Push to Devices
The app can receive push notifications through the platform’s own delivery, which is a different mechanism from web push.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Mobile Apps:
- Mobile Canvas — the app, its screens and its settings
- App Builds & Releases — building and submitting
- Mobile Devices — the devices that have installed it
Architect Panel → Configuration:
- Site Settings — the Mobile Apps option group
Two delivery services
iOS delivery goes through Apple’s service and Android through Google’s, each configured at installation level. Every device records which provider it uses and its own token.
What a message carries
A title and body, optional data, a badge count, a sound, a priority and a collapse key. Each send records the provider, the result, the provider’s identifier and any failure reason.
The collapse key prevents pile-ups
Messages sharing a collapse key replace each other rather than stacking. So a device that was off for a day receives the latest status rather than forty notifications about the same job.
Use it for anything that supersedes itself — status changes, counts, reminders about one thing.
Priority is not free
High priority wakes the device and costs battery, and both platforms notice apps that overuse it. Reserve it for things that genuinely cannot wait.
Failures are recorded
Each send stores its result and failure reason, which is how you find devices with dead tokens. A token that fails consistently belongs to an app that was uninstalled, and the device should be tidied up rather than retried forever.
Send few and send useful
The threshold is "would this person want their phone to interrupt them for this". Organisations that notify on everything end up with a workforce that has turned notifications off, and then the one urgent message does not arrive either.
Nothing private in the text
Notifications appear on locked screens. A customer name, an address, a case detail or anything medical is that information displayed to whoever can see the phone.
Say that something has changed and let the person open the app.
Push is best effort
Devices are off, tokens expire, delivery services drop messages. Anything that must reach somebody needs another channel as well — and anything time-critical needs a fallback.
Check the badge count means something
A badge showing a number nobody can clear is worse than no badge. Make sure it corresponds to something the user can actually action and that it goes down when they do.
Worked example
A field app notifies on new job assignment and on cancellation only, using a collapse key per job so a device switched on after a day shows the current state. Text names the job number and nothing else. Failed tokens are reviewed monthly and their devices revoked.
Recommendations
- Use collapse keys for anything that supersedes itself.
- High priority sparingly — platforms notice.
- Nothing private in the notification text.
- Review failed tokens and tidy those devices.