Push Notifications

Push Notifications Feature Overview

• Supports APNS (Apple Push Notification Service)
• Supports GCM (Google Cloud Messaging)
• Supports C2DM (Cloud 2 Device Messaging)
• Allows tokens to be registered and deleted through REST interface (requires Services module)
• Provides interface for mass push notification to all users with a registered token
• Limit delivery of mass push notification to specific language
• Limit token registration to enabled languages on site
• API functions to send push notifications to a device
• Integrations
  • Integration with the Rules module. Added 2 actions to send messages to an individual user or all users, as well as several events that react to tokens being inserted, deleted, and push notifications sent.
  • Integration with the Views module. Expose token data in Views and created a default admin view that lists all tokens
  • Integration with PrivateMSG module: Messages sent through the PrivateMSG module will be delivered via a push notification to all recipients with a valid device token

Resources

Push Notifications Documentation Handbook

• Apple Push Notification Service (APNS)
• Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
• REST Interface
• Rules Integration
• Views Integration

Module Description

The Push Notifications module provides the feature set to send out push notifications to iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Android devices using Apple's Push Notification Service (APNS) as well as Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) and the Android Cloud to Device Messaging framework (C2DM). This module does not rely on any external services and allows site owners to send out push notifications to any mobile device for free.

Push notifications reverse the style of communication between a server and a client (in this case mobile or handheld devices) by having a the server initiate a transaction instead of having a client request information from the server. APNS, GCM and C2DM are lightweight services that can be used to push information directly to a specific device or a number of devices, usually notifying the device that there is "new" information available for a specific application. Both services handle queuing of messages and delivery and are (currently) free of charge.

The notification itself can contain a small amount of data (256 bytes for APNS, 1024 bytes for C2DM). The application targeted by the push notification does not need to be running on the device to receive the message and it is up to the application on the device what to do with the data. The most obvious use case is to have a push notification open the associated application, more complex use cases are possible.

Push Notifications integrates with the PrivateMSG module: Messages sent through the PrivateMSG module will be delivered via a push notification to all recipients with a valid device token. Integration requires PrivateMSG module 7.x-1.x and needs to be activated on the Push Notifications configuration page.

Requirements

• Services 3.0 to register the unique identifier for iOS devices ("device token") and Android devices ("registration id")
• APNS: Staging and/or production certificate
• GCM: GCM API key
• C2DM: C2DM-enabled Google Account