[Megaphone] Automated Texts/Twitter/Facebook for Teams (2014)

[Zach O]

Hey everyone! We're happy to announce Megaphone is back for 2014!

Megaphone (https://frcmega.com)

Megaphone keeps you up to date with your favorite FRC teams. You can sign up to get automated text messages when teams win/lose their matches, two matches before teams are about to play, when teams gets picked to be on an alliance, or when teams win an award. Additionally, you can automate your team's Twitter/Facebook account to post status updates for any of those actions, to keep your fans and followers up to date.

We're launching the website now, but we'll be fixing up some of the rough edges over this coming week (for instance, you can't change your phone number right now - that'll be working soon). Other long term features will be coming, like mobile friendliness, password resets, etc.

To follow updates about Megaphone over the season (downtime, website changes, added features, etc) you can follow FRCMega (http://twitter.com/FRCMega) on Twitter. If you find any issues, your carrier isn't supported, or you want to give me feedback, feel free to message me on Chief, tweet me at FRCZach (http://twitter.com/FRCZach), or send me an email at admin[at]frcmega[dot]com

Additionally, I'm launching something new this year. Cheers! Cheers are a way for teams/companies/individuals in the robotics community to spread their messages. If you sign up for Megaphone, you'll be receiving Cheers. You can read more about Cheers here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1349732#post1349732)

Thanks everyone! Enjoy Megaphone.

As a note: Since the website is completely custom this year, Internet Explorer won't be supported. You're welcome to try though!

[Eugene Fang]

Awesome work! Looking forward to using it!

[joelg236]

Was an amazing resource last year, and will surely be this year too.

[Nuttyman54]

YAAAAAAYYYY!

Thanks Zach, love this resource

[adammiller3122]

It won't me register :(

[Zach O]

It won't me register :(

Can you give me some more information? If something goes wrong during registration the input boxes should turn red. Private message me the email you're trying to use.

[adammiller3122]

Can you give me some more information? If something goes wrong during registration the input boxes should turn red. Private message me the email you're trying to use.

It finally worked. It was not registering that I was even clicking the button! But now, the same thing is happening on the templates page for the posts. I can't click "save".

[Zach O]

It finally worked. It was not registering that I was even clicking the button! But now, the same thing is happening on the templates page for the posts. I can't click "save".

Hm. Are you sure? There's no feedback on that button yet. Refresh the page. If the form is filled in, you're good. If not, it's not saving properly and I'll look in to it.

[adammiller3122]

Hm. Are you sure? There's no feedback on that button yet. Refresh the page. If the form is filled in, you're good. If not, it's not saving properly and I'll look in to it.

my modifications were not saved.

[Zach O]

my modifications were not saved.

Private message me the email you used to sign up. I'll check it out.

[Rynocorn]

Yeah same thing is happening for me when I try to change the tweets

[Zach O]

Facebook may not be up for this weekend. I forgot to submit my Facebook app for approval. Oops.

Yeah same thing is happening for me when I try to change the tweets

Private message me your email address and I'll check it out

Edit: Facebook auth is good to go

Edit edit: Aah. Template changes aren't working properly. That'll be fixed shortly.

[PayneTrain]

Got it all set up tonight. Thanks for this. Hope you dont have too much fun troubleshooting this weekend.

[Zach O]

Everything social-related should work now. If you connected your Facebook or Twitter, you'll need to reconnect. I've sent everyone an email about it. Sorry about that.

[Rynocorn]

It's all good! The new website and options look awesome! Now I can add a ton of archer references (our robots name is Babou) into the tweets that are sent out! Thanks so much!

[joelg236]

For the "For Teams" page, I'd like to set it up for our public facebook page. The way it authenticates with facebook right now only allows personal accounts, which isn't too useful for me.

Any way you could implement that functionality?

[Zach O]

For the "For Teams" page, I'd like to set it up for our public facebook page. The way it authenticates with facebook right now only allows personal accounts, which isn't too useful for me.

Any way you could implement that functionality?

For sure. I'll work on it for Week 2. Getting pages people are a part of isn't as easy as getting their personal profile, so it wasn't an initial feature.

[joelg236]

For sure. I'll work on it for Week 2. Getting pages people are a part of isn't as easy as getting their personal profile, so it wasn't an initial feature.

Yeah I assumed such, no big deal - we don't play until week 3 :)

[Libby K]

So glad Megaphone is back. This was super helpful last season, as a distance mentor (couldn't be at all events) and as someone who's in nineteen billion places at once at CMP. I never missed one of my teams' matches, and it's all because of the notifications.

I'm in the process of setting up my texts and @FRC1923's posts as well. Thank you, Zach, for all you do! Will definitely be implementing Cheers as well - whatever we can do to support Megaphone and keep it around!

For the "For Teams" page, I'd like to set it up for our public facebook page. The way it authenticates with facebook right now only allows personal accounts, which isn't too useful for me.

Any way you could implement that functionality?

I know Zach said he's working on it, but you can also link your FB page and twitter account to post the same thing - so you could have it post to a team twitter and then automatically post that tweet as an FB page status.

[Navid Shafa]

Can't thank you enough for another year of Mega!

I don't seem to be getting all the updates though. It very well may be my carrier, or perhaps the fact that I'm requesting updates for 21 teams this week. :rolleyes:

*For example, 118 is one of the teams I'm signed up for. I just got a score from the last match, but I didn't get a notification before the match started that they were up soon. However, I just got a notification that 148 is up soon.*

Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Any ideas?

