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Ben ShortSoftware Engineer
I left school and went to work for a company that supplied and fitted environmental control systems for poultry houses. While working for this company I did day release and gained an ONC in Electrical Engineering. I then moved to an EMC test house where I worked in the newly acquired Calibration division that was based in Hampshire. I continued my day release and gained a HNC in Electronic Engineering. For my second year HNC project I programmed an automated test suite that used several pieces of test equipment hooked up to a pc and was driven via a VB application. While in Kent one weekend I saw a job advert in the local paper saying 'Dull job by day, programmer by night?' I applied and got a job at Nexus Alpha. While working for Nexus Alpha I have been involved in improving the Fax Gateway, building the SMS Gateway, new features and bug fixes for Tyrell 3, the GPRS IDU solution and Nexus Alphas build system. |  |
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Getting Alerts
For TOCs who have extended JourneyCheck to include JourneyCheck Alerts functionality, you can setup a number of alerts and receive them either by email or SMS. For this you specify when you want to receive the alerts, a time range in which you usually catch your train and a route your train goes. You can also receive updates either by email or SMS after your initial alert. For example you might receive an initial email alert at the office and decide to receive SMS updates after you leave the office and catch your train. All alerts can be disabled for a period, for example if the user goes on holidays.
An email alert is sent out even where there are no incidents but SMS alerts are only sent out when incidents occur.
The TOC can decide to pay for the SMSes or can use reverse billed SMSes and get the user to pay for them.
The number of SMS alerts per user and the number of updates can be set or turned off.
When SMS messages are sent out, they use the standard Rail Industry CRS codes as station abbreviations. These can be viewed here.
Collecting Marketing Information
On the registration form you can specify custom marketing fields that you want to collect from users. The user’s information and the marketing information can be automatically exported to a CRM system on a regular basis.
Trying It Out
You can try out the alerting service on First ScotRail's site - and click on the "Journey Alert" image.