This flow allows you to create your own message in Postman using an editor and can be used by both admin portal and API users.
{% hint style="info" %} For API users who do not want to manage your message templates within Postman, click here for more information. {% endhint %}
You can create multiple {{variables}} when typing out your message content. You can then input the values of each {{variable}}when you send the message from the admin portal or via API.
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Variables have to fulfil the following in order to be successfully created
- Can only contain lowercase letters, numbers and
_ - Must start with a lowercase letter
- If multiple languages are selected, the same variables must be present in all
languagetabs. - Characters are within the GSM-7 character set. See section below on unsupported characters for more info.
{% hint style="warning" %} It is recommended to NOT paste message content into Postman from another editor/MS word/Outlook etc., as this may convert characters into unsupported (non-GSM-7) characters. Please type the message content directly into Postman. {% endhint %}
You may make use of Postman's message segment calculator to
- identify avoidable characters within your message content
- identify non GSM characters within your message content
- check the number of message segments
- unsupported characters changes the message encoding and therefore, significantly increases the number of message segments per SMS.
- besides cost, long messages with multiple segments will jam the send queue, affecting even the campaigns of other agencies besides your own.
- Reliability of sending messages cannot be guaranteed beyond 7 message segments per SMS, a limitation imposed by telcos. Hence, we advise you to keep your messages below 7 segments.
{% hint style="danger" %} Messages containing avoidable unsupported characters will be blocked from sending. Please make use of possible replacements before attempting to send your message. {% endhint %}
This is the list of characters that are not supported by Postman and need to be excluded in the values.
- All emojis
- The following characters
| Excluded/unsupported Characters | Unsupported Unicode Character(s) | Description | Possible Replacements that Postman supports |
|---|---|---|---|
| | U+FF5C U+23B8 U+23B9 U+23D0 U+239C U+239F U+2223 U+20D3 U+20D2 | vertical line and variants | I (uppercase i) |
^ | U+02C6 U+0302 U+FF3E U+1DCD | circumflex accent and variants | |
€ | U+20AC | euro | EUR |
{ | U+2774 U+FE5B U+FF5B | left curly bracket and variants | ( |
} | U+2775 U+FE5C U+FF5D | right curly bracket and variants | ) |
[ | U+FF3B | left square bracket | ( |
] | U+FF3D | right square bracket | ) |
~ | U+02DC U+02F7 U+0303 U+0330 U+0334 U+223C U+FF5E | tilde and variants | - |
\ | U+29F9 U+29F5 U+20E5 U+FE68 U+FF3C | backslash and variants | ' |
` | U+0060 U+02CB U+0314 U+FE11 U+02BD U+201B U+0314 U+FE11 | backtick (note that this is not an apostrophe ' . You can find it to the left of the "1" on your keyboard) and variants | " |
‘ | U+2018 U+2019 U+02BB U+02C8 U+02BC U+02B9 U+00B4 U+02CA U+0313 U+FE10 | acute accent and variants | ' |
“ | U+301E U+02BA U+201F | double prime quotation mark and variants | " |
” | U+301D U+02EE | reversed double prime quotation mark and variants | " |
¬ | U+00AC | logical negation | - |
« | U+00AB | left-pointing double angle quotation mark | " |
» | U+00BB | right-pointing double angle quotation mark | " |
| ❝ or ❛ | U+275D U+275B | heavy double/single turned comma quotation mark ornament | " |
| ❞ or ❜ | U+275E U+275C | heavy double/single comma quotation mark ornament | " |
÷ | U+00F7 | division sign | / |
| ¼, ½ | U+00BC U+00BD U+00BE | vulgar fractions and variants | 1/4, 1/2 etc. |
| • | U+2022 | bullet point | - |
| ⊛, ✢, ✣, ✤, ✥, ✺, ❃, ⧆ etc | U+204E U+2217 U+229B U+2722 U+2723 U+2724 U+2725 U+2731 U+2732 U+2733 U+273A U+273B U+273C U+273D U+2743 U+2749 U+274A U+274B U+29C6 U+FE61 U+FF0A | asterisk and variants | * |
Note that the content within your variables should not start nor end with a space, as this will trigger an error where your message will not be created (400 Bad Request).
eg. "Please report to Clinic A ."
In this example, contents in the variable are coloured, and the trailing spaces at the start/end of the variable content are highlighted in blue. The additional spaces will trigger an error where your message will not be created in Postman.