Abstract
This project is a new feature request for the Apache Fineract CN. The SMS/Email Notifications service would be a microservice developed on Apache Fineract CN to enable MFI members to get notified on events occurring on their accounts.
There are arrays of events occurring in other microservices, therefore, there is a need to streamline these events and notify MFI members of significant events. This will impact the KYC of the organisation and the user experience.
This problem has led to the need for a microservice such as this one to be developed to enable MFI staff to select notifications which need to be sent or the member choose specific events during account creation.
Project Goals
Develop an SMS/Email notification mircroservice
Incorporate the microservice into a demo-server
Incorporate the Notification user interface into the fims-web-app
Includes an interface for microservice configuration
Includes an interface to select the frequency for members
Includes an interface to subscribe members to specific events
Proposed Solution
When an event occurs, the system knows the subscribers to notify and now the notification itself has to be generated. An event listener listening to the rest API controller event, will then create an instance of the corresponding mircroservice interact with it hence creating a notification
NB: each mircroservice will have a corresponding listener listening to it event emitters. For instance, AccountingListener, OrganisationListener etc
The notification service will start by creating a notification object for the event, the notification object will be persisted into the database and later added to a notification queue for processing.
The notifications are then mapped to the list of members who have to receive them (for instance a new client created event can send out a notification to the customer (customer), the manager of the office (staff) and anyone who needs to know of a new client account) and at this stage notification which do not have to be sent are discarded based the subscriber’s priority declarations.
The notification mappings are then persisted into the database and then queued into a notification-subscriber queue for processing
The notification-subscriber queue is taken and transmission begins.
To personalise the message, a subscriber’s prefered language and communication stated during account creation is used to localize and choose the gateway to use. For instance, if a customer indicates only SMS is sent through to their mobile and not the email. If both are indicated both SMS and email is used
A member who selected a communication channel during account creation has indicated consent to receive notifications hence we have to determine how often they will receive emails to avoid spamming them.
To determine how frequent a member gets a notification, the subscribers predefine notifications they would like to receive based on three priority categories (ie during account creation a user chooses a topic and assigns High, Medium and Low priority to it ). The system will also predefined default topics which have to go out eg: (Client created, Loan created, Account Created etc).
The messages are now formatted using a template associated with an event.
The prepared messages will be passed to the application containing email gateway such as google’s SMTP server or Twilio SMS to be transmitted. I propose that the systemallows multiple configurations to accommodate cases where the application supports multiple organisations who use different services.
Subsystems Breakdown
EventListener
An event listener will listen for EventEmitters generated. For instance, for a new client creation, the NotificationEventListener will capture the event emitted and generate the notification content
NotificationEventListener
Has microservice instance
Has a JmsListener to listen to the emitted event
Has an SMS gateway / EmailGateway Object
Creates a NotificationMapper
Creates a recipient and their notification
Localize the message using subscriber preference
Sends the email or SMS
Domain
This package will define the class for the entities in the problem domain.
Notification
States the Recipient
states the action
states the content
NotificationMapper
Takes topic mapping and map notifications to subscribers
NotificationMapperRepository
Accumulate NotificationMappings
Configuration
This will be used to configure the behaviour of the system. This will be used to help scale the transmission of notifications in a day where more notifications are going out. (for instance an organisation with multiple gateways can scale in high)
Also, in a case where the Application support multiple MFI each MFI can get their own notification
NotificationConfiguration
Has SMSConfiguration
Has EmailConfiguration
SMSConfiguration
Defines accountSID
Defines auth Id
EmailConfiguration
Defines and sets mail service host
Defines and sets mail service ports
Defines and sets authentication credentials
SMSService
Use the Twilio SMS service and google SMTP Server
Has Senders number
Has recipient number
Retrieves organisation’s SMS API configuration
Message content
EmailService
recipient addresses
Sender’s address
Authenticate email gateway
Mail content
This component will use the template component to form the message format. The template will abstract the various message formats. I believe using Apache Velocity to prepare default themes and allow the user to generate custom templates would be a good consideration. Also, given that Fineract CN and Velocity [ http://velocity.apache.org/ ] share the same license it will be easier to use them
Template
SMS templates
Email Templates
User Interface Mockup
Link to interactive wireframe
Configuration Section:
Event Listeners
This tentative document identifies and shortlists events which will be considered for the notification service. Under each microservice, is a list of events and each event will have a corresponding email and SMS message. Likewise, each event will have a default message and recipient associated with it.
