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How to set up an App Push Message

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Siw Raagaard Svendsen
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The Agillic App Channel allows you to execute a Push Message to your recipients mobile devices. Within the Channels dropdown you'll find App Push and Push. This article will focus on how to set up an App Push Message, but if you need any information regarding setting up a Push Notification, you can find more information here.

This article will provide you with a guide on how to set up an App Push Message. If you need more general information about the benefits on using the App Channel and some concrete use cases you can read more about that here. In order to enable the App Channel and SDK you can find a guide here. 

Please note: The app SDK will be deprecated with the release of 23.0 in January 2023. This means that there will be no further support of the SDK, and the feature will be completely removed in the future. Therefore we recommend migrating to APIs as soon as possible. Please reach out to your Agillic contact for further information.

Contents

  1. How to create an App Push Message 
  2. How to add content to the App Push Message 
    1. Adding an On-click Action 
    2. Adding a Language Version 
    3. Adding Custom Notification Fields
  3. Previewing and Testing your App Push Message 
    1. Previewing the App Push Message 
    2. Testing the App Push Message 
  4. Suggested Next Steps 

 

The_Channels_Dropdown.png

The Channels Dropdown

How to create an App Push Message 

  1. Log in to Staging. 
  2. Mouse-over the Channels dropdown and select 'App Push'.
  3. Click on 'New App Push' or 'New Folder' depending on if you want to create a folder that can contain your App Push.  
  4. To get an overview of the existing folders click on the left hand navigation menu in the upper left corner and unfold the sidebar.
  5. It's possible to create a new App Push Message when clicking on the '+' icon in the top right corner of the sidebar. 
  6. It's possible to create a new folder directly from the bottom of the sidebar. 
  7. Fill in the name of your new App Push Message and then click 'Create'. 
  8. Your App Push Message is now created and is ready to have content added. 

Create_App_Push_Message.png

How to create a new App Push Message

How to add content to the App Push Message 

Now your App Push Message is ready to have content added. 

  1. Add a headline (optional) within the 'Headline' field. This field supports both Promotions and Dynamic Content Fields (Person Data, Global Data, or a Unique Lookup). 
  2. Add text to the 'Message' field. 
  3. It's possible to add both Promotions and Dynamic Content Fields (Person Data, Global Data, or a Unique Lookup) to the message. It's possible to do so both within the shortcuts beneath the Message field or from the righthand sidebar, which will appear when you click on the 'Headline' or 'Message' field. 
  4. If you want to add an Image you can do so by sliding the icon next to 'IMAGE'. When enabling this you can add a customised image from Assets, External Links customisable with Plain text Promotions Fields and Content Fields (Person Data, Global Data, or a Unique Lookup).
    You can only use images if your app supports rich push content. Images will appear on devices with the minimum required OS version (iOS 10+ and Android 4.1+). You can either add an image from the Assets Manager or an External image in either JPG/JPEG or PNG format. We recommend using landscape orientation recommended (2:1 e.g. 1080x540px). 
  5. Click 'Save' in the upper right corner. 

Remember to test your App Push Message before sending it to live recipients. Read below how to test it. 

Adding_content.png

Adding Content to Your App Push Message

Adding an On-click Action 

You can define an On-Click Action to send the recipient to a specific place within the app or to a website page when they click on the message on their device. If 'On-click Action' is not switched on and defined the app will simply open up on the app’s default start screen when the recipient clicks on the message.

In order to use On-click deeplinking from app push messages directly to a specific place within your mobil app you will first need to define 'Dynamic Link' functions in your app code.
A set of specific functions are required depending on your app development platform as well as device operating system.

The following documentations describe how to implement dynamic link functions in your app in order to enable On-click deeplinking.

