Messaging System Power Pages

[tabaribrannon]

I am looking to create a messaging system using power pages.  I found this tutorial Create A Portal Inbox & Messaging Process - Megan V. Walker (meganvwalker.com) but it's out of date and I am not sure it works with power pages. 

Here are my requirements. 

• A messaging form to send messages to a specific user.
• An inbox where users can read new messages. 
• A notification system where users can see how many unread messages they have. 
• When all messages are read new message notification goes away. 

I am wondering if this can be done purely using power pages.

[GWham1]

I’d say so! You could do something like the below… just thinking aloud.

• A messaging form to send messages to a specific user.

You could use a basic form to submit a record to a custom table or custom activity with status “unread”. Select contact/user from dropdown?

• An inbox where users can read new messages. 

Fetch xml or list to render a logged in users messages from the custom table or custom activity 

• A notification system where users can see how many unread messages they have. 

power automate or workflow to create an activity or email notification based on submission or use a schedule to count unread messages every x hours/minutes.

• When all messages are read new message notification goes away

Could use web api to update status from “unread” to “read” on click/read of messages or have a button “mark all read” which changes the status.

[GWham1]

This is a little rough and ready without any customisation - but might give you a rough idea.

• Created a custom table of type Activity called 'Private Message'
• Used the out-the-box activity fields e.g. description, regarding, created on.
• Created an Insert basic form called Private Message surfacing the description/regarding fields.
• Used Fetch XML to display the results for the current logged-in user where status = Open

The next stage would be to do the 'mark as read' aspect using the webapi when clicked, or insert a mark as read button per message. I would also create a new field for a contact lookup instead of using the regarding field, so this could be displayed in a dropdown via metadata.

    {% fetchxml messages %}
    <fetch>
        <entity name="gw_privatemessage">
        <attribute name="activityid" />
        <attribute name="subject" />
        <attribute name="createdon" />
        <attribute name="description" />
        <order attribute="subject" descending="false" />
            <filter type="and">
                <condition attribute="regardingobjectid" operator="eq" value="{{user.id}}" />
                <condition attribute="createdon" operator="ne" value="{{now}}" />
                <condition attribute="statecode" operator="eq" value="0" />
            </filter>
        </entity>
    </fetch>
    {% endfetchxml %}

    <div class="message-item">
        <h3>Send a new message</h3>
        {% entityform name:'PrivateMessage' %}
    </div>

    <hr/>

    {% if messages.results.entities.size > 0 %}
        <h3>You have {{messages.results.entities.size}} unread messages</h3>
        {% for result in messages.results.entities %}
            <div class="message-item">{{ result.description }} <br/> <span>{{result.createdon}}</span></div>
        {% endfor %} 
    {% else %}
        <div class="alert alert-warning">You have no messages</div>
    {% endif %}

Hope this helps you get started!