Notifier

HTTP API that receives the event and turning that event into corresponding notification.

API

The entry point of application responsible for initializing the notifier.

var notifier = require('./source/notifier');

notifier.start(5050);

To initialize the notifier you should create 3 entities - actions, resolvers and executors.

Receiving event

notifier exposes .receive() call to initialize particular action. The action callback is called then server receives event with defined type.

notifier.receive('user-registered', function (event, actions, callback) {
	actions.create('send-welcome-email', {user: event.user}, callback);
});

You can define as many actions as you need for same event.

notifier.receive('user-payment-recieved', function (event, actions, callback) {
	actions.create('send-invoice-email', {user: event.user, payment: event.amount}, callback);
});

notifier.receive('user-payment-recieved', function (event, actions, callback) {
	actions.create('notify-developers-sms', {user: event.user}, callback);
});

Resolving action

To resolve an action, notifier should define resolved. Usually resolve calls database or other service for additional data.

notifier.resolve('user-registered', function (action, actions, callback) {
	db.user.findOne({email: action.email}, function (err, user) {
		if (err) {
			return callback(err);
		}

		var data = {
			email: user.email,
			firstName: user.firstName,
			secondName: user.secondName,
			registered: user.registered
		};

		actions.resolved(action, data, callback);
	});
});

Note, there should be only one resolve function for action, otherwise the exception is thrown.

Skipping action

For any reason, action could be skipped, means that it could be resolved but will not be executed.

notifier.resolve('user-registered', function (action, actions, callback) {
	db.user.findOne({email: action.email}, function (err, user) {
		if (err) {
			return callback(err);
		}

		if (user.email === 'test@example.com') {
			return actions.skipped(action, callback);
		}

		actions.resolved(action, {data: 123}, callback);
	});
});

Executing action

Once action got resolve, it's ready to be executed.

notifier.execute('user-registered', function (action, transport, callback) {
		var vars = [
			{name: 'FIRST_NAME', content: action.data.firstName}
			{name: 'SECOND_NAME', content: action.data.secondName}
			{name: 'REGISTERED_DATE', content: action.data.registered}
		];

		transport.mandrill('/messages/send-template', {
			template_name: 'welcome-email',
			template_content: [],

			message: {
				to: [{email: user.email}],
				global_merge_vars: vars
			}
		}, callback);
});

Events aggregation

TDB.

Transports

Each .execute() function callback receives transport object, which exposes intialized transports clients libraries.

Supported now:

• Mandrill
• Twilio
• Android push notification
• iOS push notification

Will be added soon:

• Mailgun

If you want to extend transport support:

1. Fork this repo
2. Update transport.js
3. Update config/*.js files with new transport section.
4. Send PR.

If you want to use notifier with an existing DB, you'll probably want keep your schema going. Since notifier can't know your DB collection names beforehand, you can manually specify aliases for them. Just add an aliases object under the db object in your config files.

db: {
	connection: /*...your db connection string...*/,
	aliases: {
			user: "players",
	}
}

This will make db.user actually end up using the players collection when querying the DB.

REST Hooks

When notifier completed execution and you want to notify external service about it, use REST hooks. Let's say we want to notify external service that push notification failed for some reason, for that purpose we use notifier.sendHook(event,data)

 transport.android.push({ message: message, regIds: regIds, retries: 1}, function (err, result) {
	if (err || result.failure === 1) {
		var data = {
			clientId: a.data.clientId,
			message: message,
			status: result.success
		};

		notifier.sendHook('notify.sms', data);
	}

	return callback(err, result);
});

Note, that you have to setup config with hook configuration, namely:

hook: {
	url: 'http://localhost:5000/api/notify/',
	token: 'fake-hook-token'
},

where url is url of your external system that you'd like to notify and token is simply authentication mechanism to be able to talk to our external system.

How to use?

Clone repo,

$ git clone git@github.com:likeastore/notifier.git

Create app.js file,

var notifier = require('./source/notifier');

// initialize actions, resolvers and executors
notifier
	.receive('incoming-event', function () { /* ... */ })
	.resolve('created-action', function () { /* ... */ })
	.execute('created-action', function () { /* ... */ });

// start the server
notifier.start(process.env.PORT);

Update development.config.js and production.config.js configuration. For now, configuration requires connection string to MongoDB, accessToken (shared secret) to access service, mandrill and logentries tokens.

Commit the changes and deploy (heroku, dokku, aws).

$ git push master heroku

Check the server deployed fine,

$ curl http://notifier.likeastore.com/
{"app":"notifier","env":"production","version":"0.0.5","apiUrl":"/api"}%

Send first notification,

$ echo '{"event": "incoming-event"}' | curl -H "Content-Type:application/json" -d @- http://notifier.likeastore.com/api/events?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN

Getting started

Check the following code for guidance.

• example/server.js with ready to use notifier server.
• production version of notifier used by Likeastore

Used by

• Likeastore
• DemocracyOS
• Tapreserve

(if you are one of the user, please send a PR to extend the list)

License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014, Likeastore.com info@likeastore.com

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.