Technical Documentation: Messaging

Features

The Messaging Building Block currently offers the following capabilities:

• Multi-Channel Notifications
• Support for email as primary notification method.
• Under discussion is potential future support for postal notifications (collaborating with An Post, for example).
• Message Templates
• Create and manage reusable email and SMS templates.
• Interpolation placeholders for personalised messages (e.g., {{firstName}}).
• Support for multilingual templates (English and Irish).
• Recipient Management
• Search, add, and manage individual recipients.
• Bulk import recipients via CSV.
• Update recipient details directly from the UI.
• Scheduling Messages
• Send messages immediately or schedule for future delivery.
• Event and Delivery Logs
• Track message delivery statuses: Created, Scheduled, Delivering, Delivered, Seen, or Failed.
• View detailed message event logs with timestamped status updates.
• Search and filter logs for efficient monitoring.
• Secure Attachments
• Send encrypted attachments stored securely in AWS S3 (currently via API only)
• Customisable Messaging Providers
• Add and configure email and SMS providers (e.g., Outlook, Twilio - requires SMTP and SS7/IMS Network gateway providers)
• Set a primary communication channel for seamless delivery.
• Message Access and Navigation (Citizen User Experience)
• Secure login required to access messages (perhaps provide lower barrier to entry for non secure messages)
• Messaging page displays all messages sent to the user's account.
• User-friendly interface for filtering messages by status.
• No interaction or reply functionality available (Currently the service is read only - Government to Citizen comms).
• Opened/Read Messages remain available for historic reference.
• eBoks Digital Postbox replacement
• Features designed specifically to replace current digital postbox functionality
• API Proxy to enable message diversion/branching during deployment transition period

To be determined

• Support Markdown for richer message formatting
• SMS Notifications
• SMTP Gateway
• Send messages to other Public Servants
• Handling group messages
• Potential future support for postal notifications (collaborating with An Post for example)