rcj-notification-bot

Purpose and goal

• send information to teams, coaches, visitors
• notify teams shortly before their run starts
• notify teams, coaches and visitors about delays
• show only relevant information of schedule
• easy and direct contact to teams to avoid questions and crowds around competition area / entry

Application

• Native App, Website, PWA
• Messenger Bot
  • one bot for many messengers (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, ...) via Matrix
  • why?
    • requires no additional installation (in contrast to native app; assuming everyone uses some kind of messenger)
    • configure notifications easily (not necessary to allow certain permissions)
    • not much memory required, can also run easily in background (other apps might be killed to save power)
    • even if Telegram provides a good Bot API, most people use WhatsApp and they should not be forced to use a certain messenger (at least a few alternatives should be offered)
• users can subscribe to channels (e.g. general, rescue line entry, team xyz)
• team-level notifications when team before started

Architecture

• Bot
  • general bot manager + messenger specific bots to handle direct user interaction
  • bot manager implements actual logic (sending messages to all users, ...) and gets information from other services (see below)
  • specific implementations, e.g. TelegramBot and WhatsAppBot which handle messenger specific stuff (sending the message, receiving a message, ...); either direct API (e.g. Telegram) or via Matrix Bridge
  • provide information how many users subscribed a channel (e.g. show overview on an admin dashboard)
• Notifications
  • based on rcj-dss and schedule → send message to team when previous team started
  • Web App or similar for admins to send messages to certain channels
• Schedule
  • provides information about schedule (which team, what time, which arena)