Simona

Simple language used to specify when and to whom send notifications.

Purpose

For one side project (project management/IS/KB mix) I needed flexible but simple way to configure when should users get notifications for their tasks.

For example:

• Notify responsible user one week and 3 days before if task is not done yet.
• If task is one day delayed notify supervisor.
• If task is more than 3 days delayed notify all admins.

Than I can every night check all recent and future task, process these rules and send emails.

Examples

Notify responsible user one week before:

(1):[responsible];

If task is one day delayed notify supervisor:

(-1!):[supervisor];

If task is more than 3 days delayed notify all admins.:

(-3..!):@admins;

We can combine rules to create simple escalation scenarios:

(7):[responsible];
(1!):[responsible];
(-1..!):[responsible];
(-2!):[supervisor],@admins;
(-3!):tom@example.org;

Lines not starting with ( and space after trailing ; can be used for comments.

(7):[responsible];
(1!):[responsible];
(-1..!):[responsible];      keep bugging him :)
(-2!):[supervisor],@admins; 

Tom from example corp. wants to know about it since 2017-01. Adam.
(-3!):tom@example.org;

Rule elements

1. time window definition
2. ! send notifications only if task is unsolved
3. : separator
4. list of recipients separated by , for my usage i decided to go with
   • specific email dan@example.org
   • relation to task [responsible]
   • user group @itdept
   • other plain_string (not used)
5. trailing ;

Each rule should be on separate line.

Interval specification

For definition of days for notification Simone uses days count to task date:

                     
                    Day of task
        ...3  2  1  0 -1 -2 -3 -4...
--------------------|--------------------time-->
                                         
(..!)   ...X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X        every day until done
(2..-1)       X  X  X  X
(0..!)              X  X  X...           until done
(3)        X                             once

Negative numbers means task should be done in histoy.

Errors

If line starts with ( it is considered rule and invalid rules, should be reported to user. Every other line is ignored in processing.

PHP Usage

Basic usage

$rc = new RulesCollection();
$rc->parse('(1):a;');
$rc->whoToNotify(1, false); // $daysToTask, $isTaskCompleted?

// returns ['a']

Usage with recipient types

$rc = new RulesCollection();
$rc->parse('(1):[a],@allUsers;');
$rc->setRecipientReducer(['\JanDanielCz\Simona\RecipientUtils','groupRelMailPlainReducer']);
$rc->whoToNotify(1, false); // $daysToTask, $isTaskCompleted?

/* 
returns [
    'group' => ['allUsers'],
    'rel' => ['a'],
    'mail' => [],
    'plain' => []
    ];
*/

You can create your own reducer to sort recipients and introduce any special recipients syntax.

Limitations

Spaces inside recipient definition are removed before parsing by preg_replace('/\s+/', '', $string) pull request with better regex is welcomed.