As a business owner, communication with your customers and your employees is key. While FileMaker has long supported sending plain text emails, many businesses find that more immediate communication is critical to their workflow.
These include:
- Alerting a customer that their order is ready for pick-up once a job is marked “complete.”
- Sending photographs of equipment condition at the end of the workday.
- Confirming availability with an employee to staff an upcoming event.
Now that FileMaker can natively support API integration, many people have jumped on that to use third party services like Twilio to send text messages (SMS). However, these messages are one way (from the database to the recipient) and are text-only.
For how to do a simple SMS integration, check out PCU’s Twilio Integration Course.
If you require a more robust solution, including the ability to add photos to your messages and also process replies — including photos — into your FileMaker Solution, Productive Computing’s Custom Development department can help. Using a Twilio* API integration supported by a simple PHP webserver backend**, FileMaker can send text messages, attach images directly out of container fields, and listen for replies to be brought into the same solution, including processing any photos attached to the message.
This small project can result in much smoother workflow for your business needs. If you’re interested in taking your communication with clients and employees to the next level, we would be happy to help you make that happen.
*Other third-party APIs that offer MMS send and receive are also available.
** If you do not have a webserver configured for PHP, Productive Computing can host your webhook for a monthly fee.
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