We have an app (iOS, Android) where we send push notifications to from the Firebase web interface to all the registered users.
The backend system cannot handle the peak load that occurs when all the users are pulled into the app calling the REST API from the push notifications.
Is there a way to split the registered users to send the push notifications little by little at an appropriate rate?
I suspect that this has to be done programmatically. C#?
Question with workarounds handling peak times when sending push notifications
The web console for sending notifications with Firebase Cloud Messaging does not have a way to throttle message delivery. It's an interesting concern though, so I'd recommend filing a feature request.
For the moment though, I can think of two options:
Create multiple audiences that cover your entire user base, and then send to each audience at a different time.
Use the FCM API to send out the messages to your users in batches.
Related
I'm about to develop an app similar to a birthday reminder and I plan to use firebase for push notifications but what makes me second question my choice is whether users will be able to receive a birthday notification if they are offline(not connected to internet for the whole birthday day). I know firebase has some offline persistence support but I'm not sure if this includes push notifications support. Are there any options to achieve that with firebase or with any other tool compatible with react native?
If the device is not connected to the internet, it is going to be impossible to deliver messages to it through Firebase Cloud Messaging or other internet protocols.
The common way to deal with such a scenario is to deliver the message to the device when the user does have an internet connection, and then only display it once it's the right time. By sending a data-only message through FCM, your application code controls exactly what happens with the message data.
There are essentially two types of notifications: in app messaging and cloud messaging. Both are offered by Firebase: In App Messaging and FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging).
The details you've given about your app is a little bit vague but if you're asking for push notifications, then FCM does the job. FCM will send notification when the app is on background or killed (exited out). When you say device is offline I'm assuming you mean when the user isn't using the phone. Yes, the notification will still come.
https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging
I wonder if there is a way I could track fcm push notifications delivery in flutter so I can set a callback and be notified when notification is received by device?
Please upload a bit of your code/ detailed code flow as to how you are achieving push notifications .i.e, from webserver/cloud functions/flutter package. In any of the methods, you receive information on the about failed/delivered msgs as well a Message-ID used as a reference when looking up particular messaging operation
If you rely on a web server, then in order to set callbacks on your web server, you can use the feature of Firebase Cloud messaging Data export to BigQuery and apply cloud functions to listen to the undelivered messages in bulk automatically. This however may turn a bit costly on a larger scale.
I am making a website and one of the features is that whenever a contract is nearing its end, the user should be notified about it. So I was looking for a way to notify users and I found out about push notifications.
Now, there are lots of things written about it. I heard a lot about Google Cloud Messaging, Firebase Cloud Messaging and Service Workers.
Now the thing is that my website will probably be on an Intranet. So maybe I won't be able to use GCM/FCM.
But I have a few questions regarding GCM, FCM and Service-Workers:
Why do I need FCM/GCM?
What is the difference between FCM and Service Workers?
Is there a way to push notifications even if the browser is closed?
Because my website is on an Intranet, is there another way to push notifications to the users?
1. Why do I need FCM/GCM?
You may check here the features of FCM.
Notification payload: 4KB, Message payload: 2KB. Note that the notification includes device and app information too.
Stores 100 notification/messages per device if the device is offline.
Stores notification/messages for 30 days if the device is offline, and deleted them all one this period is over and the device is still offline.
FCM supports Android and iOS devices, and even chrome web apps. The notifications are sent to iOS devices in this way: App Server -> FCM -> Apple Push Notification Server (APNs) -> iOS device -> App.
GCM supports 1 million subscribers while FCM do not have this limitation.
Supports programming in C++.
Less requirements for coding.
2. What is the difference between FCM and Service Workers?
Service Worker is a background service that handles network requests. Ideal for dealing with offline situations and background syncs or push notifications. Cannot directly interact with the DOM. Communication must go through the Service Worker’s postMessage method. Service Workers are pretty perfect for creating offline-first web apps. They let you interact with the server when you can (to fetch new data from the server, or push updated info back to the server), so your app can work regardless of your user’s connectivity.
