Lesson 105 — Automatic Winner Notification System

Team Wpnzee on July 15, 2026

Now that Lesson 104 introduced the automated auction lifecycle (scheduled activation and automatic closing), the next logical milestone is notifying everyone involved when an auction finishes.

This adds real business value because an auction platform should communicate results automatically rather than requiring administrators to monitor auctions manually.

Objective

Create an automatic notification system that sends notifications immediately after an auction closes and a winner has been determined.

Initially, notifications will be written to the Activity Log.

Later lessons will expand this to:

  • Email notifications
  • Dashboard notifications
  • Buyer dashboard alerts
  • Seller dashboard alerts
  • Webhooks
  • SMS/WhatsApp (optional)

What will happen automatically?

Current workflow

Auction Ends
      ↓
Cron Job
      ↓
Auction Closed
      ↓
Winner Determined

New workflow

Auction Ends
      ↓
Cron Job
      ↓
Auction Closed
      ↓
Winner Determined
      ↓
Winner Notification
      ↓
Seller Notification
      ↓
Administrator Notification

Notifications to create

1. Winner

Example

Congratulations!

You won the auction for

example.com

Winning Bid:
$1,250

Please complete payment within 7 days.

2. Seller

Example

Your auction has ended.

Winner:
John

Winning Bid:
$1,250

Waiting for payment.

3. Administrator

Example

Auction Closed

Listing:
example.com

Winner:
John

Winning Bid:
$1,250

Transaction Created:
Yes

New Class

includes/
    class-notification-manager.php

Responsibilities

  • notify_winner()
  • notify_seller()
  • notify_admin()
  • future email support
  • future dashboard support

Initial Implementation

For now we won’t send emails.

Instead we’ll use

Flipnzee_Activity_Log::log()

This lets us verify the notification workflow before integrating email providers.

Example

Winner Notification Sent

Seller Notification Sent

Admin Notification Sent

Hook Integration

Lesson 104 already introduced an excellent hook:

flipnzee_auctions_expired_processed

Lesson 105 introduces another event-driven hook:

flipnzee_auction_winner_determined

When this action fires:

Winner Determined
        ↓
Notification Manager
        ↓
Notify Winner
Notify Seller
Notify Admin

No existing code needs modification.

This follows proper WordPress architecture.

Future Expansion

The same Notification Manager will later support

  • Email
  • HTML Email Templates
  • WooCommerce Mailer
  • WP Mail SMTP
  • Slack
  • Discord
  • Telegram
  • SMS
  • Push Notifications

without changing the auction logic.

Files to Modify

New

includes/class-notification-manager.php

Modify

includes/class-loader.php

Load the new class.

Modify

flipnzee-auctions.php

Initialize the notification hooks.

Why This Lesson Matters

By the end of Lesson 105, Flipnzee Auctions will evolve from simply closing auctions automatically to communicating auction outcomes automatically. This is a key feature expected in any production auction platform and lays the foundation for robust email, dashboard, and third-party notification systems in future lessons.

Expected Outcome

After Lesson 105:

  • ✔ Winner determined automatically
  • ✔ Transaction created automatically
  • ✔ Transfer record created automatically
  • ✔ Notification events generated automatically
  • ✔ Activity Log records every notification
  • ✔ Ready for email notifications in subsequent lessons

This lesson continues the transition from a functional auction engine to a complete marketplace workflow.

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