Send text messages using MY CELL NUMBER to a list of cell numbers

[Jason Kazar]

Posted this in the Feature Request but wanted to ask here is there already a pre-made project to allow me to send a message to a list of cell numbers, either in a document on my phone or from my contacts, using MY CELL NUMBER? Hoping there is an automation that can do this with Tasker.   Example: I want to send "Hello this is Einstein, hope you are having a great week, let me know if I can help with your physics homework" to a list of 345 cell numbers I have in my contacts or from a document on my phone. Do this using MY CELL NUMBER so they all get the message.

[Steve]

I never set up a pre-made project, but there is a way to do it.  I use this all the time with my local archery club.  It's easily expandable from 5 to 5,000 people, and I can send the same message through both SMS and e-mail.

Tasker isn't sufficient by itself to do this on one device, you need two devices, such as a tablet or a spare phone with Tasker / Join installed.

Without going into a lot of detail right now (since I don't have the time at the moment to do it), we'll use two devices...Phone and Tablet.

Phone: Send a join command to Tablet.  (Because there are multiple alert types I have set, I want to be specific, this is a meeting, event, alert, etc.)

Tablet:  Recognize the command sent (Each code word triggers a different profile...but the gist is still the same)

Tablet:

     1. Download the alert file from Google Drive (we have a group Drive where admin can set the message, but only I can send it out).  This prevents too many alerts at one time.

     2. Test the file and make sure we really downloaded it.  Once it's there, then we continue.

     3. If the file exists, continue

          3.1 Read the file into a variable, such as %club_message

          3.2 I test the message file again to make sure it really downloaded...I've had a few instances where the file didn't really download and caused all kinds of havoc

          3.3 Perform message distribution

This gets a little more involved.

1.  Perform task - club phone numbers  (My phone carrier only permits so many people in a group message, so I have to have multiple groups.  I found having a task where 19 phone numbers are read into %Group1, 19 into %Group2, etc

     makes it easier to perform maintenance later.

2. Wait 10 seconds after the phone numbers have been read (the tablet is a little older, so takes a second to process everything)

3. Send a join push to Phone:

        Configuration

             SMS number - my phone number (that way I can verify the message will be correct)

             SMS Text - the message text (%club_message) from earlier

             Device name - Phone (or whatever you call your phone in join)

4. I then wait 5-10 minutes in case I need to cancel the message because something didn't read right from Google Drive.  Otherwise, it will automatically continue once the wait is over)

5. For Variable %SMSloop Items: %Group1,%Group2,%Group3,%Group4,%Single1, etc, etc).

6. Join Send Push

      Configuration: 

           SMS Number: %SMSloop

           SMS Text: %club_message

           Device name: Phone (or whatever you call your phone in join)

7. Wait 15 seconds (gives the phone time to process the SMS...otherwise, you can get errors...wait may differ for you).

8. End For

9. Once all the groups have been sent, I can also send e-mails using MailTask.

Phone:

     Receives the join send push and sends %club_message out as an SMS to %Group1, then will continue as the tablet pushes messages to the phone.  

*****WARNING*****

Tasker fails at this point...you can't send to different area codes in the same group.  The messages will all go to the same area code, despite how well you put the number in.  If you want a different area code to get the message, you have to either put them in a group(s) or as a single entry.

I put it a lot of error trapping in my routines to make sure failed messages alert me and if someone requests a drop from the list but they are listed as a single number rather than a group, etc.

Hope this helps a little.  It took a lot of experimenting to get this right, but it's the only way I could find to make this work.  Using this method, I can send messages to 5 people or 500, it doesn't matter.  As long as I follow carrier guidelines on how many people can be in an SMS group and think logically, the program just processes the messages quickly and efficiently.  It's also a great way to ensure everyone receives exactly the same message every single time rather than trying to hand key every number.

Steve

[Jason Kazar]

Steve this is great info! I would probably send out individual messages since my contacts are all spread out around the country. I really like there is no limit on the number of messages I can send out as I have about 470 contacts I work with. Now, how to take what you wrote and actually do it:-) Any chance I can pay you some money to help me set it up correctly and  run a test so I get the system working correctly on a small list of contacts? I have an iPhone XR and and old iPhone SE that I usually use to connect with just wifi, do you think that would suffice as my second device? Look forward to hearing more from you about this.

[Morgan Young]

I send out individual sms messages on holidays.  I pretty much have it run every day now, and if today is 7-4 send "happy independance day" to every phone number in my address book.

when I have posted it in the past, .there have been many suggestions on making it work better.   I have been kind of chicken to make changes to what I already have.

Look back through old message topics of mine for more info on this.

Morgan

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[Nate Mutti]

I have a very similar task that sends out various holiday messages.  All of my Google contacts are assigned groups based on what messages I want to send them.  There is a  group for Christmas Msg, New Years Msg, Father's Day Msg etc...

