Push Notifications using Google GCM

I want to send push notifications to multiple users who have installed my app.

want to use push notification for following 2 purposes.

  1. Convey some info regarding version or some message like “use the app” for inactive users
  2. May set some flags in sharedprefs also based on the message.

Do you think push notification is right choice for this or some other mechanism?

Sending push notifications to all the users(have my app installed) is tricky and may not work i think.
Please comment on this.

Sure you can do it.

Have you heard of Parse (https://www.parse.com)? One of their services (for free) is sending push notifications. When you want to send a push notification, they allow you to send the message as a JSON, so you can handle it the way you want.

I’m using it on iOS, but should be the same in Android.

yes parse is good for android too.
There is no point of implementing your own GCM things.

Its really great way to send push notifications with ease.
I studied the procedure and found below observation to integrate it.

  1. Add app in parse website which will generate some keys.
  2. Add some code in onCreate() where above keys will be required
  3. Add some classes and permissions in your app’s Manifest file
  4. Add parse SDK to app

After above steps push notifications can be sent using the website interface. This is theoretical explanation.
I have not integrated it yet. So want to know following things from those who have used it practically.

  1. Is it possible to set some app flags without showing the task bar notification popup for user.
    In other words can it be used to set some settings of the app? Mostly to change the ad network flags so that we need not to wait for users to accept the app update in order to check the performance of another ad network or some other settings.

Bottom line is, Can we have the super control on the notification arrival so that we can handle the content of the notification and based on its content either show task bar notification or change some setting silently or something else?

Well, you will need to go through the documentation. I can’t confirm because I’m using it on iOS and I’m able to control the data before showing any notification (or not showing it at all). In Android it might be different, even tho they should provide you a BroadcastReceiver to handle the push…

I see what you’re doing. Instead of the app keep polling some JSON producer to check which ad network to use, you wanna push a GCM notification to switch an ad network’s active flag/setting instead. Interesting approach I must say, and it seems possible too. Good luck to you!

Yes, I can see some receivers provided by “parse” in manifest settings.

I hope i can use Broadcast onReceive for those messages. It was just missing from my mind. Thanks anyway.
It should be done easily i think.

Still want to know if anyone of you have tried this in ANDROID. I could have tried this by now. But i am doing something else and totally occupied.
So wanted to know in advance. Thanks.

From what I’ve observed, devs on this forum have either hosted a simple JSON file on a web server that their apps poll every once in a while or they’ve gone with integrating an ad mediation platform like MoPub which does this and a whole lot more like splitting traffic in specified ratios, responding to end user’s geo location etc.

Agreed.

Its one of the purposes it might serve.
There are many other functionalities which might be achieved with push notifications efficiently.

Hosting JSON structure might be bottelneck for larger user traffic if polling is very often. Webserver might be out of daily quota if its on sharing basis.

Personally, I like the mediation option better. In fact, I’d suggest you to look into it too. You said you’re occupied, and both GCM or mediation will require you to spend some time over it. But, unless you’re also planning to use GCM to provide additional app functionality, you’ll gain much more control over monetization with a mediation network instead. I think, it’ll offer you a much better return on invested time.

@BigPanda, I agree with @androidev. If you just want to use that service to mediate and make changes in your ad networks, you should think about using a mediation network like MoPub or AdMob. Those tools give you the option to apply changes without the need of an update. Anyway, you can include both solutions. Having the possibility to send push notifications to your users, is really important for marketing, and keep the users coming back to your app (avoid overusing this power, or it will have the opposite effect).

what does that mean?

Do you mean that Google policy limits the use of push notification feature?

OR

Users might feel sick of the popup notification if its sent very often?

2nd option :slight_smile: