---

Multi-channel Laravel notification package

📝 Table of Contents

• About
• Getting Started
• Usage
• Built Using
• Authors

🧐 About

In Laravel, crafting notification classes can often feel repetitive (and WET), especially in projects that rely heavily on notifications. Also, our projects could sometimes feel tightly coupled to certain notification providers
in such a way that switching providers would require significant code changes, and moving of resources like templates from one platform to the other. These are the exact hassles that Raven could save you from. Raven:

• Simplifies sending diverse notification types via a single interface.
• Ensures your project is loosely coupled to notification providers, allowing you to switch providers with zero code changes when they no longer suit your needs.
• Allows you to seamlessly combine the best attributes of your favourite notification providers without any hassles. E.g Sendgrid dynamic template creation tool and Amazon SES servers.

Currently, Raven seamlessly handles email notifications through SendGrid and Amazon SES, SMS notifications through Vonage, as well as database/in-app notifications. More providers are gradually being integrated.

🏁 Getting Started

Prerequisites

To use this package, you need the following requirements:

1. PHP >= v8.0
2. Laravel >= v8.0
3. Composer

🎈 Usage

1. You can install this package via Composer using the command:

    composer require chijioke-ibekwe/raven

2. Next, you will need to publish and run the migration files, and the config file. The following command will allow you do all of the above:

   php artisan raven:install

3. The migrations will be published in your project's migrations directory ./database/migrations while the config file raven.php, will be published in your config directory ./config. The content of the config file is as shown below:

   <?php
   
   return [
   
       'default' => [
           'email' => env('EMAIL_NOTIFICATION_PROVIDER', 'sendgrid'),
           'sms' => env('SMS_NOTIFICATION_PROVIDER', 'vonage')
       ],
   
       'providers' => [
           'sendgrid' => [
               'key' => env('SENDGRID_API_KEY')
           ],
           'ses' => [
               'key' => env('AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'),
               'secret' => env('AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'),
               'region' => env('AWS_DEFAULT_REGION', 'us-east-1'),
               'template_source' => env('AWS_SES_TEMPLATE_SOURCE', 'sendgrid')
           ],
           'vonage' => [
               'api_key' => env('VONAGE_API_KEY'),
               'api_secret' => env('VONAGE_API_SECRET')
           ]
       ],
   
       'customizations' => [
           'mail' => [
               'from' => [
                   'address' => env('MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS', 'hello@example.com'),
                   'name' => env('MAIL_FROM_NAME', 'Example'),
               ]
           ],
           'sms' => [
               'from' => [
                   'name' => env('SMS_FROM_NAME', 'Example'),
               ]
           ],
           'queue_name' => env('RAVEN_QUEUE_NAME')
           'templates_directory' => env('TEMPLATES_DIRECTORY', resource_path('templates'))
       ],
   
       'api' => [
           'prefix' => 'api/v1',
           'middleware' => 'api'
       ]
   
   ];

   • The default array allows you to configure your default service providers for your notification channels. Options are sendgrid and ses for email, and vonage for SMS.
   • The providers array is where you supply the credentials for the service provider you choose. When using ses, you can provide the email template in 2 ways.
     • First is by hosting your email template on sendgrid. If this is your preferred option, the templates_source should be set as sendgrid. NB: For this to work, you need to also provide your credentials for the sendgrid provider.
     • Second option is by storing your email templates on the file system as .html templates. The templates_source in this case should be set as filesystem and the directory of the templates should be provided on the templates_directory under customizations. (This option is not currently supported for emails, but will be in the near future).
   • The customizations array allows you to customize your email parameters, optionally your queue_name (not queue connection) for queueing your notifications, and your templates directory. NB:
     • The default queue will be used if a queue name is not provided.
     • The default templates directory is a directory called templates in the resources path
     • The templates directory set, will contain three directories within: email (relevant only if your template source is filesystem and provider is ses), sms, and in_app.
     • The email directory will contain the .html templates for your emails.
     • The sms directory will contain the .txt files with the contents of your sms notifications.
     • The in_app directory will contain .json files whose contents will be saved on the data column of the database notifications table.
     • All placeholders in these templates should be surrounded by double curly braces e.g {{name}}.
     • File names of these templates must match the file names in the email_template_filename, sms_template_filename and in_app_template_filename columns on the notification context record.
   • The api array allows you to customize the provided API routes with prefix and middleware group.

