There are a number of ways by which an organisation can interact with its stakeholders, depending on the requirement. This is determined by the type of originating Id used when sending a message and dictates whether a recipient can reply, and if so, how that reply will be processed and tracked.                    

                                  

1-way broadcast 

1-way messaging allows an organisation to engage with its customers in simple notification- based communications using a ‘dynamic header’. A dynamic header is an alphanumeric value (such as a company name); and on receipt of a dynamic header message, the recipient will not be able to respond (the response is rejected on the mobile device). A dynamic header may contain a maximum of 11 characters.


2-way broadcast messaging
2-way messaging allows an organisation to engage in:
               

Campaign based messaging: A single Inbound SMS number (IN) is used as the originator for a broadcast message. Any responses returned by recipients of the broadcast are directed to an SMS ‘inbox’ and may be retrieved as a report across the API, from boomAPI, or as a Report / Export
                        

One-In-One-Out exchanges: A fixed SMS number is used as the originator for conversation based messaging with recipients. In context of a business process, this method of communication relies on a recipient having responded to one message, before the next can be sent. In any scenario where a recipient has two or more messages on their device originating from this fixed number, any subsequent response from the recipient will not be matched to its originating message. 

                                                

Conversational messaging - Subject threaded messaging 

Conversational messaging ensures that messages and responses are grouped according to their respective conversation thread. This makes it possible to run multiple concurrent conversations between an application and a recipient, whilst ensuring that messages associated to each conversation, are grouped appropriately in the recipient’s device.


Intelligent 2-way messaging
Threading communications is at the core of Boomerang’s patented functionality and enables multiple concurrent outbound messages to be matched with their associated responses, irrespective of quantity and order. This matching process allows a recipient’s response to be matched back to the specific transaction within the originating application – enabling the next required process step to be triggered. 




Message validity – Intelligent 2-way & conversational messaging
When using either Intelligent and / or conversational messaging, the end user's response is always tracked against the outbound transaction.  As such, it is necessary to define how long the transaction should remain live so that a response will be matched to it. Boomerang uses something called Message Validity to define this. The validity period can be defined on a per message basis, but this cannot exceed the maximum validity assigned to the customer's account (24 hours is included as standard and additional validity is purchased in increments of 24 hours).                                    

                                                

Message tickets 

Boomerang provides the capability to issue two different types of 2-way messaging tickets, defined as follows:                    

Single ticket: A single ticket / message is issued to an end user and is automatically closed on receipt of the first response returned. 

                   

Open ticket: An open ticket / message is issued to a recipient and allows a recipient to return multiple response messages to the same outbound transaction.