The most common SMS API mistake
September 11, 2020
The most common mistake our new users make when sending SMS in not including all three parameters to
,
from
and
message
in their request.
This brief blog post will show you an incredibly simple way to fix it and might help answer questions such as:
- How to send SMS from my work number?
- How to send SMS with Python?
- How to send SMS with an API?
Every time you attempt to send an SMS with the 46elks API there are a few key pieces of information you need to provide.
- The SMS API endpoint - https://api.46elks.com/a1/sms
- Your API Username and Password - Finding your credentials
- The key/value pairs to, from and message - Keep reading!
Missing one or more of these key/value pairs is the most common mistake we see.
Here is an example explaining the information that should be included with each parameter:
Here are those same key/value pairs with some typical data:
The most common mistake we see is that one or more of these key/value pairs is completely missing. For example:
If you tried to send the data as above, you would receive the following error message:
This makes sense because out of the three keys ('to'
, 'from'
and 'message'
) we are missing 'message'
.
Missing any one of these three key/value pairs will result in an error.
THE SOLUTION
It is simple. Make sure you include all three key/value pairs in your request when sending an SMS. Here is a complete example using Python.
Related to these three common errors are issues with text sender
ID's
and E.164 phone number formatting.
Follow these links if you would like more information:
Information on Text Sender ID's
Information on the E.164 Phone Number Format