4. After the migrations have been run successfully, you can then proceed to add notification contexts to the database. To do this, simply create and run migration files similar to the ones below:

   • Email Notification Context (when using sendgrid as provider or template source)

   <?php
   
   use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
   use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
   
   return new class extends Migration
   {
       /**
        * Run the migrations.
        */
       public function up(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->insert(
               array(
                   'name' => 'user-verified',
                   'email_template_id' => 'd-ad34ghAwe3mQRvb29',
                   'description' => 'Notification to inform a user that they have been verified on the platform',
                   'channels' => json_encode(['EMAIL'])
               )
           );
       }
   
       /**
        * Reverse the migrations.
        */
       public function down(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->where('name', 'user-verified')->delete();
       }
   };

   • Email Notification Context (when using ses as provider and filesystem as template source)

   <?php
   
   use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
   use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
   
   return new class extends Migration
   {
       /**
        * Run the migrations.
        */
       public function up(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->insert(
               array(
                   'name' => 'user-verified',
                   'email_template_filename' => 'user-verified.html',
                   'description' => 'Notification to inform a user that they have been verified on the platform',
                   'channels' => json_encode(['EMAIL'])
               )
           );
       }
   
       /**
        * Reverse the migrations.
        */
       public function down(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->where('name', 'user-verified')->delete();
       }
   };

   • SMS Notification Context

   <?php
   
   use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
   use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
   
   return new class extends Migration
   {
       /**
        * Run the migrations.
        */
       public function up(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->insert(
               array(
                   'name' => 'user-verified',
                   'sms_template_filename' => 'user-verified.txt',
                   'description' => 'Notification to inform a user that they have been verified on the platform',
                   'type' => 'user',
                   'channels' => json_encode(['SMS'])
               )
           );
       }
   
       /**
        * Reverse the migrations.
        */
       public function down(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->where('name', 'user-verified')->delete();
       }
   };

   user-verified.txt

   "Hello {{name}}. This is to let you know that your account with email {{email}} has been verified"
   

   • Database Notification Context

   <?php
   
   use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
   use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
   
   return new class extends Migration
   {
       /**
        * Run the migrations.
        */
       public function up(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->insert(
               array(
                   'name' => 'user-verified',
                   'description' => 'Notification to inform a user that they have been verified on the platform',
                   'in_app_template_filename' => 'user-verified.json',
                   'type' => 'user',
                   'channels' => json_encode(['DATABASE'])
               )
           );
       }
   
       /**
        * Reverse the migrations.
        */
       public function down(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->where('name', 'user-verified')->delete();
       }
   };

   user-verified.json

   {
       "title": "You have been verified",
       "body": "Hello {{name}}. This is to let you know that your account with email {{email}} has been verified"
   }

   • Email, SMS and Database Notification Context

   <?php
   
   use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
   use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
   
   return new class extends Migration
   {
       /**
        * Run the migrations.
        */
       public function up(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->insert(
               array(
                   'name' => 'user-verified',
                   'email_template_id' => 'd-ad34ghAwe3mQRvb29',
                   'description' => 'Notification to inform a user that they have been verified on the platform',
                   'sms_template_filename' => 'user-verified.txt',
                   'in_app_template_filename' => 'user-verified.json',
                   'type' => 'user',
                   'channels' => json_encode(['EMAIL', 'SMS', 'DATABASE'])
               )
           );
       }
   
       /**
        * Reverse the migrations.
        */
       public function down(): void
       {
           DB::table('notification_contexts')->where('name', 'user-verified')->delete();
       }
   };

5. To send a notification at any point in your code, build a Scroll object, set the relevant fields as shown below, and dispatch a Raven with the Scroll:

           $verified_user = User::find(1);
           $document_url = "https://example.com/laravel-cheatsheet.pdf";
   
           $scroll = new Scroll();
           $scroll->setContextName('user-verified');
           $scroll->setRecipients([$verified_user, 'admin@raven.com']);
           $scroll->setCcs(['john.doe@raven.com' => 'John Doe', 'jane.doe@raven.com' => 'Jane Doe']);
           $scroll->setParams([
               'id' => $verified_user->id,
               'name' => $verified_user->name,
               'email' => $verified_user->email
           ]);
           $scroll->setAttachmentUrls($document_url);
   
           Raven::dispatch($scroll);

