I'm making an app where I want to be able to set a basic notification (title, message, fire date) and have been trying to figure out the best way to setup the notifications. I'm working with Swift 3 and Firebase 3.
I don't want to use local notifications because if the user is logged in on multiple devices I want it to push to all those devices.
Is there a way to do this with FCM where a user can set a notification to fire at a specific date and time and have it fire on all (iOS) devices logged in?
If FCM doesn't have this, is there another APK that does? I've looked at Batch briefly but I'm already using Firebase.
Thanks in advance!
If your main use case is to send a push notification to a single user for his multiple devices, I suggest you make use of Device Group Messaging on iOS. As per the docs, it is typically used for:
With device group messaging, app servers can send a single message to multiple instances of an app running on devices belonging to a group. Typically, "group" refers a set of different devices that belong to a single user.
When it comes to sending the notification on a specific date, I'm pretty sure you can set it up in the Firebase Console.
However, if you intend it to be sent from the server, you have to implement it yourself, since I think, there is no currently API available or a parameter you can set in the payload that can be modified for the message to be sent for a specific date.
Related
I'm using with success the flutter local notification plugin. Now I'm struggling for create a page with all notifications.
Is there a way to collect all incoming local notifications of my app (even if dismissed and/or not clicked) in a list (the classic notification page like FB etc.)
I only notice that I can track the tapped notification but not only the arrival notification.
Thanks!
This unfortunately is not possible, because notifications are not stored anywhere. They exist in memory on the device, until the user dismisses them, or they are replaced with a message of a similar ID, or the OS just removes them altogether.
Your best bet, is to generate a table on your mobile backend, that will store these notifications (the same ones that will be broadcasted to the users notification center), then get the app to read directly from this table, and store it on a local SQLite database.
These notifications that are broadcasted, will need to be sent from the backend itself, with the exact same content, as that being stored on the table I mentioned. This will ensure data integrity between the notification center, and that of the app.
[EDIT]
Please make sure that you use FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging) for mobile push notifications. These are completely free, as per the documentation:
https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging
For Tutorials, please look at these:
https://medium.com/#jun.chenying/flutter-tutorial-part3-push-notification-with-firebase-cloud-messaging-fcm-2fbdd84d3a5e
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-add-push-notifications-to-flutter-app/
SWIFT 3 / Firebase
app like instagram/Facebook
Notifications
I am working on letting users know when another user e.g. liked their post, made a friend request etc.
I set up everything for cloud messaging with firebase and can send bulk messages at all my devices.
Now I want to introduce notifications which contain the current user, the user who did the action and what happened.
Unfortunately I did not find anything about this despite the general implementing of firebase cloud messaging.
My questions are:
1: Do i have to structure a database (e.g. .child("notifications").child(userId).... ?
2: How do I get the token from the stranger user I address with the notification?
3: How can I make the input variable?
I am happy about all kinds of help!
NOTE : Don't say it's possible duplicate of this, Read through.
Think of a simple TASK Management application which can have n number of users. Say User A can create a task & assign it to User B. I want to show a notification to User B.
I am using Firebase as BAAS and following code-snippet prints on console only when there is a task assigned to User B. To simplfy, Users collection in Firebase has a node called tasksAssignedToThisUser array and callback function will be watching tasksAssignedToThisUser location. Whenever a new task gets added to that array, callback function gets executed. Here is the code snippet:
var rootRef = firebase.database().ref();
rootRef.child('users').child(loggedInUserID).child('tasksAssignedToThisUser')
.on('child_added', function (newMessageSnapshot) {
console.log('Someone assigned a task to this user.');
console.log(newMessageSnapshot.val);
});
Everything works fine until here.
What I have understood by reading Firebase docs & other post's on SO about Push notifications or Firebase Cloud Messaging is:
Firebase Notifications lets users easily send messages to reengage and
retain users, foster app growth, and support marketing campaigns.
Before you can write client apps that use Firebase Cloud Messaging,
you must have an app server that meets the following criteria:
...
