Building and Testing USSD and SMS Applications

Course Curriculum

Chapter 1: Course Introduction

Lecture 1: USSD and SMS course preview

Lecture 2: USSD and SMS course outline

Lecture 3: Skills and tools

Lecture 4: Which programming language do you need

Chapter 2: Introduction to USSD and SMS Applications

Lecture 1: Chapter 2 outline

Lecture 2: USSD Handling or signaling

Lecture 3: What is USSD, why USSD, USSD and SMS compared

Lecture 4: Types of SMS

Lecture 5: Options available to building USSD application

Lecture 6: Length of USSD sessions

Lecture 7: Benefits and Drawbacks of USSD Applications

Lecture 8: Uses or Applications of USSD Apps

Lecture 9: The Applications we Will Build in this Course – Mobile Money App

Chapter 3: Introduction to PHP programming language and HTTP protocol

Lecture 1: Chapter 3 preview

Lecture 2: Setting up Apache webserver and MySQL DBMS using XAMPP

Lecture 3: Setting up Postman

Lecture 4: PHP variables and data types

Lecture 5: PHP functions

Lecture 6: PHP functions – substr

Lecture 7: PHP functions – str_replace

Lecture 8: PHP functions – explode

Lecture 9: PHP functions – array_shift

Lecture 10: PHP functions – count

Lecture 11: PHP functions – array_slice

Lecture 12: PHP functions – array_merge

Lecture 13: PHP functions – join

Lecture 14: PHP functions – array_search

Lecture 15: PHP functions – unset

Lecture 16: PHP functions – array_splice

Lecture 17: PHP POST and GET HTTP methods

Lecture 18: Object Oriented Programming PHP (classes, objects member variables) – Part 1

Lecture 19: Object Oriented Programming PHP (classes, objects member variables) – Part 2

Lecture 20: PHP, PDO and MySQL Database – Connecting to database and handling Transactions

Lecture 21: PHP’s hashing API – password hash and password verify

Lecture 22: Understanding HTTP protocol structure

Chapter 4: Building and Testing USSD Application Menu

Lecture 1: Building and testing USSD menus chapter preview

Lecture 2: Factors to consider when choosing USSD gateway aggregator

Lecture 3: The Application USSD Menu

Lecture 4: Designing our Application Database – Part 1

Lecture 5: Designing our Application Database – Part 2

Lecture 6: Two ways of consuming an API

Lecture 7: Setting up in Ngrok

Lecture 8: Exploring USSD aggregator

Lecture 9: Creating the entry point to our USSD and SMS application

Lecture 10: Creating a USSD service code and adding a callback URL

Lecture 11: Testing your first USSD application

Lecture 12: Understanding the source code for your first USSD application

Lecture 13: How to track your USSD sessions and session errors

Lecture 14: Restructuring app entry point file and the Menu class

Lecture 15: Adding the USSD main menu

Lecture 16: Completing the logic for the application entry point file

Lecture 17: Completing the USSD register menu

Lecture 18: Testing the USSD register menu

Lecture 19: Adding a constants file – util.php file

Lecture 20: Completing send money menu

Lecture 21: Testing the send money menu

Lecture 22: Completing the withdraw money menu

Lecture 23: Testing the USSD withdraw menu

Lecture 24: Completing the check balance menu

Lecture 25: Testing the USSD check balance menu

Lecture 26: Testing USSD menus using Postman

Lecture 27: Designing ‘Go back’ and go to ‘Main menu’ USSD navigation

Lecture 28: Completing the ‘Main menu’ USSD menu

Lecture 29: Completing the ‘Go back’ USSD menu

Lecture 30: Testing the ‘Go back’ and ‘Main menu’ on Postman

Lecture 31: You can use Finite state Machine to create the menu

Chapter 5: Linking application functionality or logic to USSD Menus

Lecture 1: Linking application Logic to USSD menu chapter preview

Lecture 2: Establishing a database connection

Lecture 3: Designing the User class

Lecture 4: Completing the register user logic

Lecture 5: Wiring user registration logic to USSD menu

Lecture 6: Testing user registration from end to end

Lecture 7: Handling invalid menus instead of ending user session

Lecture 8: Replay USSD menu for invalid menu option

Lecture 9: Persisting user invalid menu option in a database

Lecture 10: Removing invalid menu options from user USSD string

Lecture 11: Testing the invalid menu option functionality

Lecture 12: Other locations where you will handle invalid input menu

Lecture 13: Completing check user wallet balance and user PIN correctness

Lecture 14: You can store invalid menu options in in-memory databases such as Redis instead

Lecture 15: Adding country code to user receiver phone number

Lecture 16: The structure of the Transactions class

Lecture 17: Send money logic

Lecture 18: Wiring send money logic to send money menu

Lecture 19: Removing a runtime syntax error in our code

Lecture 20: Testing send money feature from end-to-end

Lecture 21: Wiring check balance logic with check balance menu

Lecture 22: Test the check balance feature

Lecture 23: How do we withdraw cash

Lecture 24: Structure of the Agent class

Lecture 25: Completing withdraw cash logic

Lecture 26: Wiring withdraw cash logic to withdraw cash menu

Lecture 27: Testing the withdraw feature

Lecture 28: Testing the working application with simulator instead of Postman

Lecture 29: Receiving USSD notifications in your server