FrontlineCloud with Sensors – FrontlineSMS Support

How it works

Frontline is an SMS management tool used around the world to reach online and offline communities. For the Sensors Project, Frontline is the intermediary aggregator for the data sent out by GSM Sensors. Below is a breakdown of the workflow:

A sensor sends an SMS to a FrontlineCloud workspace.
Frontline recognizes that the sensor is a known device, and reads the metered values, contained as text, inside the SMS.
Frontline stores these values as custom fields inside the workspace, overwriting the pervious data of the associated sensor.
After new data is saved, Frontline pushes these readings, along with the info of which sensor is being relayed as well as a timestamp as an API call to the Opendustmap database.

Create a Frontline Workspace

Sign up for a Frontline account at cloud.frontlinesms.com.
Complete the registration process by following the instructions sent in an email to the registration email address.
This link will take users to their Frontline workspace; at this time you should upgrade your subscription by clicking the Settings cog in the upper right corner, and select ‘Payment Settings’ to complete payment registration

Connect Frontline to a Mobile Network

In order to receive SMS into the workspace, Frontline needs to be connected to a mobile network. This can be done by selecting ‘Connections’ from the Settings cog in the upper right corner.
Click ‘Connect to a Mobile Network’ in the right hand corner; select either FrontlineSync or one of our integrated aggregator accounts.
For information regarding setting up FrontlineSync on your Android phone, please see this article.
For information regarding setting up an aggregator account with Frontline, please see these articles for creating an account with a web aggregator.

Import Recipes

The automation that pushes the information from an SMS out to an external system is powered by Frontline’s inbuilt Recipes. Recipes are currently in Alpha; please contact a member of the Frontline team on support@frontlinesms.com for assistance in importing the requisite Recipes into your Frontline workspace. A .ckbk file with these recipes are available here.

Import Sensor Contact information

For sensors to be recognized by Frontline as requiring automation and not Spam, you must add the contact number for the specified device into the Frontline contact database.
To add a contact, click ‘People’ in the primary navigation, then ‘Add Contact’
Enter an internationalized phone number, a name for the sensor under ‘Name’, the API token (registered with http://api.opendustmap.com/v1/) in the 'Token' field, and a description of its location in the ‘Notes’ section, and click save.
When the first message from a sensor is received, Frontline will automatically create custom fields for the P10, P25, P10Count and P25Count fields.
In the Frontline contact record for a specific sensor, you will see a change log of each sensor that was updated and when. This list is exportable per contact.
Its important that you always create a contact for any sensors which will be interacting with the Frontline workspace, if they are not added, their information will not be forwarded to the API service.
For additional assistance about adding or editing contacts, please see these artic les.

Program Sensor to send SMS to Frontline

Need from Sensors Team.