Appointment availability checker for UDI, Norway

Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) is open with limited offers due to corona crisis. Those living in Oslo area may be faced with a message that there are no available appointments:

Note that there is no "Notify me when there is one" button. Heh? We live in a 21st century and UDI's suggests to "... you can log in regularly and check if there are available appointments for your application type."

This repo can be used to automate this task.

What it does

This is a small script (main.py) that logins to UDI with your personal credentials, opens the very first application and checks if there is an error message presented on the page. If there is no error message, then the script will send a message and page screenshot to a Telegram bot.

There is another script (rebook.py), which may be used to check newly available spots that are earlier than your booked appointment. This may be useful when you've booked time at UDI, but still would like to reschedule it to an earlier slot. Such slots open up from time to time when other people give up their time.

Limitations

• These scripts can not be used with applications for the citizenship. There is an app in the Windows store, which doesn't have the above limitations. It is easy to install and use. Notifies you on the computer itself and on e-mail. Check it out if you are on Windows! Link: https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9P525JWRRMT2
• As of 25.09.2022, UDI changed the inner structer of their website. These scripts won't work out of the box and will need modifications. The app from Windows store supports new changes.

Usage

You will need to create your own Telegram Bot. It is very easy, see https://telegram.me/BotFather .

1. Create python virtual environment.
2. Clone the code git clone https://github.com/fralik/udiinformer.git.
3. Go to the repo folder and run:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   python -m playwright install
   telegram-send.exe --configure
   

4. Provide your credentials. You have several options (choose one):
   • Copy .env.example to .env and modify it.
   • Set environment variables UDI_EMAIL, UDI_PWD.
   • Modify main.py file and provide your credentials right in the source code. to write your credentials there.
5. python main.py for available time slot script and python rebook.py in order to find rebooking possibility.

I advise to use this script from a cron job or scheduled task.