here cuz i got an app that requires it