About Iris

Iris was designed and developed by a number of people from Open Lab at Newcastle University and Open Lab: Athens. For more information about the people that took part in this check the team page.

Iris, is a system that allows sending SMS text messages to a list of subscribers through SMS donors. People supporting your organisation, group or case can sign up to become 'donors' and donate a number of SMS messages for your cause. Everytime that you need to send a text to a list of subscribers (e.g. volunteers, staff, followers etc.) you share the cost of the text messages sent. As a result, the communication of the organisation becomes more transparent and decentralised. Donors, through the Iris app, are able to see the content of the announcements sent, the subscription lists and sending and delivery reports.

Check the graphs below to better understand how Iris works. If you have any problems please contact us at info@olathens.com


Create an organisation or group

1.

Use the Iris app an fill some basic details for your organisation or group

2.

Type in your phone number which is used for the app to automically verify that you are its owner

3.

Add your subscribers and potential donors by typing or uploading their phone numbers

4.

Your subscribers receive a text message notification and a link inviting them to become donors for your organisation or group

5.

Type your text message, choose a list of subscribed users and hit send. The SMS message will be send through your list of donors

Figure 1: Representation of steps needed for creating an organisation and adding subscribers


Send a message

1.

Use the Iris app, type a text message and choose a list of subscribers

2.

The message is sent through a data connection to the list of donors for your organisation

3.

A donor receives the message and if they haven’t reached their monthly limit of donatedmessages the app sends the message as SMS to a set number of subscribers

4.

The list of subscribers receive the text message as SMS to their phones

Figure 2: Representation of steps followed to send a text message to a list of subscribers


Donate SMS

1.

Use the Iris app to type in your phone number. The number is used for the app to automically verify that you are its owner.

2.

Use the Iris app and search for an organisation or group that you want to support

3.

Set the number of SMS messages you want to donate to the selected organisation

4.

When the coordinators of the organisation(s) that you selected send announcements, all the donators' phone numbers will be used to send messages to subscribers (up to the set limits)

Figure 1: How to donate to an organisation