Using Dynamo to send WhatsApp messages (proof of concept)
Today a lot of companies and AEC professionals use cloud messengers and productivity tools to organize projects and enhance collaboration. Some of these tools have an API to interact with (Trello, Slack, Asana, for instance), making them suitable for instant information delivery. If you use one of the above mentioned tools, you're lucky! Dynamo community has already introduced a couple of packages that may streamline your data flow:
- DynAsana (free download @ dynamopackages.com)
- DynaSlack (free download @ dynamopackages.com)
- CONDUCTOR - Trello Tools for Builders (updated July 10, 2018:
buydownload for free @ provingground.io). Conductor is now free and open-source.
But what about WhatsApp? Unfortunately, it doesn't provide us with the official API, but it has a web version that recognizes special URLs. These URLs could be compiled inside Dynamo in appropriate format, and used to notify your teammates of some significant project issues!
Below you can see a proof of concept, that shows the link between your data (Revit + Dynamo) and WhatsApp:
The script compiles WhatsApp message from the input data that you choose. This data may be a simple text notification about model status, or an URL to an updated model, or something else:
While this is still a work-in-progress, and has some limitations due to the lack of the API, I plan to publish the custom node in the near future. Stay tuned...
Update (July 13, 2017):
Now that the package is live, you can download it here: WhatsApp Dynamo package is now available for download