We recently released a feature that allows our users receive a text message if a bus they are awaiting is running late. It’s all pretty simple, we take the output of this form and run a little excel macro to convert the entered data into email addresses. We then email the affected parties and they get the the alert via SMS. There’s a couple hard-coded values in this macro for simplicity, modify it to suit your needs:
'Transform cell phone numbers to email addresses for sending text messages 'Boris Masis 08/19/2009 Option Explicit Sub ProcessTextMessaging() Dim emailDomain Range("L1").Value = "Email" Range("C2").Select 'Loop though until we run out of rows Do Until ActiveCell.Value = "" Select Case ActiveCell.Value Case "Alltel" emailDomain = "@message.alltel.com" Case "AT&T" emailDomain = "@txt.att.net" Case "Boost" emailDomain = "@myboostmobile.com" Case "Cricket" emailDomain = "@sms.mycricket.com" Case "MetroPCS" emailDomain = "@mymetropcs.com" Case "Sprint" emailDomain = "@messaging.sprintpcs.com" Case "Nextel (Sprint)" emailDomain = "@page.nextel.com" Case "T-Mobile" emailDomain = "@tmomail.net" Case "Tracfone" emailDomain = "@mmst5.tracfone.com" Case "US Cellular" emailDomain = "@email.uscc.net" Case "Verizon" emailDomain = "@vtext.com" Case "Virgin" emailDomain = "@vmobl.com" End Select 'write the email to a new cell ActiveCell.Offset(0, 9).Value = ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1) & emailDomain & "," 'select the next cell down ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select Loop End Sub |
The providers above have over 1 million U.S. subscribers, and almost all providers have email to SMS gateways.
You can download my xls file that includes this macro, or the .xla file which is an Excel add-in that will add a “Process Text Messaging” section to your Tools Menu. I followed the template at http://www.cpearson.com/excel/CreateAddIn.aspx to create this add-in.