Additional 3 - Notification & Reminder System Design

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Following on from last work on the Booking & Reservation system, my focus this week was on designing the Notification & Reminder System. Its purpose is to keep users informed about their bookings, reduce no-shows, and strengthen trust within the FoodNextDoor platform.


The Need for a Notification System


According to our previous feasibility study, making sure that reserved items are picked up on time is one of the difficulties in community food redistribution. Food can spoil or other users might miss out if reminders aren't given. Notifications offer an organized method for:

Confirm successful reservations.

Inform users of the due dates for pickup.

Notify donors if any items are not picked up.

This directly advances our project's objectives of efficiency and fairness.


My Contribution to the Design


This week, I contributed by designing the notification workflow and researching the most suitable delivery technologies:

Booking confirmation notification – sent immediately after the donor approves a reservation.

Pickup reminder – triggered automatically 30 minutes before the pickup window expires.

Expiry/cancellation alert – sent if the user does not collect the item within the allowed timeframe.


To show these steps and how they work with the booking system, I made a workflow diagram, which you can see below.


Technical Considerations

To implement this system, I researched possible technical solutions:

  • Push Notifications: using Firebase Cloud Messaging for app-based alerts (Firebase, 2025).

  • SMS Notifications: using Twilio SMS API  (Twilio, 2025).

  • Email Notifications: using SendGrid for confirmation emails (SendGrid, 2025).

I also drafted the required database structure:

  • NotificationID – unique identifier.

  • UserID – links notification to recipient.

  • Type – booking confirmation, reminder, or expiry.

  • Status – sent, pending, or failed.

  • Timestamp – date/time of notification.

This ensures notifications can be tracked, audited, and resent if needed.


References

Jaller, M. & Holguín-Veras, J. (2020) Integrating food rescue into food distribution systems: logistics and policy insights.(PDF report) Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 136, pp. 101–118.


Firebase (2025) Firebase Cloud Messaging documentation.(Online) Firebase https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging


SendGrid (2025) Email API documentation. (online)

Send grid  https://www.twilio.com/docs/sendgrid/for-developers/sending-email/api-getting-started






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