(This documentation pertains to TMS v1.3 or higher)

Creating Rules

Before creating the rule, you should first figure out in your head what it is that you want to do. Remember that Text Message Secretary works by selecting Rule Match Conditions to match when a new text message is received and Rule Actions to be performed if all conditions are matched. So, before even creating the new rule, think about what match conditions you will pick and also what actions you will pick when creating your new rule.

Learning by example is usually a great way to do things, so let’s do just that, let’s create some rules…

Example Rule #1 : Ignoring/Blocking Someone

So, this a common case, you get a lot of messages from someone very annoying, and you just don’t feel like getting them anymore, so let’s create a rule to ignore them. The first thing to do is to think about what match condition(s) and what action(s) you will use, so let’s list them below:

Rule Match Condition : We will use the “Sender’s Name or Number” condition
Rule Action : We will use the “Delete Message” action

Ok, so let’s start:

1. Open Text Message Secretary

2. Select “Menu” and then “New Rule”

3. Type in a Rule Name (this can be anything you want, that helps you identify the Rule, for example “ignore stupid people”) and select Next

4. Here is where you select the Rule Match Condition you want, so let’s check the “Sender’s Name or Number” checkbox and select Next

a. The Contact Picker will pop up, here you can pick the person from your address book, Pick the contact

b. Note: If you don’t have the person on the address book just hit Cancel, you can manually type in their phone number on the next screen

c. The phone number is automatically populated, verify it is correct, clean it up if necessary (ie: remove things like country code) and press Next

5. Now we pick our Action, check the “Delete Message” checkbox and press Next

a. Since the “Delete Message” Action has no further parameters so you’re done

6. Verify your new rule shows up on the list, you can now exit TMS if you’d like

Note: Remember that you are still receiving the text message (even though you don’t see it) so regular SMS charges will still apply.

Example Rule #2 : On Vacation Auto-Reply and Forward

So, let’s say you go on vacation to Europe, and your phone doesn’t work over there because you have Sprint or Verizon, but you don’t want to miss your SMS messages. Well, so leave your phone at home, in the charger and turned on, and create the following rule below:

Rule Match Condition : We will use the “Match All Messages” condition because we want this to apply to all incoming SMS messages no matter what
Rule Action : We will actually use two actions here, the “Reply with another Message” action and also the “Forward via E-mail” action

here we go…

1. Open Text Message Secretary

2. Select “Menu” and then “New Rule”

3. Type in a Rule Name (ie: “vacation autoreply”) and select Next

4. Here is where you select the Rule Match Condition you want, so let’s check the “Match All Messages” checkbox and select Next

a. This will match every incoming message

5. Now we pick our Actions, check both the “Reply with another Message” checkbox and also the “Forward Message via E-Mail” and then press Next

a. Setup the Auto-Reply action by typing in the message to reply with, for example, type “Hi. I’m on vacation right now so I cannot receive your text message. Please e-mail me at myemail@msn.com instead” and press Next

b. Setup the Forward via E-mail action

i. Pick an Email Account to Use to send the message (note: You must have e-mail configured on your phone, on my phone I pick “Hotmail” since I have my MSN account setup)

ii. Type in the receipient E-mail address : in this case, you want to type your own email address here, such as myemail@msn.com

6. Verify your new rule shows up on the list, you can now exit TMS if you’d like

That’s it! Now go on vacation knowing you won’t miss any SMS messages, why? Because when anyone sends you a SMS, not only will they get an auto-reply letting them know you are on vacation, but also you can go to an internet café while abroad and check your email and guess what, all your SMS are being forward to your email address! The forwarded message will include the name and phone number of the sender, the time the message was received by your phone, and of course the message itself.

Example Rule #3 : Play a Custom SMS RingTone for your Best Friends

So, here is a very popular one, you want to play a custom ringtone for different people in your address book, whenever you receive a SMS from them. Ok, let’s create a rule for that. First, let me lay out some FAQs about custom ringtones.

- Windows phones work with WAV, WMA and MP3 files so you should be able to set pretty much anything you’d like as a ringtone for SMS.

- The FULL ringtone will play every time you get a new text message!!! It will only stop when either you pick up the phone and hit a key, another sound is played (ie: you get a phone call), or until the song ends.. so, beware of assigning music files as ringtones, this can be quite annoying to everyone else in the room, especially if you’re not there to pick up your phone ;)

With those things in mind, let’s do this!

1. Assign the “Best Friends” category to your best friends

This is completely separate than Text Message Secretary and can be accomplish in the following way:

1. Start Menu (top left)
2. Contacts
3. scroll down to the contact you want and hit it
4. press Menu -> Edit
   - you should see a ton of options, first one being "Name" then a ton of others like Company, Department, File As, Work tel, Work Fax, IM, e-mail, mobile tel, ring tone, web page, office loc, home tel, home addr, CATEGORIES, other addr, pager, car tel, home fax, company tel, work2 tel, home2 tel, ......., birthdate, anniversary, spouse, children. -- it's a lot of options as you can see
5. tap on Categories
   - a menu pops up listing all your current categories (or blank if you have none)
   - you can now hit "New", then type in the name of the Category you want, for example “Best Friends”
6. check that Category and save the contact
7. do the same for the other contacts

2. Download a Ringtone to use or use one that came with the phone

This also is completely separate than Text Message Secretary and can be done in many different ways, I’m not going go to into but here is one way:

1. Buy a ringtone online (or create one from your favorite mp3 song) and copy it to your storage card
2. Start Menu (top left)
3. scroll down to Tools, then File Explorer
3. Copy the ringtone from your storage card to “\My Documents\My Ringtones” and exit

3. Open Text Message Secretary

4. Select “Menu” and then “New Rule”

5. Type in a Rule Name (ie: “best friends ringtone”) and select Next

6. Here is where you select the Rule Match Condition you want, so let’s check the “Sender’s Category” checkbox and select Next

a. The Category Picker will pop up, here you can pick the Category you created in step 1 from this list

b. Select “Best Friends” and hit Pick Category

c. Confirm the Category Name is correct (it should always be) and hit Next

7. Now we pick our Action, check the “Play a custom SMS RingTone” checkbox and press Next

a. The Ring Tone Picker will pop up, here you can pick the ring tone you copied to “My Ringtones” on step #2 or pick one of the ones that came with your phone

b. For this example, just pick one that came with your phone, for example “Alert-Guitar2”

c. Confirm the ringtone selected, since we used the picker this should be already there for you so just hit next

i. Note: This is where an expert user would type in the location of their ringtone in case you don’t want to place it under “\My Documents\My Ringtones”, you can type any location, even storage card locations, you should specify the complete full path of the file

8. Verify your new rule shows up on the list, you can now exit TMS if you’d like

Now, whenever you best friends text you, your custom ringtone will play. Note also that you can assign or remove the “Best Friends” category like you did in step #1 to more contacts and TMS will pick up the changes without having to do anything else!

That’s it, there are many many more ways to use Text Message Secretary, from picking rules that reply with your GPS coordinates whenever someone texts you “where are you”, to rules that auto-reply that you’re sleeping if you get a message between 1am and 4am, to many others, so, go have fun!