Development platform: Google Firebase
Device OS: Android App
https://firebase.google.com/docs/dynamic-links/android/receive

Development platform: Google Firebase
Device OS: iOS
https://firebase.google.com/docs/dynamic-links/ios/receive

Development platform: Apple APNs
Device: iOS
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/allowing-apps-and-websites-to-link-to-your-content

If you want to use a specific On-click Action you can do so by following these steps: 

  1. Switch on 'On-click Action'. 
  2. Insert a Custom App Action by adding a Deeplink or URL. 
    (This can be anything from a custom URL, like 'https://MyCustomLink/CUSTOMER_EMAIL' to a custom app action like 'app://OpenMyCustomizedOfferMenu/CUSTOMER_EMAIL'. 
  3. You can customise the on-click action with either Promotions or Dynamic Content Fields (Person Data, Global Data, or a Unique Lookup). 
  4. If you save an empty On-click action it will be disabled.  

app-onclick.png

On-click Action

Adding a Language Version 

You can add Language Versions to your Push Message, which allows you to create different translations of the Push Message. In order to add Language Versions to your Push Message you will need to define the languages. You can read about how to do that here. 

When your languages have been defines you can add them to your Push Message. 

  1. In the upper left corner open the 'Default' dropdown. 
  2. Within the dropdown select 'Add language versions to this Push message'. 
  3. A popup will appear and here you can select a language and press 'Ok'. 
  4. When hovering over the language dropdown, the new language(s) will now appear. 
  5. You are now able to select one of the languages selected below. All languages will have been generated with the same content as the default language version and you can now translate them appropriately. 

Note that some features are not affected by Language versions. This includes Promotions and enabling or disabling the Image or On-click toogles which have to be done within the default version. 

Language_version.png

Adding a Language Version to a Push Message

Adding Custom Notification Fields

You also have the possibility to send over Custom Notification Fields with your App Push Message. These fields are primarily for your app developer to use.

Custom Notification Fields should be used for general information about the App Push Message that you want to use in the app. They can for example be used to carry information about the context for the execution which the app developer can use to either customise the experience in the app interface, or for reporting purposes.

For our Cafe Connect example, we have chosen to send over the customer's favourite category and a name of a sound file. This will enable the app to show content based on the customer's favourite category and to play a special sound file for this particular notification message.

In order to add the Custom Notification Fields press the Custom Key-Value Pairs editor in the top right corner:

mceclip0.png

You are now presented with this pop-up where you can add the keys and values for the fields you are sending along. Please note that you cannot have spaces in the key field.

mceclip1.png

Next, you can enter the value which it should contain. You can also select either a promotion field or a dynamic field by pressing one of the two personalisation icons and you will then receive the content of these fields as custom notification fields in your app.

Press Done and the notification fields are added to your App Push Message.

 

Previewing and Testing your App Push Message 

In order to test your App Push Message you can Test and Preview it with any given Recipient ID.

Test.png

Testing and Previewing your App Push Message

Previewing the App Push Message 

Once you have finished your App Push Message, a fast way to test the layout of the Push Message is to preview it directly within the App Push Message editor. When previewing the App Push Message with a recipient ID it will show you how the message will be viewed by this specific recipient. When using Promotions or Dynamic Content Fields (Person Data, Global Data, or a Unique Lookup) it's useful to view how the message will look for the specific recipient. 

Within the 'Preview as' field you type in a specific Recipient ID, for example a Test Recipient ID, in order to preview the App Push Message with customised data. If you choose a Recipient with no data in order to show specific Promotions or Dynamic Content Fields, the preview will show the data previously shown. 

Testing the App Push Message 

When clicking 'Test' it's possible to send a test App Push Message to any test recipient who has a device ID. In order for a recipient to receive the test, they need to register in the App first. When the recipient have registered within the App, they should have a valid push token within the AGILLIC_REGISTRATION OTM table as describes above. 

When testing the App Push Message within the editor in channels, you click 'Test' in the upper left corner. Hereafter you search for the recipient you want to send the test to, and if you need to see how the message will look for a specific recipient you can search for this specific recipient ID. Within 'App to test with' you choose the App ID set up on your instance you want to test with. After clicking 'Send test' a pop-up will appear with the result and your test recipient will have received the push message. 

Send_Test.png

Sending a test App Push Message

Suggested Next Steps 

 

 

 

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