Bürgerbot: Refreshes the Berlin Bürgeramt page until an appointment becomes available, then notifies you via Telegram

buergerbot.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'watir-webdriver'
require 'telegram/bot'

Telegram.bots_config = {
  default: '<Telegram Bot token>',
}

Telegram.bot.get_updates

chat_id = '<Telegram Chat ID>'

def log (message) puts "  #{message}" end
def success (message) puts "+ #{message}" end
def fail (message) puts "- #{message}" end
def notify (message)
  success message.upcase
  system 'osascript -e \'Display notification "Bürgerbot" with title "%s"\'' % message
rescue StandardError => e
end

def appointmentAvailable? (b)
  url = 'https://service.berlin.de/terminvereinbarung/termin/tag.php?termin=1&dienstleister=122282&anliegen[]=120703&herkunft=1'
  puts '-'*80
  log 'Trying again'
  b.goto url
  log 'Page loaded'
  link = b.element css: '.calendar-month-table:first-child td.buchbar a'
  if link.exists?
    link.click
    notify 'An appointment is available.'
    log 'Enter y to keep searching or anything else to quit.'
    Telegram.bot.send_message(chat_id: chat_id, text: 'Found an appointment! Book here: https://service.berlin.de/terminvereinbarung/termin/tag.php?termin=1&dienstleister=122282&anliegen[]=120703&herkunft=1')
    return gets.chomp.downcase != 'y'
  else
    fail 'No luck this time.'
    return false
  end
rescue StandardError => e
  fail 'Error encountered.'
  puts e.inspect
  return false
end

b = Watir::Browser.new
Telegram.bot.send_message(chat_id: chat_id, text: 'starting bot...')

until appointmentAvailable? b
  log 'Sleeping.'
  sleep 60
end

Guide:

1. Create a telegram bot (google it)
2. Write message to your bot
3. Run the below curl command with your telegram token

$ curl https://api.telegram.org/bot[TOKEN]/getUpdates

Take this "id" from the curl here XYXYYXYX and paste it into file where it says chat id. Also paste auth token into file above where it says

$ gem install watir
$ gem install telegram/bot

Make sure the correct version of chromedriver (matching your installed chrome version) is installed (brew install chromedriver) and is in your $PATH

$ ruby buergerbot.rb

Change code from 'watir-webdriver' to 'watir'
watir-webdriver is deprecated in favour of watir for anyone else who uses this and has issues

Also you are likely to get rate-limited as I did

Unbelievable that I got to learn Ruby to book an appointment - just to relocate back to Berlin. Let's see if I can get this working and thanks for the sharing on git!

I am getting a not found error when installing telegram/bot, any help would be appreciated?

@akshygupt I've managed to get it working by running gem install telegram-bot

confirmed this works! just watch out to not get rate limited <60 seconds wait time as @davidfurlong said, thanks for the additional tips on getting all the dependencies installed.

Thank you very much for this! Somehow I only manage to get telegram notifications, when starting the bot.
I don't get notified via telegram when an appointment is availbe. In console I it works fine though.
Any ideas? @davidfurlong

Error is:
#<NameError: undefined local variable or method `chat_id' for main:Object>

Hej, thanks for sharing! Got the same problem as @n0rtap and the same Error.

I´m a total newbee so i wanted to share some (maybe pretty obvious stuff) for other like me:
How do you let the bot search for the service you need and at the location you prefer?

1. Open up the main side for your service (e.x.: https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/120335/)
2. There to ways now: A) If you like to search "Berlinweit" you just copy the link of the blue button saying "Termine berlinweit suchen" B) If you like to search only at "your" Bürgeramt you scroll down and copy the link for your Bürgeramt.
3. Pass it in where url stands (carfull both times!)

Hope that helps.
Looking forward to a solution for the other problem.

Thank you very much for this! Somehow I only manage to get telegram notifications, when starting the bot.
I don't get notified via telegram when an appointment is availbe. In console I it works fine though.
Any ideas? @davidfurlong

Error is:
#<NameError: undefined local variable or method `chat_id' for main:Object>

I found a work around. Just pass in your id direcly like:
Telegram.bot.send_message(chat_id: 32912731, text: 'Found an appointment! Book here: https://service.berlin.de/terminvereinbarung/termin/tag.php?termin=1&dienstleister=122282&anliegen[]=120703&herkunft=1')

Hope that helps. Good luck!

I've built a similar tool, but it updates a public webpage via websockets

Thanks for your help @Runflast
I got everything working but couldn't figure out from where I get the correct link.
This really helped!

@nicbou
Great idea! That could have helped a lot of people.

I'm running it now for several hours and although sometimes a free spot appears the bot is not triggered. I wonder if this got to do with the Captcha that pops up when you click manually on it.

Have the same issue with the captcha as @skiwlkr

@nicbou you took your tool down. Would be cool if you could publish a how-to or your code - for educational purposes ;)

Is there any way to get rid of the captchas when a new appointment appears?

They are here for a reason. Have a look at their robots.txt.