IMFestival SMS Dashboard

A web-based SMS notification system for managing festival attendees and delivering workshop reminders via Clickatell.

Architecture

Three Docker services work together:

Service	Tech	Role
db	MariaDB 11	Persistent storage for attendees, templates, schedules, and delivery logs
web	PHP 8.3 + Apache	Dashboard UI and REST API
worker	Python 3 + Flask	SMS dispatch service; polls for due scheduled rules every 60 s

Features

• CSV import — upload an attendee export from splash; the importer auto-detects common column names for first name, last name, email, and mobile number
• Workshop sessions — attendees are linked to named sessions with a start time, enabling per-workshop targeting
• SMS templates — reusable message bodies (≤ 160 chars) with {name}, {workshop}, and {workshop_time} placeholders
• Scheduled texts — rules fire relative to a workshop start time (e.g. 30 minutes before) or at a specific datetime
• Send now — dispatch immediately to all attendees or a single workshop group
• Delivery log — per-recipient status tracking (sent / failed)
• Sandbox mode — tag sends as tests so they are excluded from sent stats or cost calculations without disabling the API
• Admin panel — configure the Clickatell API key, cost-per-SMS, and sender ID through the UI

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose

1. Create a .env file

Create a .env file in the project root. All three services read from it.

# MariaDB
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=changeme
MYSQL_DATABASE=imf_sms
MYSQL_USER=imf_user
MYSQL_PASSWORD=changeme
MYSQL_HOST=db

# Optional — defaults to Europe/London
TZ=Europe/London

2. Start the stack

docker compose up --build

The dashboard will be available at http://localhost:8000.

3. Configure Clickatell

Open Admin in the dashboard and enter your Clickatell API key. You can also set a cost-per-SMS and a default sender ID here.

4. Import attendees

Go to Attendees and upload a CSV export from your event management tool. The required columns are first_name (or First Name), last_name, and mobile_number (or Custom: Mobile number). email and workshop session columns are optional but recommended.

CSV column mapping

The importer accepts comma- or tab-separated files and recognises these column names (case-insensitive):

Field	Accepted column names
First name	first name, first_name, firstname, first
Last name	last name, last_name, lastname, last
Mobile	custom: mobile number, mobile_number, mobile number, mobile, phone, telephone, cell
Email	email
Workshop	custom: please pick one workshop… (and similar variants)

SMS placeholders

Placeholder	Replaced with
{name}	Recipient's first name
{workshop}	Workshop name
{workshop_time}	Workshop start time

The character counter in the template editor calculates length against the longest possible substitution so the 160-character limit is never misrepresented.