PD SMS Manager for Blesta

PD SMS Manager adds text messages to Blesta as a proper notification channel. Your clients get a text when an invoice is created or paid, when a service is activated or suspended and when staff reply to a ticket. You and your team get a text when a new order arrives. You can also message a filtered group of clients in one go. Every message goes through your own SMS provider account, and you pay that provider directly at its own rates.

It is built for hosting companies who know that a missed email is a late payment or an avoidable ticket, and who want the one channel people actually read at the moments that matter. Its biggest difference from a single-provider SMS module is that you are never tied to one carrier: you connect as many gateways as you like and choose which one carries each kind of message.

Why hosts choose PD SMS Manager

One module, every provider you might use. Amazon SNS, Azure Communication Services, Twilio, Vonage, Clickatell and any gateway with an HTTP API are all supported in one place, plus a Test gateway that sends nothing. Add several at once and mark one as the default. A single-provider module means a rebuild if you change supplier or need a second route. Here, you add a gateway and carry on.

Send each kind of message down the right route. Every trigger and every campaign can name its own gateway, or use the default. Put payment texts on a dependable transactional route, and promotions on a cheaper one. If a provider has an outage, point a trigger at another gateway without touching anything else.

Pay your provider, not us. No message credits are sold and nothing is marked up. Your provider's own rate is the cost of every text, and the segment counter shows what a message will cost before you send it.

Reach people at the moments that matter. Triggers send automatically for invoice created, invoice paid, service activated, service suspended or unsuspended and staff ticket replies.

Stay on the right side of consent. Clients choose which kinds of text they receive, promotional texts are agreement-only by default, and an opt-out made while a message waits in the queue is honoured.

How it works

1. Connect a gateway. Open PD Modules, then SMS Manager, then Gateways, and add your provider with its credentials. Test connection checks them without sending anything. Send test SMS delivers a real message to a number you give.
2. Set the basics. Choose a default sender ID and whether to send through the queue. Numbers come from the phone on the client's contact.
3. Turn on the messages you want. Pick templates and map them to events, or send by hand.
4. Watch it work. The dashboard shows what went out today and this month, and History records every message with its gateway and status.

What you get in Blesta

Sending

• Send a one-off message to a client picked by name, email or client ID using the number on file, or to any number you type
• Count segments shows how many SMS segments the message uses before you send, counted the way providers bill: 160 characters for GSM-7, 70 for Unicode, with emoji and extension characters counted correctly
• Drop a saved template into the message on the Send screen and in the campaign builder
• A texting panel on the client's profile, showing the number we would use, whether it is usable, their preferences and the last text, with a box to text them there and then
• Numbers are converted to international format automatically, adding the country code from the client's country

Templates and triggers

• A library of templates grouped by category, each switched on or off
• Merge fields for first name, client name, company, invoice number, total and due date, product, domain, ticket subject and ticket number; an empty field is left blank, never shown as raw braces
• Triggers for invoice created, invoice paid, service activated, service suspended or unsuspended and staff ticket reply
• Each trigger can use its own gateway and respects the sending queue

Campaigns

• Target clients by status and client group, and send now or schedule
• Preview audience and cost shows exactly how many clients a campaign reaches and how many segments it will cost
• Only clients who agreed to marketing texts are included, and progress shows sent and failed against the total
• Cancel a campaign and the unsent messages are dropped

Staff alerts

• Each administrator sets their own mobile number and the events that text them: new order, paid invoice, new ticket and cancellation requests
• Alerts and manual sends are never held by quiet hours. Alerts that depend on a failure are not offered on Blesta, because Blesta raises no such event

Running it day to day

• A sending queue that Blesta's cron drains in batches, with retries for messages the provider rejects and optional quiet hours in your company's timezone
• History with search and filters for status, gateway and date; open any message to see its full text, the provider's reference and any error, and resend it in one click
• Honest statuses: sent, failed, or unknown when a provider did not answer in time. No message is shown as delivered when it may not have been
• A Health report that says whether a gateway is ready, what failed this month and whether the queue is draining
• Test gateway: record messages in History without sending them, to try templates and triggers without spending credit

What your customers get

• A Text messages page in their client area listing recent texts and what they have agreed to, with a link to change it
• Tick boxes on their own profile and on the signup form, each label carrying its explanation
• Choices that stick. After a client saves their profile the boxes show what they chose, and an opt-out still stands when they next save for any other reason
• Simple, honest choices. A customer who unticks a category is not texted in it, even for messages already waiting

The pages render in Blesta's client portal theme, and their wording can be changed in a file that survives updates.

Security built in

• Provider credentials are stored encrypted and never shown again after saving
• A disabled gateway never sends, even if a trigger names it
• Number and message go only to the provider you connected. Nothing about your clients comes to us

One product, every feature

PD SMS Manager is one paid module with everything included: all gateways, triggers, campaigns, staff alerts and client preferences. There are no tiers. It installs into PD Modules in one click and uninstalls cleanly.

If your subscription ever lapses, your data is kept. After a 14-day grace period admin features lock, then customer-facing features stop, and automatic texts and campaigns pause until you renew, when the queue resumes and nothing is lost.

Requirements

• Blesta 6 or later on PHP 8.2 or later, with the ionCube Loader and cron running
• An account with at least one SMS provider
• PD Modules, the free control panel every PD module installs into