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Push with API

Message publishing API supports the following scenarios:

Scenarios
Description
Push notification from a Push Template
This approach is the simplest and yet provides the most flexibility when it comes to  identifying a dynamic audience of who will be receiving the notification, creating custom, personalized content for each recipient and configuring numerous visual and audible effects. To send out push notifications for a Push Template using the API, make sure to start with defining a Push Template first. For more information see the About Push Templates section of the guide. API Example.
Basic push notification
It is the simplest form of a push notification. It is sent to a channel and all devices registered with the channel will be receiving the notification. The notification message must contain headers which control the appearance of the notification on the devices. API Example.
Push notification delivered to devices grouped by the OS
With this type delivery, a notification is sent to all devices of a specific operating system (or a combination of).  This includes delivery to Android, iOS or both. API Example.
Push notification delivered to specific devices
This delivery type allows push notification delivery to individual devices. API Example
Delayed publishing
For all scenarios described above a push notification request can be configured to be executed at a later time. API Example.

Blocking API

Publishes push notification to the "Default" channel. Headers must be added to the publishOptions argument.

public MessageStatus Backendless.Messaging.Publish( object message, 
                                                    PublishOptions publishOptions )

Same as above, but published into the specified channel.

public MessageStatus Backendless.Messaging.Publish( object message, 
                                                    string channelName,
                                                    PublishOptions publishOptions )

Publishes push notification to the "Default" channel. Headers must be added to the publishOptions argument. Delivery options can be used to:

  1. Designate the message as "push notification only" or both a push notification and a pub/sub message.
  2. Singlecast publishing - set a list of devices which should be receiving the notification.
  3. Broadcast publishing - identify operating systems of the registered devices which should be receiving the notification.
  4. Publish the message at a later time (delayed publishing).
  5. Specify that the message should be republished multiple times (repeated publishing).
public MessageStatus Backendless.Messaging.Publish( object message, 
                                                    PublishOptions publishOptions, 
                                                    DeliveryOptions deliveryOptions )

Same as above, but published into the specified channel.

public MessageStatus Backendless.Messaging.Publish( object message,
                                                    string channelName,
                                                    PublishOptions publishOptions,
                                                    DeliveryOptions deliveryOptions )

Non-Blocking API

The same set of methods is available for the asynchronous invocation. The difference in the method signatures is the AsyncCallback<MessageStatus> argument:

// Publishes push notification to the "Default" channel. Headers must be added to the publishOptions argument.
public MessageStatus Backendless.Messaging.Publish( object message, 
                                                    PublishOptions publishOptions,
                                                    AsyncCallback<MessageStatus> publishResponder )

// Same as above, but published into the specified channel.
public MessageStatus Backendless.Messaging.Publish( object message,
                                                    string channelName, 
                                                    PublishOptions publishOptions,
                                                    AsyncCallback<MessageStatus> publishResponder )

// Publishes push notification to the "Default" channel. Headers must be added to the publishOptions argument.
// With the presence of the deliveryOptions argument, the push notification can be:
// (1) published as a singlecast - targeting specific devices, (2) published with a delay.
public MessageStatus Backendless.Messaging.Publish( object message, 
                                                    PublishOptions publishOptions, 
                                                    DeliveryOptions deliveryOptions,
                                                    AsyncCallback<MessageStatus> publishResponder )

// Same as above, but published into the specified channel.
public MessageStatus Backendless.Messaging.Publish( object message,
                                                    string channelName,
                                                    PublishOptions publishOptions,
                                                    DeliveryOptions deliveryOptions,
                                                    AsyncCallback<MessageStatus> publishResponder )

where:

Argument                Description
channelName Name of the channel to publish the notification to. If the channel does not exist, Backendless automatically creates it.
message Object to publish. The object can be of any data type - a primitive value, String, Date, a  user-defined complex type, a collection or an array of these types.
publishOptions An instance of PublishOptions. When provided may contain publisher ID (an arbitrary, application-specific string value identifying the publisher), subtopic value and/or a collection of headers.
deliveryOptions An instance of DeliveryOptions. When provides may specify options for message delivery such as:  deliver to specific devices (or devices grouped by the operating system), delayed delivery or repeated delivery.

Return value

Argument                Description
MessageStatus A data structure which contains ID of the published message and the status of the publish operation:
namespace BackendlessAPI.Messaging
{
  public class MessageStatus
  {
    public PublishStatusEnum Status { get; }
    public string MessageId { get; }
    public string ErrorMessage { get; }
  }
}

Supported message statuses are:

namespace BackendlessAPI.Messaging
{
  public enum PublishStatusEnum
  {
    FAILED,
    PUBLISHED,
    SCHEDULED,
    CANCELLED
  }
}

When the message Status is returned as PublishStatusEnum.FAILED, the corresponding error message is available through the ErrorMessage property.

Errors

The following errors may occur during the message publishing API call. See the Error Handling section for details on how to retrieve the error code when the server returns an error:

Error Code
Description
5003
Invalid repeatExpiresAt date in delivery options.
5007
User does not have the permission to publish messages
5030
Invalid publishAt date in the delivery options.

Codeless Reference

push_push_with_api_1

where:

Argument                Description
channel name Name of the channel where a message must be published to.
device ids Must be a list containing unique identifiers of the devices that will receive a push notification.
message The contents of the message that must be published to a channel.
Android ticker text Sets the text of the ticker showing up at the top of a device's screen when the device receives the notification.
Android notification title Sets the title of the notification as it is visible in the Android Notification Center
Android notification text Sets the message of the notification which appears under android-content-title in the Android Notification Center.
iOS alert message Sets the text of the alert message. If the header is not present and the published notification targets the iOS devices, Backendless sets the header to the value of the "message" argument.
iOS badge Sets the value to update the badge with.
headers Headers control the content and appearance of the push notification on the devices.
return result When this box is checked, the operation returns an object containing the status of the message delivery and a unique message identifier.

Returns an object containing the following parameters:

// Sample object  

{  
    "messageId":"message:FCBD8BF1-A45D-4564-B449-3C91D4896987",  
    "status":"published",  
    "errorMessage":null  
}

where:

Argument                Description
messageId ID of the message for which the publishing status is retrieved.
status Can be one of the following values: FAILED, PUBLISHED, SCHEDULED, CANCELLED, UNKNOWN
errorMessage Contains a detailed error message when status is "failed".

The example below publishes the message to the "default" channel. This message is delivered only to Android devices, since no values were set for iOS properties.

push_push_with_api_2