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Live Activities for Android

Learn how to emulate Live Updates in the Android Braze SDK. Although Live Updates aren’t officially supported, this guide will show you how to emulate their behavior, so you can display interactive lock-screen notifications similar to Live Activities for the Swift Braze SDK. Unlike official Live Updates, this functionality can be implemented for older Android versions.

How it works

You can use the IBrazeNotificationFactory interface to customize how Braze push notifications are displayed. By extending BrazeNotificationFactory, Braze will call your factory’s createNotification() method before the notification is displayed to the user. It will then pass a payload containing custom key-value pairs sent through the Braze dashboard or REST API.

Emulating a Live Update

In this section, you’ll partner with Superb Owl, the host of a new game show where wildlife rescue teams compete to see who can save the most owls. They’re looking to leverage Live Updates in their Android app, so they can display the status of an on-going match and make dynamic updates to the notification in realtime.

The Live Update that Superb Owl wants to making, displaying an on-going match between 'Wild Bird Fund' and 'Owl Rescue'. It's currently the fourth quarter and the score is 2-4 with OWL in the lead.

Prerequisites

Before you can use this feature, you’ll need to integrate the Android Braze SDK.

Step 1: Add a custom layout

You can add one or more custom Live Update layouts to your project. These are helpful for handling how notifications are displayed when collapsed or expanded. Your directory structure should be similar to the following:

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.
├── app/
└── res/
    └── layout/
        ├── liveupdate_collapsed.xml
        └── liveupdate_expanded.xml

In each XML file, create a custom layout. Superb Owl created the following layouts for their collapsed and expanded Live Updates:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/notification_title"
        style="@style/TextAppearance.Compat.Notification.Title"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        android:layout_weight="1" />
</LinearLayout>
Show the sample code
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="horizontal">

    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        android:layout_gravity="center"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="vertical">

        <ImageView
            android:id="@+id/team1logo"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="60dp"
            android:layout_gravity="center"
            android:src="@drawable/team_default1"/>

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/team1name"
            android:textAlignment="center"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

    </LinearLayout>

    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:layout_weight="1.6"
        android:layout_gravity="center"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="vertical">

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/score"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:text="2-4"
            android:textColor="#555555"
            android:textAlignment="center"
            android:textSize="32sp"
            android:textStyle="bold" />

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/timeInfo"
            android:textAlignment="center"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

    </LinearLayout>


    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        android:layout_gravity="center"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="vertical">

        <ImageView
            android:id="@+id/team2logo"
            android:layout_gravity="center"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="60dp"
            android:src="@drawable/team_default2"/>

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/team2name"
            android:textAlignment="center"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

    </LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>

Step 2: Create a custom notification factory

In your application, create a new file named MyCustomNotificationFactory.kt that extends BrazeNotificationFactory to handle how Braze Live Updates are displayed.

In the following example, Superb Owl created a custom notification factory to display a Live Update for on-going matches. In the next step, they’ll create a new method called getTeamInfo to map a team’s data to the activity.

Show the sample code
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import android.app.Notification
import android.widget.RemoteViews
import androidx.core.app.NotificationCompat
import com.braze.models.push.BrazeNotificationPayload
import com.braze.push.BrazeNotificationFactory
import com.braze.push.BrazeNotificationUtils.getOrCreateNotificationChannelId
import com.braze.support.BrazeLogger.brazelog

class MyCustomNotificationFactory : BrazeNotificationFactory() {
    override fun createNotification(payload: BrazeNotificationPayload): Notification? {
        if (payload.extras.containsKey("live_update")) {
            val kvp = payload.extras
            val notificationChannelId = getOrCreateNotificationChannelId(payload)
            val context = payload.context

            if (context == null) {
                brazelog { "BrazeNotificationPayload has null context. Not creating notification" }
                return null
            }

            val team1 = kvp["team1"]
            val team2 = kvp["team2"]
            val score1 = kvp["score1"]
            val score2 = kvp["score2"]
            val time = kvp["time"]
            val quarter = kvp["quarter"]

