What is this?

A simple sample app for the Messaging App project at branch.co

How do I get started?

Prerequisites

We assume you have the following installed already:

• Python 3 (we tested with 3.7, the latest major version as of April 2019), including the virtualenv tool. Installation instructions here
• Postgres (we used Postgres 10.4, but newer or older versions should also work). Installation instructions for all platforms can be found here. Alternatively, a simple SQLite database could also work.

Setup

• Clone the repo and navigate into the top-level directory.
• Create a virtual environment (venv) for installing Python packages, then activate it and install all required packages:

virtualenv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

• Make sure that Postgres is running: ps x | grep /bin/postgres should return something along the lines of /usr/local/opt/postgresql/bin/postgres -D /usr/local/var/postgres. If it isn't, follow installation and troubleshooting instructions above.
• Create the database: createdb customer-service-messaging (depending on how you installed Postgres, the createdb tool may not be in your PATH. If you installed Postgres.app, you can point directly at /Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/latest/bin/createdb)
• Run the setup script: python init_db_and_populate_with_testdata.py
• Start the server: FLASK_APP=app.py FLASK_DEBUG=1 ./venv/bin/flask run
• Navigate to http://localhost:5000/admin/customers to see the agent interface.
• Navigate to http://localhost:5000/customer_test to submit customer messages.