[StAxis]

Can't thank you enough for another year of Mega!

I don't seem to be getting all the updates though. It very well may be my carrier, or perhaps the fact that I'm requesting updates for 21 teams this week. :rolleyes:

*For example, 118 is one of the teams I'm signed up for. I just got a score from the last match, but I didn't get a notification before the match started that they were up soon. However, I just got a notification that 148 is up soon.*

Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Any ideas?

I too am having this issue, but it very well could be that I am also receiving updates on a lot of teams and just not all of the pre match alerts are going through.

[Navid Shafa]

Not getting any texts for GTR.

[Zach O]

*For example, 118 is one of the teams I'm signed up for. I just got a score from the last match, but I didn't get a notification before the match started that they were up soon. However, I just got a notification that 148 is up soon.*

Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Any ideas?

Hm. I'll take a look. My first inclination is to think FRCFMS is being spotty. That seems like the most likely cause. Can you PM me with the match number(s) in question so I can take a look?

Not getting any texts for GTR.

This one doesn't appear to be on my end! FRCFMS tweeted some practice matches for GTRW, but none of the qualification matches https://twitter.com/search?q=%23FRCONTO2&src=hash&f=realtime. Feel free to email goodfrcquestion@usfirst.org for support for this one ;)

[fovea1959]

FRMFMS is being spotty. Bunch of missing elimination matches from Twitter feed.

[cgmv123]

FRMFMS is being spotty. Bunch of missing elimination matches from Twitter feed.

Unfortunately, that's nothing new.

[Navid Shafa]

Hm. I'll take a look. My first inclination is to think FRCFMS is being spotty. That seems like the most likely cause. Can you PM me with the match number(s) in question so I can take a look?

Sorry, not sure of the matches in question. FMS was certainly spotty for MAR and GTR.

[Zach O]

For the "For Teams" page, I'd like to set it up for our public facebook page. The way it authenticates with facebook right now only allows personal accounts, which isn't too useful for me.

Any way you could implement that functionality?

Done! Megaphone now has Facebook page support. Connect your Facebook account in the Settings panel to get started.

[joelg236]

Done! Megaphone now has Facebook page support. Connect your Facebook account in the Settings panel to get started.

Cool, that'll be great for us!

[joelg236]

It isn't appearing to work, am I doing something wrong?

http://i.imgur.com/AoYWA4a.png

[Navid Shafa]

My Mega updates have been coming from two different sources this morning. At first I thought one number might be sending prior notifications and the other post-match scores, but I'm not seeing any trends. It appears to be random...

In case this helps, the numbers I'm receiving texts from:
1-(415)429-73321-(269)849-9967

[Zach O]

My Mega updates have been coming from two different sources this morning. At first I thought one number might be sending prior notifications and the other post-match scores, but I'm not seeing any trends. It appears to be random...

Yep! I've added another number to handle all the texts I'm sending out. There's a hard limit on the number of text messages I can send in a span of time (1/second), so adding another number helps me get them all out faster.

Currently I use a lazy method of dispatching texts to phone numbers, where it's just random. To make it where one user gets a single number for the entire event/season will require a little more work.

[Navid Shafa]

Yep! I've added another number to handle all the texts I'm sending out. There's a hard limit on the number of text messages I can send in a span of time (1/second), so adding another number helps me get them all out faster.

Currently I use a lazy method of dispatching texts to phone numbers, where it's just random. To make it where one user gets a single number for the entire event/season will require a little more work.

This is beautiful.

[zachrobo1]

Zach, do you know when this will be available for the 2015 season? I can't wait to use it next year!

[Zach O]

Zach, do you know when this will be available for the 2015 season? I can't wait to use it next year!

Megaphone will be back for the 2015 season, but I can't confirm a timeline or a feature set right now

[guniv]

Will we need to set it up again or will settings move over from last year?

[Navid Shafa]

Megaphone will be back for the 2015 season, but I can't confirm a timeline or a feature set right now

Any update? I'm really missing it :(

[Hallry]

Any update? I'm really missing it :(

^ Ditto

[Eugene Fang]

Any update? I'm really missing it :(

https://twitter.com/FRCZach/status/570643355996176384

[Navid Shafa]

https://twitter.com/FRCZach/status/570643355996176384

Thanks Eugene, just saw the new update. Going to check out myTBA now...

[Dunngeon]

Thanks Eugene, just saw the new update. Going to check out myTBA now...

Then there are the rest of us who have iPhones..... Left out in the cold :(

[plnyyanks]

Then there are the rest of us who have iPhones..... Left out in the cold :(

Know any iOS devs?
https://github.com/the-blue-alliance/the-blue-alliance-ios

If you have a server to push to (which you can then use to blast out your own updates) you can use TBA Webhooks (http://www.thebluealliance.com/apidocs/webhooks) as an alternative.

[Dave Flowerday]

Then there are the rest of us who have iPhones..... Left out in the cold :(
What is it specifically that you're looking for that FRC Spyder doesn't offer?

[Zach O]

Sorry all. Things just didn't come together this year.

FRC (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/frc-spyder/id361141145?mt=8) Spyder (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dwabtech.frcspyder&hl=en) and The Blue Alliance (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thebluealliance.androidclient&hl=en) are both excellent alternatives for the notification aspect of Megaphone (if you have a smartphone).