Sending an SMS upon receipt of a Windows Event

This document explains how to implement the sending of a SMS upon receipt of a Windows Event (eventlog).

For this implementation we will use the Task Scheduler program provided with Windows. The Task Scheduler is used to trigger an action on receipt of a Windows event. The action will start the program for creating SMS and the program SMS Dispatch Manager will be responsible for sending it.

Note that the creation of this action event can also be created in the browser of Windows event logs (Event Viewer).

As a reminder, SMS Dispatch Manager is a Windows program that lets you send SMS through a GSM modem connected directly to your system. This program can work individually or within our monitoring solution LoriotPro. The support of SMS acknowledgement and three levels of escalation makes it the ideal program for all monitoring solutions in a Windows environment (Perfmon, CMOS, OV ..) or for the needs of alert on events or on email reception.

If you are looking for a solution for sending SMS individually, you can interface our SMS Distpatch Manager solution with most programs. We offer you the program SMS editor that allows any third-party program to file a SMS message in a queue. In this case SMS Editor is used in command line and allows the creation of SMS messages from any computer on your network. SMS Editor can also be used through its graphical interface GUI to manually create a SMS text message.

Configuring the Task Scheduler for sending SMS on Windows event receipt

The purpose of this chapter is to configure a new task on Windows which for a specific event reception will trigger a call to the SMS Editor program. The SMS Editor program has the role of creating and storing in a processing queue the SMS to send. The SMS program Dispatch Manager that works in the background will take care of sending the SMS stored in this waiting queue (a simple file directory).

Let’s start the configuration.

Launch the Task Scheduler program.

To add new tasks we first create a new directory. In our example it is called "Forward as SMS event Tasks". This one will contain all the tasks that will trigger an SMS.

We select the default upper branch.

We create a new task by calling the action "Create Task".
We assign a name, in our example we chose the Windows Event 104 which is generated when a eventlog file is cleared (see event viewer from Windows).

In the Triggers we select "New" and we complete the fields below, like in the case of our example.

In the "Action" we create a new action.
The action is simply to invoke our SMS editor program (SMS_Editor.exe) and provide the necessary information as parameters.

The parameter syntax is reminded below

SMS_Editor.exe /rl  Recipient List /msg SMS message [/p Path /qn Queue Name]

Recipient List is a list of recipient (phone numbers) and must be defined in SMS Dispatch Manager

SMS message is the SMS text message itself

Example : "This is a text message with a quote \""

Path   (option) The path to the directory where is installed SMS Dispatch Manager. This may be a local path or network path. By default the path is the folder where SMS_Edito is locatedr. If it is in / bin the paths used by default it will be correct.

Example :   "C:\\LoriotPro\\bin"

Queue Name (option) The name of the directory where the files are deposited. If no value is specified, the directory used is sms_queue. The directory is located in /bin directory where the launcher of  SMS Dispatch Manager is installed.

We are not changing the other parameters and we keep the default values. (Refer to Microsoft documentation if you want to adjust other settings)
We can leave and check for our task in the task list in the directory called "Forward as SMS Event Tasks".

To test the proper operation of our setup we need to generate an event with the number 104. In this case it is generated by clearing the log file  in Windows Event Log browser (EventViewer).

If the configuration is correct in receipt of an Event 104 in our example, a file is created in the directory /bin/sms_queue as an xml file.

Example of  xml file generated by SMS Editor in the sms_queue directory

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<SMS>
         <RECIPIENT_LIST>adminlist</RECIPIENT_LIST>
         <MSG>test taskManager</MSG>
</SMS>

Sms_queue directory with files waiting to be handled by SMS Dispatch Manager.

In Task Manager it is possible to check the history tab events and actions launched by this trigger.

If this installation is finished now check that your SMS Dispatch Manager program is operational (SMS Disptach Configuration Manager).