Using Push Notifications

Push Notifications are useful to direct your user's attention where you want it and quickly inform users of updates, deadlines or new information.

Push Notifications can be sent to you App users to help direct their attention when you want it! By design, they are a kind of 'disappearing message', but once sent they'll also be stored in the Notifications tile in your Cambridgeshire Virtual Schools App ensuring users can refer back to recent notifications they may have missed.

This article will take you through the steps of creating your first one, sending them, and seeing your previous notifications.

Creating a Push Notification

STEP 1 Once logged into your App Portal, select 'Push Notifications' on the left hand menu, then select 'Create Push Notifications.'

STEP 2 Next, give your Notification a Title and Body text. The title should draw attention, whilst the body should offer a little more information. The title has a character limit of 40, and the body 200, so keep them brief and to-the-point!

STEP 3 Scroll down and chose where you want to direct the user within your App. You'll notice these all lead to difference sections of your App. In some cases, you'll have the option to paste a URL link also, which can be any web address.

Sending Your Notification

Once you've added all of the above details, it's time to send your Push Notification. This is done at the bottom of the Create Push Notification page where it says Schedule. You have two options here:

NOW: This will send your notification to your App users immediately. Once the NOW option is selected, click Send at the bottom.

LATER: This will allow you to 'queue' your notification for a later time in the day or even on another date. This allows you to queue all of your notifications for the week on Monday for example. Once you've selected the date and time, click Schedule at the bottom.

Viewing your Notifications

Once they're sent/scheduled, you're able to view past and pending Push Notifications by clicking View Push Notifications under Push notifications in the left hand sidebar in the portal.

You have a number of filter options too. This is at the top of your View Push Notifications screen. You're able to filter your notifications by date, contents (such as title, or body of the notification), sender, type or exact date. Here, you're also able to View or Delete previous notifications from your records. Note that this doesn't stop the notification having been sent, it just clears space in your records. However, if it is a recent notification, it will remove it from App users Notifications section in their App.