React Native push notifications for both Android and iOS mobile applications have become a prime marketing strategy. This is so because it provides a rich user experience. As a result, you need not put extra effort to attract the audience to your platform.
They will not only help to attract the audience but also aids you in retaining them for a long period of time. But what makes them unique is their ability to work with firebase.
Now you must be probably wondering about Firebase.
Well, Firebase is a Backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that was started as a YC11 startup. It is the next-generation app-development platform on Google Cloud. It comes with a lot of integrations in the form of Social Logins, Real-Time Database, Analytics, In-app messages, push notifications, and so on.
For getting more information on the same, let us discuss in detail how React Native Push Notifications work with firebase.
When It Comes to Implementation There Are Two Main Components for Sending and Receiving.
- Cloud Functions for Firebase or an app server. These are those on which you have to build, target, and send messages.
- An iOS or Android client app for receiving messages.
You can easily send messages using Firebase Admin SDK or FCM server protocols. You can also use the notification composer for sending messages. You can even go with built-in targeting and analytics for testing.
Fcm Architectural Overview
The FCM architecture is basically composed of four parts.
Message building and targeting
You will be provided with a GUI-based option by the notifications composer for creating notifications requests. It is recommended to build message requests in a trusted server environment that supports the firebase Admin SDK or the FCM server protocols. This is basically for full automation and support for all message types.
FCM backend
The basic function of the FCM backend is to accept message requests. It also performs the fanout of the messages via topics along with generating message metadata such as the message ID.
Platform-level message transport
A platform-level transport layer routes the message to the targeted device. It also handles the message delivery and applies the platform-specific configuration.
The transport layer includes Android Transport Layer (ATL) for Android devices and Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) for iOS devices.
SDK on the device
This is where the notification is displayed or the messages are being handled. This is specifically in accordance with the app’s foreground/background state.
Lifecycle Flow
Register devises to receive messages from FCM
This is where an instance of a client app registers to receive messages. Here a registration token is obtained that uniquely identifies the app instance.
Sending and Receiving downstream messages
The message is composed in the notification composer or the trusted environment followed by a message request which is sent to the FCM backend. The FCM backend receives the message request. It generates a message ID along with other metadata and sends it to the platform-specific transport layer.
Now when the internet is enabled on the device the message is sent to the device via a platform-specific transport layer. This is when the app receives the notification.
Firebase allows you to send two types of messages
Notification Messages or Display Messages:
These messages are specifically handled by Firebase SDK automatically.
Data Messages
These messages are specifically handled by the client app.
Notification Messages
FCM displays the message to the end-user on behalf of the client app and this process is automatic. Actually, Notification Messages contain a predefined set of user-visible keys. They are also having an optional data payload of custom key-value pairs. So you can use Notification Messages when you want that FCM should handle displaying notifications on behalf of your client’s app.
Parameters
There are various parameters that you must know.
- To (optional/string): This specifies the recipient of the notification. The value of this can be a device’s registration token, the device’s group notification key, or even a single topic.
- Registration_ids (optional, array of strings): This specifies the recipient of a multicast message. A multicast message is a message that is sent to more than one registration token.
- Priority (optional, string): This is used to set the priority of the message. The valid values are “Normal” and “High”. If we take iOS then these are 5 and 10.
- Content_available (optional, string): This is used on iOS to represent the content available in the APN’s payload.
- Data: (optional, object): It specifies the custom key-value pairs of the message’s payload.
Data messages
These are having only custom-key value pairs. Here you need to set the appropriate key with your custom key-value pairs for sending a data payload to the client app.
Conclusion
When it comes to the React Native push notifications with firebase, it becomes one of the powerful marketing strategies to target audiences present in any corner of the world. Now how it is being done is presented to you.