            // Superb Owl will define the 'getTeamInfo' method in the next step.
            val (team1name, team1icon) = getTeamInfo(team1)
            val (team2name, team2icon) = getTeamInfo(team2)

            // Get the layouts to use in the custom notification.
            val notificationLayoutCollapsed = RemoteViews(BuildConfig.APPLICATION_ID, R.layout.liveupdate_collapsed)
            val notificationLayoutExpanded = RemoteViews(BuildConfig.APPLICATION_ID, R.layout.liveupdate_expanded)

            // Very simple notification for the small layout
            notificationLayoutCollapsed.setTextViewText(
                R.id.notification_title,
                "$team1 $score1 - $score2 $team2\n$time $quarter"
            )

            notificationLayoutExpanded.setTextViewText(R.id.score, "$score1 - $score2")
            notificationLayoutExpanded.setTextViewText(R.id.team1name, team1name)
            notificationLayoutExpanded.setTextViewText(R.id.team2name, team2name)
            notificationLayoutExpanded.setTextViewText(R.id.timeInfo, "$time - $quarter")
            notificationLayoutExpanded.setImageViewResource(R.id.team1logo, team1icon)
            notificationLayoutExpanded.setImageViewResource(R.id.team2logo, team2icon)

            val customNotification = NotificationCompat.Builder(context, notificationChannelId)
                .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.notification_small_icon)
                .setStyle(NotificationCompat.DecoratedCustomViewStyle())
                .setCustomContentView(notificationLayout)
                .setCustomBigContentView(notificationLayoutExpanded)
                .build()
            return customNotification
        } else {
            // Use the BrazeNotificationFactory for all other notifications
            return super.createNotification(payload)
        }
    }
}

Step 3: Map custom data

In MyCustomNotificationFactory.kt, create a new method for handling data when Live Updates are displayed.

Superb Owl created the following method to map each team’s name and logo to expanded Live Updates:

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class CustomNotificationFactory : BrazeNotificationFactory() {
    override fun createNotification(payload: BrazeNotificationPayload): Notification? {
        // Your existing code
        return super.createNotification(payload)
    }

    // Your new method
    private fun getTeamInfo(team: String?): Pair<String, Int> {
        return when (team) {
            "WBF" -> Pair("Wild Bird Fund", R.drawable.team_wbf)
            "OWL" -> Pair("Owl Rehab", R.drawable.team_owl)
            else  -> Pair("Unknown", R.drawable.notification_small_icon)
        }
    }
}

Step 4: Set the custom notification factory

In your application class, use customBrazeNotificationFactoryto set your custom notification factory.

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import com.braze.Braze

class MyApplication : Application() {
    override fun onCreate() {
        super.onCreate()

        // Tell Braze to use your custom factory for notifications
        Braze.customBrazeNotificationFactory = MyCustomNotificationFactory()
    }
}

Step 5: Send the activity

You can use the /messages/send REST API endpoint to send a push notification to a user’s Android device.

Example curl command

Superb Owl sent their request using the following curl command:

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curl -X POST "https://BRAZE_REST_ENDPOINT/messages/send" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer {REST_API_KEY}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "external_user_ids": ["USER_ID"],
    "messages": {
      "android_push": {
        "title": "WBF vs OWL",
        "alert": "2 to 4 1:33 Q4",
        "extra": {
          "live_update": "true",
          "team1": "WBF",
          "team2": "OWL",
          "score1": "2",
          "score2": "4",
          "time": "1:33",
          "quarter": "Q4"
        },
        "notification_id": "ASSIGNED_NOTIFICATION_ID"
      }
    }
  }'

Request parameters

Step 6: Update the activity

To update the existing Live Update with new data, modify the relevant key-value pairs assigned to messages.extra, then use the same notification_id and call the /messages/send endpoint again.

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