FMI Announcement Bot

A Telegram bot that monitors university announcement pages and sends notifications to Telegram groups.

Features

• Multi-source monitoring: Monitor multiple announcement pages simultaneously
• Age-based filtering: Only sends announcements from the last 3 days (configurable)
• Source differentiation: Visual icons distinguish CS department (🖥️) from university (🏛️) announcements
• Persistent tracking: Remembers sent announcements across restarts
• Smart hashtags: Automatically tags announcements based on keywords
• HTML formatting: Clean, formatted messages with preview content

Configuration

Adding Announcement Sources

Edit config.json to add or modify announcement sources:

{
  "announcement_sources": [
    {
      "name": "main",
      "url": "https://fmi.univ-tiaret.dz/index.php"
    },
    {
      "name": "other_page",
      "url": "https://example.com/announcements"
    }
  ],
  "loop_time_seconds": 900,
  "bot_owner_id": "YOUR_TELEGRAM_ID"
}

Each source requires:

• name: Unique identifier for the source (used in tracking)
• url: Full URL of the announcement page

Environment Variables

Set these as Replit Secrets or environment variables:

• BOT_TOKEN: Your Telegram bot token
• GROUPS_IDS: Comma-separated list of Telegram group IDs
• PROXY_IP: (Optional) Proxy server IP
• PROXY_PORT: (Optional) Proxy server port

How It Works

Age-Based Filtering

The bot automatically filters announcements based on their age:

• Only announcements from the last 3 days are sent to Telegram groups
• Older announcements are ignored to prevent spam from outdated content
• The age limit is configurable via MAX_ANNOUNCEMENT_AGE_DAYS in main.py
• If a date cannot be parsed, the announcement is included (fail-safe behavior)

Source Differentiation

Each announcement source has a unique icon for easy identification:

• 🖥️ CS Department: Computer Science department announcements
• 🏛️ University: Main university announcements
• Icons appear in the message header to quickly distinguish the source

Announcement Tracking

Each announcement is assigned a unique ID in the format:

{source_name}:{title}_{date}

This prevents:

• Duplicate notifications when the bot restarts
• ID conflicts between different sources
• Re-sending old announcements

Persistence

The bot maintains a seen_announcements.json file that stores all previously sent announcement IDs. This file persists across restarts, ensuring announcements are only sent once.

Scraping Logic

The bot looks for table rows with this specific structure:

<tr>
  <td style="border: 1px solid #ababab; text-align: center;">
    <strong>Title</strong>
    <p>Content...</p>
  </td>
  <td>Date</td>
</tr>

Adding a New Source

1. Ensure the new page uses the same HTML structure
2. Add the source to config.json:

   {
     "name": "department_news",
     "url": "https://your-university.edu/dept/news"
   }

3. Restart the bot

The bot will automatically:

• Start monitoring the new source
• Track announcements separately by source
• Display the source name in notifications

First Run Behavior

On first startup, the bot:

1. Loads all current announcements from all sources
2. Sends only the latest announcement
3. Marks all others as "seen" to avoid spam
4. From then on, only sends new announcements

Example Output

CS Department Announcement

📢 🖥️ New CS Department Announcement! 🖥️ 📢

#Exams #Important

📌 Title: Planning examens Semestre 2
🗓️ Date: 06/02/2026
📡 Source: CS department

📝 Details:
Le planning des examens du semestre 2 est disponible
Consultez le tableau pour les dates et horaires
…

Visit the Announcements Page

University Announcement

📢 🏛️ New University Announcement! 🏛️ 📢

#Results

📌 Title: Résultats Master1
🗓️ Date: 07/02/2026
📡 Source: main

📝 Details:
Les résultats sont affichés
…

Visit the Announcements Page

Maintenance

Cleaning Old Announcements

Run the cleanup script to remove old announcements from the tracking file:

python3 cleanup_old_announcements.py

This script:

• Removes announcements older than 3 days from seen_announcements.json
• Keeps the tracking file clean and manageable
• Safe to run periodically (will not affect current functionality)