While using FCM, you can notify a client app that new email or other data is available to sync. You can send notification messages to drive user reengagement and retention. For use cases such as instant messaging, a message can transfer a payload of up to 4KB to a client app.
3. Is there a way to push notifications even if the browser is closed?
Check this thread: Notifications while browser is closed
4. Because my website is on an Intranet, is there another way to push notifications to the users?
Unfortunately, I don't see any documentation regarding this.
Hope my answers help you.
I know that Firebase has recently added support for Push Notifications and while this is a great thing, I only seem to be able to send push notifications manually via the Notifications Panel.
What I'd like to do is to send push notifications within a user scope...Let me explain that. Each User in my App has an account and then each user can join a group. Within this group the user can perform tasks and has a list of chores to do. Now when certain tasks are due for example I want to remind the user of doing it with a push notification. For 1-10 I might be able to pull this off manually, but is there a way to dynamically based on the data in the Database send out Push Notifications?
I know that certain Push Notifications can be created using the Analytics tool such as "Hey you have not visited for 3 days, please come back whatever"... but I'd like to register push notifications such as "I just created a task, this task needs to be done within 3 days. Remind me in 3 days if the task is still not done".
Is this possible with Firebase or do I need to have my own server connecting to Firebase and handling those events?
-xCoder
You need to implement FCM in your client and in a server. Let me put this straight:
First, you need that your client, or app, to register into FCM and get a FCM token that will be used to identify that device uniquely.
Then, store that token wherever you like. It can be into firebase database or other server you may like. I recommend you to store it into firebase if you are using it as a database for your users; that's my case.
Also, you need to implement a http or xmpp server in order to send FCM messages to your registered devices containing the data you are interested in. For example, you can implement a Google App Engine endpoint (can be done with Android Studio and Java) that is quite simple or a NodeJS module, depending on your preferred language.
If you are using Firebase as database you can connect from your server with the appropriate SDK and get the FCM tokens you want from your users, and then send the message to those with data. Don't forget to secure your serve.
The way you implement your server algorithm to send FCM messages depends on your app purposes.
Hope it is clear enough for you. Also you can find all the documentation with a short video that explains the general structure here: https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging
You can use cloud functions to trigger on any create, update or delete operation in your database and in the trigger event, you can choose to send in FCM push notifications to the devices of your choice.
Here is the documentation regarding the use and structure of a cloud function: https://firebase.google.com/docs/firestore/extend-with-functions
Hope this helps!
The idea of using the push notifications is only to have a notification mechanism that will send a notification when there is a new message waiting to download from the backend service: all the notifications are of the same type e.g. "refresh messages from the server" (the same for Android and iOS).
Are there any limits for the Apple/Google push notifications services?
Assuming that my application will handle more that 100k active users (or even 1M or more users) - would there be any problem with the Apple Push Notifications or GCM services?
If using the push notifications for such a service is not a good idea then what is other solution that could be used for mobile chat applications?
Don't forget that on iOS user may forbid sending notifications, so your app won't receive any even in foreground. Thus, you need to implement your own push mechanism.
Need for push notifications
Especially on iOS you don't have a choice but to use their push notifications service APNS. There is no other way to receive notifications immediately because iOS may kill or neglect the TCP connections of your background app.
On Android it seems possible to use your own background TCP connection to avoid having to use push notifications. But you may still consider the use of the push notifications through GCM for the sake of improved battery usage.
Pricing
Neither APNS (iOS) nor GCM (Android) charge you for the service and you are allowed to send an unlimited number of messages.
Limitations and Requirements
Both services will delete message, when there are too many messages accumulated in the queue for an offline device - which makes sense because there is no point in delivering those messages hours later. You have to take that in to account, when writing your app (just do a poll when going back online).
Depending on the app you are writing, there may also be privacy concerns. Even if you encrypt the message itself, at least Apple/Google know when a notification is sent to a certain device, which may be a deal-breaker for certain high-security applications.
You will also need a server that is able to communicate to both APNS and GCM. There are open source solutions for that (e.g. easyApns for iOS and python-gcm for Android), but how easy their integration is depends on your server and the language it is written in.