Arduino with xbee shield + mDot

I want to use an arduino to connect to the conduit LoRa gateway, I have the xbee shield with the mDot,

before I can do anything, I want to make sure the mDot is communicating with arduino, but I dont have enough info to do this,

so, should the mdot just get and put messages using the “serial monitor” on the arduino?

I just have an empty hello script to test this…

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
 
}

then open the serial monitor and enter “+++” on the textField and then “send”…

will this be enough to test the modem?

are there any instructions on how to proceed with an arduino and xbee shield?

Thanks!