For up-to-date product documentation, see the IBM MobileFirst Foundation Developer Center.

Push notification

Push notification is the ability of a mobile device to receive messages that are pushed from a server. Notifications are received regardless of whether the application is currently running.

Notifications can take several forms, and are platform-dependent:

• Alert: a pop-up text message
• Badge, Tile: a graphical representation that includes a short text or image
• Banner, Toast: a pop-up text message at the top of the device display that disappears after it has been read
• Audio alert

The IBM MobileFirst™ Platform Foundation unified push notification mechanism enables sending of mobile notifications to mobile devices. Notifications are sent through the vendor infrastructure. For example, iPhone notifications are sent from the MobileFirst Server to specialized Apple servers, and from there to the relevant phones. The unified push notification mechanism makes the entire process of communicating with the users and devices completely transparent to the developer.

The following diagram shows an example of a push notification mechanism where notifications are sent from the MobileFirst Server to specialized servers or gateways and from there to the relevant phones.

Figure 1. Push notification mechanism

Push notification currently works for SMS, WNS, iOS and Android. iOS apps use the Apple Push Notification Service (APNs), Android apps use Google Cloud Messaging (GCM), and Windows apps use Windows Push Notification Services (WNS). For more information about setting up push notification for each platform, see Set up push notifications.

Proxy settings

Use the proxy settings to set the optional proxy through which notifications are sent to APNs and GCM. We can set the proxy by using the push.apns.proxy.* and push.gcm.proxy.* configuration properties. For more information, see List of JNDI properties for MobileFirst Server push service.

Note: WNS does not have proxy support.

Architecture

Unlike other IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation services, the push server requires outbound connections to Apple and Google servers using ports that are defined by these companies.

• Push notification architecture
  We can create an IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation push notification architecture using the enterprise back-end calling method, in which an enterprise back end uses a IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation adapter to deliver messages to a MobileFirst Server cluster.
• Getting started with push notifications
  Learn how to get started to add push notification support to our IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation app.
• Security for push notification clients
  Every client interacting with push must provide a valid access token with the required scopes.
• Set up push notifications
  We can send push notifications to mobile devices via the MobileFirst Server. We can set up push notifications on Android and iOS.
• Broadcast notifications
  Broadcast notifications are notification messages that are targeted to all the devices that have the IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation application installed and configured for push notifications.
• Tag-based notifications
  Tag notifications are notification messages that are targeted to all the devices that are subscribed to a particular tag.
• Unicast notifications
  Unicast notifications are notification messages that are targeted to a particular device or a userID.
• Sending push notifications
  When we have set up push notification, as tag-based or broadcast-enabled, we can send push notifications from the server.
• Sending SMS notifications
  We can send short message service (SMS) messages, commonly known as text messages, to user devices. To be able to receive SMS notifications, user must register to the notification by using their phone number.
• REST Services APIs
  We can use REST Services APIs to work with Push notifications.
• Troubleshooting push notification problems
  Find information to help resolve push notification issues that you might encounter.

Parent topic: Develop applications