The Tasker plugin ContactTasks can create an array of contacts based on the groups.  Unfortunately this is something I was never able to do in AutoContacts.

Here is the task below.  I know it would be simpler to use a for loop rather than to create a counter based on the total number of contacts, I just have t been bothered to re-write it.

    Task: Send Holiday Text

    

    A1: Variable Set [

         Name: %HolidayMessage

         To:  

         🎈  🎣  👔  ⚾  ❤  🏈  🛠  🍺

                   Happy Father's Day!

         🎈  🎣  👔  ⚾  ❤  🏈  🛠  🍺 

         Max Rounding Digits: 3

         Structure Output (JSON, etc): On ]

    

    A2: [X] Variable Set [

         Name: %Counter

         To: 1

         Do Maths: On

         Max Rounding Digits: 3

         Structure Output (JSON, etc): On ]

    

    A3: Query contacts [

         Configuration: Search for Father's Day Msg Export false

         Timeout (Seconds): 30

         Structure Output (JSON, etc): On

         Continue Task After Error:On ]

    

    A4: [X] Flash [

         Text: There are %ctnames(#) names and %ctphones(#) numbers

         Continue Task Immediately: On

         Dismiss On Click: On ]

    

    A5: [X] Flash [

         Text: Creating ContactCount variable...

         Continue Task Immediately: On

         Dismiss On Click: On ]

    

    A6: Variable Set [

         Name: %ContactCount

         To: %ctnames(#)

         Do Maths: On

         Max Rounding Digits: 3

         Structure Output (JSON, etc): On ]

    

    A7: Flash [

         Text: Running contact list

         Continue Task Immediately: On

         Dismiss On Click: On ]

    

    A8: If [ %Counter < %ContactCount+1 ]

    

        A9: [X] Write File [

             File: info.txt

             Text: Name Number: %Counter of %ctnames(#)

             Name:  %ctnames(%Counter)

             Phone Number:  %ctphones(%Counter)

             

             %HolidayMessage

             Append: On

             Add Newline: On ]

    

        A10: [X] Send SMS [

              Number: %ctphones(%Counter)

              Message: %HolidayMessage ]

    

        A11: Flash [

              Text: Name Number: %Counter of %ctnames(#)

             Name:  %ctnames(%Counter)

             Phone Number:  %ctphones(%Counter)

             

             %HolidayMessage

             

              Continue Task Immediately: On

              Dismiss On Click: On ]

    

        A12: Variable Add [

              Name: %Counter

              Value: 1

              Wrap Around: 0 ]

    

        A13: Wait [

              MS: 0

              Seconds: 1

              Minutes: 0

              Hours: 0

              Days: 0 ]

    

        A14: Goto [

              Type: Action Number

              Number: 8

              Continue Task After Error:On ]

    

    A15: End If

    

    

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[Jason Kazar]

Thanks Morgan for the information and did you use the contacts already on your phone or did it access a file on you phone with all your contacts?

[Jason Kazar]

Thanks for sharing Nathan, this is great to see how you set this up and geared it for groups. Are you accessing all the contacts and their cell numbers from your phone?

[Morgan Young]

Mine are in my google address book.  It checks whether a phone number is a mobile number or not.  Then it checks to see if the number is on my "Never text" variable.   Yes, I have some numbers saved, so I will never answer their call.  

Be safe.

Morgan Young, BS, EMT-P
richard.m....@gmail.com

 

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[Steve]

Yeah, I can help.  I think I can come up for air on Friday to start converting some of the information over.  E-mail me (mountainlyonstraders at gmail.com) and I'll help with whatever I can.  Whatever second device you use, it just needs to have join on it.  I have Tasker and Join set up on my android tablet since it wasn't that great when I bought it.  The second device is the key...without it, you can send via Tasker, but I could only get it to send to one person at a time.  Using the second device, I can send to whatever group limit my carrier allows.

[Nate Mutti]

Yes, all the contact information is from the contacts on my phone.

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[Jason Kazar]

This has been some great information about how this can be done. A couple additional questions. Is it possible to do this with iphones? Or an iphone as the phone and an Android device as the 2nd device with Tasker on it? I don't have 2 android devices or even an android phone so wondering if I have to invest in two Android devices first. I also have Straighttalk as my phone provider so hoping it could work with that or if I would need to change to T-Mobile or Verizon. Hoping to take some final steps soon to be able to send out texts with MY cell number and appreciate everyone contributing. 

[ktmom]

Tasker is an app specific for Android.  It does not run on i-devices.  

If all you are trying to do is send scheduled text messages from any device, you might look into using each carriers (TMO, Verizon, ect) email portal and just schedule the sending of emails from a PC/laptop.

[Jason Kazar]

Ktmom looked into what you suggested but seems that I would need to know SMS Gateways for each of the 400+ contacts I have unless there is a way to send something and it automatically figures out the SMS gateway for each of the numbers??

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