Push Notification Guide
Learn how to create a push notification for your passenger app, which can be used to inform customers of promotions or the need to take action in the app, such as updating payment details.
Perquisites
You must be first set up with a Firebase account and the account should be connected to your Passenger App(s). For information on adding Firebase to your apps, please refer to Google's own documentation centre for Firebase.
How to create a Push Notification
- Log into your Firebase account by visiting: https://console.firebase.google.com/
- Select the project (your passenger app) you want to send your push notification out on.
- Navigate to the Messaging section by clicking on Run in the left-hand menu and then Messaging.
- Create a new campaign by clicking on the 'New Campaign' button.
Note: If this is the first time creating a messaging campaign, click the 'Create your first campaign' button. - Select the 'Firebase Notification messages' option to send out your message as "Push Notification", which allows the user to see the message even if they do not have your passenger app currently open.
- When composing the notification message, fill out the following fields:
- Notification title: Enter a suitable title for your push notification. We recommend keeping it short and eye-catching.
- Notification text: Provide suitable text for your push notification. This is where you can enter an explanation for the push notification, whether it's for a promotion or to alert the user to update their settings/app.
- Notification image (optional): Optionally, you can add a notification image which appears to the side of the message. You can upload an image or provide a URL. Please note, if uploading an image, Firebase requires you to sign up to a plan to pay for storage.
- Notification name (optional): Optionally, you can provide a name to identify the notification on your Firebase account, which does not appear to your customers. This is useful if you are putting out multiple notifications to differentiate them.
- Once you have completed filling out the fields, click Next.
- In the Target Section, keep the first field as App and click the dropdown menu to select your passenger app from the list.
- Click Next to continue.
- Now, you can configure the Scheduling for your notification. Click on the text field that says 'Now' and a dropdown menu appears allowing you to change and tailor your scheduling from the following options:
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One-time notification: The notification only appears on a customer's device one time.
- Now: The notification is sent out across your app(s) as soon as it is published.
- Scheduled: Choose a specific calendar date and time to send out the notification.
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Recurring notifications: Allows you to set up a repeating schedule of how many times you want the notification to appear and when.
- Daily: Send the notification out to your users daily. Configure the time of day it is sent out, how frequently per day it appears for your users, and provide the start and end dates of the schedule.
- Custom: Allows you to create a custom recurrence, where it can repeat a several times within a specified number of days or weeks. Configure the time of day the notification is sent out, how frequently per day or week it appears for your users, and provide the start and end dates of the schedule.
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One-time notification: The notification only appears on a customer's device one time.
- Upon completion of the schedule settings, click Next to continue.
- Skip the Key events section and Next again. Repeat for the Additional options section.
- Press the Review button.
- Double-check your settings and content. Press Publish to proceed to push out your notification by your set schedule.
By following these steps, you'll have effectively set up and scheduled push notifications using Firebase.