SMPP Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement (PICS)
The information supplied after completing the SMPP PICS questionnaire gives a concise and standard description of which sections of the SMPP protocol an implementation supports. The SMPP PICS proforma provided is for v3.4, however vendors should update the proforma to make it relevant to the version of SMPP they support. Vendors and service providers, including providers of SMSCs, SMS gateways and any application, library or API with an implementation of SMPP, should provide a PICS covering their level of support for SMPP.
The first part of the PICS proforma the 'Implementation Identification' (section 3) is to be completed as indicated with the information necessary to identify both the vendor and the implementation.
The main part of the PICS proforma (sections 4 and 5) are a fixed format questionnaire divided into several major subclasses; these are then divided into further detail to the specific questions. Answers to the questionnaire are to be provided in the rightmost column, either by simply marking an answer to indicate a restricted choice (usually YES or NO) or by entering a value or a range of values.
Each item is identified by a unique item reference in the first column. The second column contains the question to be answered. The third column contains the reference or references to the SMPP v3.4 protocol Specification. Optionally there is another column, and this contains a cross-reference to another table which must be completed if the response to this answer is YES.
The last section in the PICS proforma (section 6) contains questions which are related to the implementation of the protocol but are not directly referenced in the SMPP v3.4 protocol Specification. These are formatted in the same manner as the standard questionnaire as described previously.
A vendor may also provide further information, categorised as either Additional Information or Exception Information. Items of Additional Information allow a vendor to provide further information intended to assist in the interpretation of the PICS. Items of Exception Information allow a vendor to detail any restrictions that may exist with the answer they have supplied and provide a rationale to explain this behaviour, to assist in the understanding of the answer.
When present, each kind of information must be uniquely indexed and cross-referenced to the particular question or questions in the PICS proforma. The reference to either Additional Information or Exception Information must be added to the original answer in the questionnaire.
There are no other restrictions placed upon the format or presentation.
Where an implementation is capable of being configured in more than one way, a single PICS proforma to describe all such configurations is acceptable. However, the vendor has the choice of providing more than one PICS, each covering some subset of the implementation configuration capabilities, in cases where this makes for easier and cleaner presentation of the information.
