plantr

plantr Live Site

plantr is a MERN-stack single-page app which assists users with taking care of their houseplants. plantr supports a large variety of plants, providing users with helpful care information while also allowing watering notifications to be emailed to the user on the morning that each plant may require watering.

Technologies Used

Backend

• MongoDB/Mongoose
• Express
• Node.js

Frontend

• React/Redux
• HTML5
• CSS 3

User Authentication

• Core Functionality
  • Users are able to create a plantr account, which then allows them to sign in and sign out
  • A demo account is also available for browsing plantr as a guest
• Validations
  • Users are required to use a valid unique email address
  • Passwords must be at least 6 characters in length
  • Users are required to verify their password during account creation

Add plants to garden collection

• Users can select plants from the plantr database to add to their garden
• Plants can be given identifying nicknames by the user
• Automatic watering notifications are scheduled for each plant in a user's garden

OwnedPlant Joins Architecture

• An array is populated for the front end by querying for instances where ownedPlants.userId is equal to user.id in the ownedPlant document database

  // plantr/routes/api/ownedPlants.js
  
  router.get("/:userId", passport.authenticate('jwt', { session: false }),
      (req, res) => {
          OwnedPlant.find({userId: req.params.userId})
              .then(ownedPlants => {
                  res.json(ownedPlants);
              })
              .catch(err => {
                  res.status(404).json({ 
                      errMsg: "There was an issue retrieving your plants" 
                  })
              });
      }
  )

Scheduled Email Notifications

• Email Functionality

  • plantr watering notification emails are dispatched using the SendGrid API
  • An initial email is dispatched when the user adds a plant to their garden informing the user of the notifications being scheduled
  • Future notifications are emailed at a regular, plant-specific schedule until canceled by the user

• Scheduling Functionality

  • Basic cron-like job scheduling capability is provided by Node Schedule package

  // plantr/routes/api/notifications.js
  
  // Convert watering frequency to milliseconds, create future date object, and extract day of month
  let firstDate = new Date(Date.now() + (req.body.frequency * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
  firstDate = firstDate.getDate();
  
  // Reference for cron-style rules: '(minute) (hour) (day) (month) (day of week)'
  // It is important to note that cron-style scheduling using recurrence rules does NOT use a relative offset.
  // For example, '* * 5 * *' will create a recurrence only on the 5th of each month (Jan 5th, Feb 5th, etc)
  // as opposed to every 5 days. Even using the inherent recurrence functionality, such as '* * /5 * *', will
  // result in incorrectly scheduled jobs (Jan 5th, Jan 10th, Jan 15th)
  
  // Create first cron-style recurrence rule for 7:00 am on the calculated day of the month
  let rule = `* 7 ${firstDate} * *`;

  • Due to the limitations of cron-style scheduling, further logic was implemented to generate future events
    • Each time a scheduled job is initiated, all future scheduled occurrences are canceled and re-generated on-the-fly to maintain schedule accuracy

  // plantr/routes/api/notifications.js
  
  // Schedule first job using Node Schedule
  let job = schedule.scheduleJob(req.body.name, rule, function () {
    // All code inside this function is executed at the first scheduled notification date
  
    // To ensure proper notification frequency, a new future date is immediately calculated, as above
    let nextDate = new Date(Date.now() + (req.body.frequency * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
    nextDate = nextDate.getDate();
  
    // The next recurrence of this rule is rescheduled using the calculated nextDate
    schedule.scheduledJobs[req.body.name].reschedule(`* 7 ${nextDate} * *`);
  
    // Generate the content of the notification email
    const alertSubject = `Time to water your ${fullPlantName}!`;
    const alertContent = new helper.Content('text/html',
      `Howdy ${req.body.username}, it\'s time water your ${fullPlantName}! Remember to give it ${req.body.waterAmount} liters of water today. It will thank you!`
    );
    const alertMail = new helper.Mail(from_email, alertSubject, to_email, alertContent);
  
    // Create a request and dispatch the scheduled notification email using SendGrid API
    request = sg.emptyRequest({
      method: 'POST',
      path: '/v3/mail/send',
      body: alertMail.toJSON(),
    });
  
    sg.API(request, function (error, response) {
      console.log(response.statusCode);
      console.log(response.body);
      console.log(response.headers);
    });
  });

Future Features

• Users 'review' plants and post tips/questions. They will create a growing library of information
• Location based watering recommendations based on USDA hardiness zone data

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plantr was developed by:

• Joe Nicholson
• Maurice Goldberg
• Ed Herman
• Kenny Lozeau