You'll need to decide which FCM connection server protocol(s) you want
to use to enable your app server to interact with FCM connection
servers. Note that if you want to use upstream messaging from your
client applications, you must use XMPP. For a more detailed discussion
of this, see Choosing an FCM Connection Server Protocol.
This is definitely not what I want and maintaining a server for sending push notifications makes sense when bulk messages needs to be pushed to large number of devices. So I didn't name my question as Real Time Push Notifications.
I see a function being executed, which meets my use-case and I just want app to display a notification to the user in his mobile system tray on that callback function execution.
I am using Ionic 1 for developing app, completely new to Firebase and Ionic too. If there is a simple serverless approach that Firebase itself provides which can suffice my requirement, then I would be more than happy to hear about it.
I am creating an app using Swift and Parse as my backend platform. In my application a User can send an invitation to be connected to another user and as soon as they are connected the app should send notifications to remind the user about his friend’s birthday.
In this scenario I have two moments in which the app should send a notification:
1- When user A sends an invitation to user B, user B should receive a notification
2- When it’s user’s B birthday, user A should receive a notification and vice versa
I created a Parse object called AppNotification that is responsible for storing information about the notifications the user should receive. So when a user sends an invitation to another user I am adding a line in the AppNotification table, the same happens when it’s a birthday of a friend. Using this I can calculate the number of unread notifications and show it to the user in the UI using the components badge.
My question is more related to the best way to send the birthday notification. What I am considering is:
1- When user A sends and invitation to user B I have to send a push notification to user B.
2- As soon as the users are connected I can schedule local notifications to remind them about the birthday. This solution would use Local Notifications instead of Push Notifications.
3- Or create a Job in Parse that will be executed every day and will read all the users whose birthday is today and send a push notification to his friends. This solution would use Push notifications and I would not need to worry about scheduling local notifications.
Between the points 2 and 3 which one is the best solution? Is there any other approach I could use? When should I consider using Local Notifications other than Remote Notifications?
Thank you in advance.
Regarding points 2 and 3: there are pros and cons for both options: Having the reminders as local notifications is basically what your local calendar app does, i.e. you don't need a connection the Internet / Parse. However: what happens if one party (A) decides that she no longer wants to be a "friend" (of B)? Should notifications still be sent? If not, you could easily delete the scheduled notification on the server. This would also ensure that the other party (B) wouldn't receive notifications of a former friend (A) if she didn't open the app in the meantime and synced the list of friends.
There are of course more pros and cons, so it is really a matter of your preference and possibly other constraints (e.g. should an active internet connection be necessity?).
I have implemented all recommended methods in AppDelegate to get working Remote Notifications service.
I can accept them while running, while launching and while turned off.
But there is an issue, since I can't work with many received notifications while in background. I can work only with latest notification.
What is recommended manual to do that? How can I got all notifications received while in background? Is it only solvable via manual call to my service provider (sender of apns data)?
With all the projects I've worked on there hasn't been a way to locally store this information if the push notification is dismissed. In all those cases we used a small file on the server that the app would connect to and pull when it became active again. There was also some place in the app where the user could see all their notifications which, again, were stored on the server for quick retrieval.
With the way I understand push notifications to be setup, if the notification is dismissed the system discards it. It'll perform anything it's supposed to do (such as update the badge number and play the correct sound) but any additional information specific to that notification is lost.
Not sure if this helps, but if you just want to know how many notifications you have missed while you were in background. You can create a variable which contains notification number and store this in the app every time you handle notification. When you come out of background and receive a new notification you can subtract the new number with the stored number to find out the number of missed notifications. I don't think there is a way where iOS can give you complete data associated with all the notification device have received while the app was in background.
The best solution is to keep a list of sent notifications with all relevant data on your server, so the app can access that data when it launches. Sending multiple notifications with data that is not stored on the server can be risky, because the application only receives the notification when the user opens the app from that notification, so if they tap on one notification, the app will only every receive that one.
If you have them all in a list on your server, the app can simply go and pull that list down, and process it, making sure no data is lost.