Message content

Message content

This flow allows you to create your own message in Postman using an editor and can be used by both admin portal and API users.

For API users who do not want to manage your message templates within Postman, click here for more information.

Message parameters (variables)

You can create multiple {{variables}} when typing out your message content. You can then input the values of each {{variable}}when you send the message from the admin portal or via API.

Variables have to fulfil the following in order to be successfully created

• Can only contain lowercase letters, numbers and _

• Must start with a lowercase letter

• If multiple languages are selected, the same variables must be present in all language tabs.

• Characters are within the GSM-7 character set. See section below on unsupported characters for more info.

Additional notes to message content

Unsupported characters

It is recommended to NOT paste message content into Postman from another editor/MS word/Outlook etc., as this may convert characters into unsupported (non-GSM-7) characters. Please type the message content directly into Postman.

Postman message segment calculator

You may make use of Postman's message segment calculator to

• identify avoidable characters within your message content

• identify non GSM characters within your message content

• check the number of message segments

This is what happens if you include unsupported characters in your messages:

1. unsupported characters changes the message encoding and therefore, significantly increases the number of message segments per SMS.

2. besides cost, long messages with multiple segments will jam the send queue, affecting even the campaigns of other agencies besides your own.

3. Reliability of sending messages cannot be guaranteed beyond 7 message segments per SMS, a limitation imposed by telcos. Hence, we advise you to keep your messages below 7 segments.

Messages containing avoidable unsupported characters will be blocked from sending. Please make use of possible replacements before attempting to send your message.

This is the list of characters that are not supported by Postman and need to be excluded in the values.

• All emojis

• The following characters

Excluded/unsupported Characters	Unsupported Unicode Character(s)	Description	Possible Replacements that Postman supports
|	U+FF5C U+23B8 U+23B9 U+23D0 U+239C U+239F U+2223 U+20D3 U+20D2	vertical line and variants	I (uppercase i)
^	U+02C6 U+0302 U+FF3E U+1DCD	circumflex accent and variants
€	U+20AC	euro	EUR
{	U+2774 U+FE5B U+FF5B	left curly bracket and variants	(
}	U+2775 U+FE5C U+FF5D	right curly bracket and variants	)
[	U+FF3B	left square bracket	(
]	U+FF3D	right square bracket	)
~	U+02DC U+02F7 U+0303 U+0330 U+0334 U+223C U+FF5E	tilde and variants	-
\	U+29F9 U+29F5 U+20E5 U+FE68 U+FF3C	backslash and variants	'
`	U+0060 U+02CB U+0314 U+FE11 U+02BD U+201B U+0314 U+FE11	backtick (note that this is not an apostrophe ' . You can find it to the left of the "1" on your keyboard) and variants	"
‘	U+2018 U+2019 U+02BB U+02C8 U+02BC U+02B9 U+00B4 U+02CA U+0313 U+FE10	acute accent and variants	'
“	U+301E U+02BA U+201F	double prime quotation mark and variants	"
”	U+301D U+02EE	reversed double prime quotation mark and variants	"
¬	U+00AC	logical negation	-
«	U+00AB	left-pointing double angle quotation mark	"
»	U+00BB	right-pointing double angle quotation mark	"
❝ or ❛	U+275D U+275B	heavy double/single turned comma quotation mark ornament	"
❞ or ❜	U+275E U+275C	heavy double/single comma quotation mark ornament	"
÷	U+00F7	division sign	/
¼, ½	U+00BC U+00BD U+00BE	vulgar fractions and variants	1/4, 1/2 etc.
•	U+2022	bullet point	-
⊛, ✢, ✣, ✤, ✥, ✺, ❃, ⧆ etc	U+204E U+2217 U+229B U+2722 U+2723 U+2724 U+2725 U+2731 U+2732 U+2733 U+273A U+273B U+273C U+273D U+2743 U+2749 U+274A U+274B U+29C6 U+FE61 U+FF0A	asterisk and variants	*

Trailing white spaces in variables

Note that the content within your variables should not start nor end with a space, as this will trigger an error where your message will not be created (400 Bad Request).

eg. "Please report to Clinic A ."

In this example, contents in the variable are coloured, and the trailing spaces at the start/end of the variable content are highlighted in blue. The additional spaces will trigger an error where your message will not be created in Postman.