Getting and using FrontlineSMS

Setting up and using a FrontlineSMS hub is quick and easy, and requires little technical expertise, a good thing for many grassroots non-profit organisations. The FrontlineSMS website – www.frontlinesms.com – provides detailed instructions, tables of supported phones, details (and a map) of current usage, and a community allowing FrontlineSMS users around the world to connect and interact. After downloading and installing the software via an internet connection or CD, the user attaches a mobile phone or GSM modem which FrontlineSMS will then search for and configure automatically. The user then creates Groups and adds people into those Groups using the ContactManager module (pictured). Any number of Groups can be created, and any number of people added to each Group.

With Groups created, messages can then be sent to each Group, and then messages received from members, facilitating two-way communications via SMS. Surveys can be run, asking people their opinions on health-related matters, or their knowledge of a particular disease or condition, or help-lines set up in which members of the public can text in predetermined keywords – such as HIV, TB or even clinic opening times – and get automated responses determined by the FrontlineSMS administrator. Remote healthcare workers can also subscribe to SMS-groups, and then send messages remotely, through FrontlineSMS, to all other members of their Group. Messages can also be delivered via email, useful if workers are sending health survey information or statistics which needs to be delivered on to a head office. FrontlineSMS is, in essence, a communications platform which, once set up, can be used to distribute any types of message, and to solicit any kind of response in a number of different ways.