Notifications

Space Works tells people when something happens: a borrow request arrives, a booking is confirmed, a machine needs maintenance, a payment is received. Each makerspace decides which events go to which channels and who receives them. Chat credentials belong to the makerspace, are stored encrypted with API_CLIENT_ENC_KEY, and are write-only once saved.

Channels

Channel	Module	What you configure
In-app inbox	`notifications`	Nothing. Staff inboxes work once the module is on.
Email	`email`	SMTP, see Email.
Telegram	`telegram`	A bot token and a group chat ID.
Slack	`slack`	An incoming-webhook URL.
Mattermost	`mattermost`	An incoming-webhook URL.
Discord	`discord`	A channel webhook URL.
Signed webhook	`webhook`	An HTTPS endpoint of yours and a signing secret. See Webhooks.
Mobile push	the `mobile.push` feature	Platform push credentials (FCM and APNs) in `/control/`, plus the mobile apps.

Each channel is its own module, so a makerspace that lives in Discord ships no Slack screens. Turning a module on never makes a channel start sending by itself: you still add the credential and tick the events you want. Turning it off stops delivery but keeps the stored credential, so turning it back on needs no re-entry. To destroy a channel’s stored secrets, purge the module’s data (see Modules).

Telegram is outbound only. Messages are posted to your group; there are no buttons, and accepting or rejecting requests always happens in the staff console.

In Telegram, talk to @BotFather, create a bot and copy its token.
Add the bot to your staff group.
Find the group’s chat ID (group IDs are negative numbers, for example -1001234567890). One way is to send a message in the group and read chat.id from https://api.telegram.org/bot<your-token>/getUpdates.
In the staff console, open Admin → API access → Integration settings and enter the Telegram group chat ID and Telegram bot token. Save.
Click Send Telegram test alert.

Each makerspace posts as one bot. To post to several groups, add rooms (below) and add the same bot to each group; do not create a second bot.

A deployment-wide fallback bot can be set with TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN; it is used by makerspaces that have no token of their own. In the bundled Docker stack this variable is not passed to the backend by default (see Environment variables), so prefer the per-makerspace token.

The Telegram webhook

You do not need to register a webhook with Telegram. Older versions used one for request buttons; the route POST /api/v1/integrations/telegram/webhook still exists so an already-registered webhook does not error. It acknowledges every update and takes no action. It answers 403 unless TELEGRAM_WEBHOOK_SECRET is set and Telegram sends the same value in its secret-token header. If you registered a webhook in the past, you can remove it with Telegram’s deleteWebhook.

Slack, Mattermost and Discord

Create an incoming webhook in Slack or Mattermost, or a channel webhook in Discord, and copy its URL.
Make sure the matching module is on for the makerspace.
Paste the URL under Admin → Settings → Chat webhooks.

Long messages are trimmed to each service’s limit (Telegram 4,096 characters, Discord 2,000, Mattermost 16,383, Slack 40,000) rather than rejected.

Rooms

A room is one destination: a Slack channel, a Discord channel, a Telegram group or a signed webhook. Add rooms under Admin → Settings → Notification channels → Rooms.

A room with no selection receives everything for its channel. Narrow a room to particular machines, machine types or inventory categories and it receives only those alerts.
Telegram rooms take only a chat ID; they all use the makerspace’s bot.
A makerspace with no rooms keeps using the single webhook or chat ID above.
Chat rooms only ever receive the staff wording of a message. Member-facing text goes to email, the member’s inbox or their phone, never to a shared room.

The event and channel matrix

Admin → Settings → Notification channels shows a grid: one row per feature, one column per channel that the makerspace has turned on. Tick a cell to send that feature’s events on that channel. A channel whose module is off is hidden rather than shown disabled.

Default cells for a new makerspace:

Feature	On by default
Hardware requests	Email, Telegram
Printing	Email
Bookings	Email, Telegram, Inbox
API access	Email, Telegram, Inbox
Events, maintenance, members, devices, payments, stock and procurement, certifications	Inbox only

Slack, Mattermost, Discord, signed webhooks and mobile push are always opt-in. For payments, the payer’s own receipt email is sent unless you switch the payments email cell off.

Who receives what

By default an alert goes to everyone whose role covers it, so a booking alert reaches whoever can manage bookings. Under Notification channels → Who gets notified you can choose recipients per event for events, bookings, maintenance and members:

Recipient	Means
A role	Everyone currently holding that role
A named member	One person, who must belong to this makerspace
All members	The whole membership
The person it is about	The requester, booker or registrant

Removing every recipient restores the role-based default; it never means “nobody”. Recipients can be narrowed by machine or category, and narrowing only ever reduces who is told. A person who switched their own notifications off is never mailed, even when selected.

Member inbox and preferences

Two makerspace features, both off by default:

Member inbox (notifications.member_inbox) gives members a personal inbox for messages about their own requests, bookings and payments.
Member communication preferences (notifications.member_preferences) lets members mute optional message families per channel. Safety mail (password reset, verification, overdue return reminders) always goes out.

Reminders

Reminder	How it runs
Overdue returns	The beat scheduler checks every hour. Without a scheduler, run `manage.py send_return_reminders` from cron every 15 to 60 minutes, or call the cron endpoint protected by `CRON_SECRET`.
Event and booking reminders	Lead times are set per makerspace.
Payment due and overdue	The Payment reminders feature (`billing.reminders`), see Payments.
Maintenance and certification expiry	The `maintenance.reminders` and `machines.certification_reminders` features.

The shared reminder sweep runs every five minutes. Each makerspace also has a timing policy with quiet hours (22:00 to 08:00 by default) and a daily digest time (08:00), readable and editable at /api/v1/integrations/makerspace/<id>/timing-policy.

Checking delivery

Admin → Delivery logs lists every email and chat delivery with its status, lets you retry failures and send a test to yourself or to a selected room.
Admin → Settings → Integration health reports each room: whether a credential is stored, when it last delivered, and its last error. A revoked webhook first shows up here.
Rows for a channel whose module is off are recorded as skipped, not failed.

On hosting platforms, each channel also has a daily fair-use limit per makerspace.

Email
Webhooks: the signed JSON format
Monitoring: delivery counts in metrics