The PERCo-S-20 access control system natively supports notifications via SMS or Viber. To enable alerts for specific staff movements via email and Telegram, the company avoided a costly hardware upgrade that would have required replacing 40% of existing controllers.
The team implemented a custom solution using a Node.js script running in a Docker container. This script acts as an SMPP server, intercepting binary data from the access control system and immediately returning a success status to prevent queue blocking.
The intercepted binary data is converted into a HEX string and forwarded to n8n via a webhook. Within n8n, a JavaScript node parses the packet structure, extracts the sender name, recipient phone number, and decodes the UCS-2 encoded message payload into readable text.
The processed data is then routed to email via SMTP and to a private Telegram group using a direct HTTP POST request to the Telegram API. This approach allows for real-time push notifications without relying on paid SMS gateway services.
