Developing USSD apps: Airtel Mobile money USSD app

NB: You can now read this post at my new site

I have just thought of this app right now because my MTN phone is out of battery otherwise we would have used the MTN mobile money app which is more popular in Uganda. Since I need to be navigating the menu as am developing the app, I will use my Airtel line.

If you are in Uganda, dial *185# on your Airtel line to follow along.

Developing USSD apps: ussdmenuserver-2.0.jar

NB: You can now read this post at my new site

Hey there, hope your Friday is good. Just as promised in the last post, today we shall navigate a very useful library for you who desires to build meaningful USSD apps.

ussdmenuserver.jar

After developing about 2 non-trivial USSD apps, I got a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of repetitive code I needed to write.

Repetitive code should be abstracted, and that's how I came up with ussdmenuserver.jar, yeah i built it, now go buy me a beer (it's Friday remember!!!)

Developing USSD apps: Test App

Developing ussd apps: test app

In this tutorial, we shall develop a basic USSD test app and dial it from mchoice-simulator.

My assumptions

• you have read the last 2 posts and have a firm background about how USSD apps work.

• you have downloaded mchoice-simulator,  run it and been able to access it's web GUI from the browser.
• you are using java programming language.  

Developing USSD apps: simulation

Developing ussd apps: simulation

What does it take to develop a USSD app???

• Are you already a developer??? 

• Do you have experience in developing and deploying web services to any web or application server
• Are you comfortable with string manipulation and programmatically dealing with URLs???

Introduction to USSD

What is USSD?

USSD in full is Unstructured Supplementary Services Data.

USSD survey- an example of a USSD app UI