   • The contextName property is required and must match the notification context name for that notification on the database.
   • The recipients property is required and takes any single notifiable/email string, or an array of notifiables/email strings that should receive the notification. For email notifications, your notifiable model is expected to have an email field. If the field is named something different on the model e.g email_address, you are required to provide the routeNotificationForMail method on the model, in a similar manner as below:

             use Illuminate\Notifications\Notifiable;
             use Illuminate\Foundation\Auth\User as Authenticatable;
         
             class User extends Authenticatable
             {
                 use Notifiable;
     
                 public function routeNotificationForMail()
                 {
                     return $this->email_address;
                 }
             }

     For SMS notifications, the notifiable is required to have a similar method on the notifiable model that matches the SMS provider name. For instance, if your SMS notification provider is vonage, you should have a method called routeNotificationForVonage on the notifiable, which returns the phone number field on the model.
   • The ccs property is exclusively for email notifications and takes an array (or associative array with email/name as key/value pairs respectively) of emails you want to CC on the email notification.
   • The params property is an associative array of all the variables that exist on the notification template with their values, where the key must match the variable name on the template.
   • Finally, the attachmentUrls field takes a url or an array of urls that point to the publicly accessible resource(s) that needs to be attached to the email notification.

6. To successfully send Database Notifications, it is assumed that the user of this package has already set up a notifications table in their project via the command below:

   php artisan notifications:table

   And subsequently:

   php artisan migrate

   The data column for database notifications using this package, will capture whatever key-value pairs you have in the json template for that notification. All placeholders surrounded by {{}} in the template will be replaced with their values passed in as params of the same name when creating the Scroll object.
   NB:
   On the notifications table migration file, ensure that the notifiable column data type matches the data type for your notifiable primary key.
   By default, the data type is morphs. However, if the primary key for your notifiable is a uuid or ulid, ensure you change the type to uuidMorphs or ulidMorphs respectively.

7. The package takes care of the rest of the logic.

API

The following API is included in this package for ease of use:

1. GET /api/v1/notification-contexts
   • Fetches all notification contexts on the database. The user of this API has to be authenticated.
   • Return a JSON of the format below:

    {
        "status": "success",
        "message": "Notification contexts retrieved successfully",
        "data": [
            {
                "id": 1,
                "created_at": "2024-10-18 14:25",
                "updated_at": "2024-10-18 14:25",
                "email_template_id": "d-ad34ghAwe3mQRvb29",
                "email_template_filename": null,
                "name": "user-verified",
                "description": "Notification to inform a user that they have been verified on the platform",
                "sms_template_filename": null,
                "in_app_template_filename": "user-verified.json",
                "type": "user",
                "active": true,
                "channels": [
                    "EMAIL",
                    "DATABASE"
                ]
            }
        ]
    }

   • When user is not authenticated, it returns the following 401 response:

   {
        "status": false,
        "message": "You are not authorized to access this API"
   }

Exceptions

The following exceptions can be thrown by the package for the scenarios outlined below:

1. RavenEntityNotFoundException code: 404
   • Dispatching a Raven with a Scroll object that has a contextName which does not exist on the database.
2. RavenInvalidDataException code: 422
   • Dispatching a Raven with a Scroll object without a contextName or recipient.
   • Attempting to send an Email Notification using a NotificationContext that has no email_template_id when your email provider or template source is sendgrid.
   • Attempting to send an Email Notification using a NotificationContext that has an invalid channel i.e a channel that isn't one of "EMAIL", "DATABASE", or "SMS".
   • Attempting to send an Email Notification using a NotificationContext that has no email_template_filename when your email provider is ses and template source is filesystem.
   • Attempting to send a Database Notification using a NotificationContext that has no in_app_template_filename.
   • Attempting to send an SMS Notification using a NotificationContext that has no sms_template_filename.
   • Attempting to send a Database Notification using a NotificationContext that has a non-existent template file that matches the in_app_template_filename in the in-app template directory.
   • Attempting to send an SMS Notification using a NotificationContext that has a non-existent template file that matches the sms_template_filename in the sms template directory.
   • Attempting to send an Email Notification to a notifiable that has no email field or a routeNotificationForMail() method in the model class.
   • Attempting to send an SMS Notification to a notifiable that has no routeNotificationFor$Provider() method in the model class.

⛏️ Built Using

• PHP - Language
• Orchestral Testbench - Library
• AWS PHP SDK - Library
• Sendgrid PHP Library - Library
• PHP Mailer - Library
• Vonage - Library

✍️ Authors

• @chijioke-ibekwe - Initial work