Salesforce Mobile Notifications Implementation Guide

Mobile Notifications Overview
Steps for Implementing Mobile Notifications
Step 1. Developer Registration with Mobile OS Vendors
Step 2. Creating an External Client App
Step 3. Configure Your Mobile SDK App
Enable Push Notifications in a Salesforce Mobile SDK Android App
Enable Push Notifications in a Salesforce Mobile SDK iOS App
Enable Push Notifications in a Salesforce Mobile SDK Hybrid App
Handle Notification Encryption in Salesforce Mobile SDK Apps
Build Your Own In-App Notification Feature
Step 4. Packaging Components for Customer Organizations
Sending Mobile Notifications
Using the Connect REST API Push Notification Resource (Optional)
Reference
PDF

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Build Your Own In-App Notification Feature

If you use the Salesforce mobile app, you’re familiar with the Salesforce Bell. The Bell provides an in-app notification tray that lists the current user’s most recent notifications. With Salesforce Notification APIs, you can design and build your own tray.
Queries calculate results from stored Notification Builder notifications. Salesforce provides REST APIs for the following Notification queries.
Notification
Get a specific notification for the context user.
Notifications
Get notifications for the context user.
Notifications Status
Get the “read” and “seen” properties a range of notifications.
Notification Update
Update the “read” and “seen” properties of a specific notification.
Notifications Update
Update the “read” and “seen” properties of a range of notifications.
For example, using these APIs, an app can
  • Display a list of notifications (Notifications)
  • When the customer taps a list entry, display the details of a single notification (Notification)
  • Set the state of a widget that indicates whether a notification has been read or seen (Notification)
  • Report how many notifications the customer hasn’t read or seen (Notifications Status)
  • Update the “read” or “seen” properties on one or more notifications after the customer visits your tray (Notification Update, Notifications Update)

Custom In-App Notification Tray Template App

If you’re looking for a head start in Swift, Mobile SDK provides an example of a custom notifications tray in the MobileSyncExplorerSwift template app. You can create your own app based on this template with the forceios createwithtemplate CLI command:
  1. Install the latest forceios version from node.js:
    1[sudo] npm install -g forceios
  2. Call the forceios createWithTemplate command:
    1forceios createWithTemplate
  3. At the first prompt, enter MobileSyncExplorerSwift:
    1forceios createWithTemplate
2Enter URI of repo containing template application or a Mobile SDK template name: 
3    MobileSyncExplorerSwift
  4. In the remaining prompts, enter your company and project information. If your information is accepted, forceios creates a project with a notifications tray that you can customize.
  5. If you’re updating an older Mobile SDK project, copy your app-specific resources from your old project into the new project.

See the Reference section for more information on Notification APIs.

Mobile SDK iOS Wrappers for Notification APIs

On iOS, Mobile SDK defines convenience methods for Notification APIs in the following classes:
Swift
1RestClient
Objective-C
1SFRestApi
The following methods are currently available for native apps only.

Notification

Get a notification.

Delegate Method
Swift
1RestClient.shared.request(forNotification:apiVersion:)
Objective-C
1- (SFRestRequest *)requestForNotification:(NSString *)notificationId apiVersion:(NSString *)apiVersion;

Block Method

Not available.

Notifications Status

Get the status of a range of notifications, including unread and unseen count.

Delegate Method
Swift
1RestClient.shared.request(forNotificationsStatus:)
Objective-C
1- (SFRestRequest *)requestForNotificationsStatus:(NSString *)apiVersion;

Block Method

Not available.

Notifications

Get the given number (maximum 20) of archived Notification Builder notifications based on the given “before” or “after�� date. In Mobile SDK, use the Swift FetchNotificationsRequestBuilder object or the Objective-C SFSDKFetchNotificationsRequestBuilder to create GET requests for notifications.

Delegate Method
Swift
1let builder = FetchNotificationsRequestBuilder.init()
2builder.setSize(10)
3builder.setBefore(Date.init())
4let request = builder.buildFetchNotificationsRequest(SFRestDefaultAPIVersion)
Objective-C
1SFSDKFetchNotificationsRequestBuilder *builder = 
2    [[SFSDKFetchNotificationsRequestBuilder alloc] init];
3[builder setBefore: [NSDate date]];
4[builder setSize:10];
5SFRestRequest *fetchRequest = 
6    [builder buildFetchNotificationsRequest:kSFRestDefaultAPIVersion];

Block Method

Not available.

Notifications Update

Update the “read” and “seen” statuses of a given set of Notification Builder notifications. In Mobile SDK, use the Swift UpdateNotificationsRequestBuilder object or the Objective-C SFSDKUpdateNotificationsRequestBuilder object to create update requests.

To update a single notification, set the notificationId property. To update a range of notifications, set either the notificationIds or the before property. These properties—notificationId, notificationIds, and before—are mutually exclusive.

Delegate Method
Swift
1let builder = UpdateNotificationsRequestBuilder.init()
2builder.setBefore(Date.init())
3builder.setRead(true)
4builder.setSeen(true)
5let request = builder.buildUpdateNotificationsRequest(SFRestDefaultAPIVersion)
Objective-C
1SFSDKUpdateNotificationsRequestBuilder *builder = 
2    [[SFSDKUpdateNotificationsRequestBuilder alloc] init];
3[builder setRead:true];
4[builder setSeen:true];
5[builder setBefore: [NSDate date]];
6SFRestRequest *updateRequest = [builder buildUpdateNotificationsRequest:kSFRestDefaultAPIVersion];

Block Method

Not available.

Mobile SDK Android Wrappers for Notification APIs

On Android, the RestRequest class defines the following convenience wrappers for Notification APIs.

Notification

Get a notification.

1public static RestRequest getRequestForNotification(String apiVersion, 
2    String notificationId)

Notification Update

Update the “read” and “seen” statuses of a given Notification Builder notification. 

1public static RestRequest getRequestForNotificationUpdate(String apiVersion, 
2    String notificationId, Boolean read, Boolean seen)

Notifications

Get the given number (maximum 20) of archived Notification Builder notifications based on the given “before” or “after” date.

1public static RestRequest getRequestForNotifications(String apiVersion, 
2    Integer size, Date before, Date after)

Notifications Status

Get the status of a range of notifications, including unread and unseen count.

1public static RestRequest getRequestForNotificationsStatus(String apiVersion)

Notifications Update

Update the “read” and “seen” statuses of a given set of Notification Builder notifications.

1* public static RestRequest getRequestForNotificationsUpdate(String apiVersion, 
2    List<String> notificationIds, Date before, Boolean read, Boolean seen)