Default Message: This is the default message which will be sent when that event occurs if no customized template has defined.
Default Recipient(s): This is the default recipient(s) who will receive the notification when the event occurs.
PS: The message samples listed are for demo purposes.
Identity Service: IdentityEventListener.java
Event: onCreateUser
Default Message:
Dear {{Name}},
This is to notify you that your account has been created.
Below are your MFI account details.
{{login address}}
{{password}}
Yours Sincerely
{{MFI}} team.
Default Recipient(s): Customer
Event: onChangeUserRole
Event: onChangeUserPassword
Event: onAuthentication
Office Service: OfficeEventListener.java
Event: onCreateEmployee
Default Message:
Dear {{Name}},
This is to notify you that you account has been created.
Below are your MFI account details.
{{login address}}
{{password}}
Use this link to login to your account.
{{endpoint}}
Yours Sincerely
{{MFI}} team.
Default Recipient(s): Staff member
Event: onUpdateEmployee
Event: onDeleteEmployee
Event: onSetContactDetail
Event: onDeleteContactDetail
Event: onCreateOffice
Event: onDeleteOffice
Event: onUpdateOffice
Customer Service:
Event: customerCreatedEvent()
Default Message:
Dear {{Customer Name}},
Your account with {{MFI}} has been successfully created at {{Office}}.
Thanks
Default Recipient(s): Customer
Event: customerUpdatedEvents
Event: customerActivatedEvent
Event: customerLockedEvent()
Event: customerUnlockedEvent()
Event: customerClosedEvent()
Event: customerReopenedEvent()
Event: addressChangedEvent()
Event: contactDetailsChangedEvent
[Suggestion]
Please share your opinion on whether a listener should be defined IdentificationCard and protrait related events. For instance identificationCardScanDeleteEvent or portraitPutEvent and portraitDeleteEvent
Accounting Service:
Event: onCreateAccount
Event: onChangeAccount
Event: onCloseAccount
Event: onLockAccount
Event: onUnlockAccount
Event: onReopenAccount
Event: onDeleteAccount
Portfolio Service:
Event: onDeny
Event: onApprove
Event: onDisburse
Event: onAcceptPayment
Event: onCheckLate
Event: onMarkLate
Event: onMarkInArrears
Event: onWriteOff
Event: onClose
Event: onRecover
Event: onCreateProduct
Event: onChangeProduct
Event: onDeleteProduct
Event: onEnableProduct
Event: onGroupCreated
Event: onGroupActivated
Event: onGroupUpdated
Deposit Service:
onAccrual
onDividendDistribution
Teller Service:
Event: onCreate
Event: onChange
Event: onOpen
Event: onClose
Event: onAuthenticate
Event: onPause
Event: confirmTransaction
Event: onDeleteTeller
Event: onSaveDenomination
Cheque Service:
Event: onIssueCheques
Event: onChequeTransaction
Event: onChequeApproved
Event: onChequeCanceled
Payroll Service:
Event: onPostCollection
Reporting Service:
No listener will be implemented for the reporting microservice on less stated otherwise.
Web Interface
An interface to configure SMS and email frequency
An interface to configure organisation(s) SMS API
An interface to configure organisation(s) Email Gateway
Database Structure
Entity 1: Subscriber
Id
communication_preference
language_preference
high_priorities
medium_priorities
low priorities
Entity 2: SMSConfigurations
Id
organisation
auth_token
accountid
option
Entity 3: EmailConfigurations
Id
organisation
auth_token
auth_secret
port
host
option