Advanced push notification examples

Prerequisites

Before you can use this feature, you’ll need to integrate the Swift Braze SDK. You’ll also need to set up push notifications.

Notification content app extensions

Notification content app extensions provide you a great option for push notification customization. Notification content app extensions display a custom interface for your app’s notifications when a push notification is expanded.

Push notifications can be expanded in three different ways:

• A long press on the push banner
• Swiping down on the push banner
• Swiping the banner to the left and selecting “View”

These custom views offer smart ways to engage customers by displaying distinct types of content, including interactive notifications, notifications populated with user data, and even push messages that can capture information like phone numbers and email. One of our well-known features at Braze, Push Stories, are a prime example of what a push notification content app extension can look like!

Requirements

• Push notifications successfully integrated in your app
• The following files generated by Xcode based on your coding language:

Swift

• NotificationViewController.swift
• MainInterface.storyboard

Objective-C

• NotificationViewController.h
• NotificationViewController.m
• MainInterface.storyboard

Interactive push notification

Push notifications can respond to user actions inside a content app extension. For users running iOS 12 or later, this means you can turn your push notifications into fully interactive messages! This provides an exciting option to introduce interactivity to your promotions and applications. For example, your push notification can include a game for users to play, a spin-to-win wheel for discounts, or a “like” button to save a listing or song.

The following example shows a push notification where users are able to play a match game inside the expanded notification.

Dashboard configuration

To create an interactive push notification, you must set a custom view in your dashboard.

1. From the Campaigns page, click Create Campaign to start a new push notification campaign.
2. On the Compose tab, toggle on Notification Buttons.
3. Enter a custom iOS category in the iOS Notification Category field.
4. In the .plist of your Notification Content Extension Target, set the UNNotificationExtensionCategory attribute to your custom iOS category. The value given here must match what is set in the Braze dashboard under iOS Notification Category.
5. Set the UNNotificationExtensionInteractionEnabled key to true to enable user interactions in a push notification.

Personalized push notifications

Push notifications can display user-specific information inside a content extension. This allows you to create user-focused push content, such as adding the option to share your progress across different platforms, show unlocked achievements, or display onboarding checklists. This example shows a push notification displayed to a user after they have completed a specific task in the Braze Learning course. By expanding the notification, the user can see their progress through their learning path. The information provided here is user-specific and can be fired off as a session is completed or a specific user action is taken by leveraging an API trigger.

Dashboard configuration

To create a personalized push notification, you must set a custom view in your dashboard.

1. From the Campaigns page, click Create Campaign to start a new push notification campaign.
2. On the Compose tab, toggle on Notification Buttons.
3. Enter a custom iOS category in the iOS Notification Category field.
4. In the Settings tab, create key-value pairs using standard Liquid. Set the appropriate user attributes you want the message to show. These views can be personalized based on specific user attributes of a specific user profile.
5. In the .plist of your Notification Content Extension Target, set the UNNotificationExtensionCategory attribute to your custom iOS category. The value given here must match what is set in the Braze dashboard under iOS Notification Category.

Handling key-value pairs

The method didReceive is called when the notification content app extension has received a notification. This method can be found within the NotificationViewController. The key-value pairs provided in the dashboard are represented in the code through the use of a userInfo dictionary.

Parsing Key-Value Pairs from Push Notifications

• swift
• objective-c

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func didReceive(_ notification: UNNotification) {
  let userInfo = notification.request.content.userInfo
     
  guard let value = userInfo["YOUR-KEY-VALUE-PAIR"] as? String,
        let otherValue = userInfo["YOUR-OTHER-KEY-VALUE-PAIR"] as? String,
  else { fatalError("Key-Value Pairs are incorrect.")}
 
  ...
}

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- (void)didReceiveNotification:(nonnull UNNotification *)notification {
  NSDictionary *userInfo = notification.request.content.userInfo;
   
  if (userInfo[@"YOUR-KEY-VALUE-PAIR"] && userInfo[@"YOUR-OTHER-KEY-VALUE-PAIR"]) {
 
  ...
 
  } else {
    [NSException raise:NSGenericException format:@"Key-Value Pairs are incorrect"];
  }
}

Information capture push notification

Push notifications can capture user information inside a content app extension, pushing the limits of what is possible with a push. Requesting user input through push notifications allows you to not only request basic information like name or email, but also prompt users to submit feedback or complete an unfinished user profile.

In the following flow, the custom view is able to respond to state changes. Those state change components are represented in each image.

1. User receives a push notification.
2. Push is opened. After expanded, the push prompts the user for information. In this example, the user’s email address is requested, but you could request any sort of information.
3. Information is provided, and if in the expected format, the registration button is shown.
4. Confirmation view is displayed, and push gets dismissed.

Dashboard configuration

To create an information capture push notification, you must set a custom view in your dashboard.

1. From the Campaigns page, click Create Campaign to start a new push notification campaign.
2. On the Compose tab, toggle on Notification Buttons.
3. Enter a custom iOS category in the iOS Notification Category field.
4. In the Settings tab, create key-value pairs using standard Liquid. Set the appropriate user attributes you want the message to show.
5. In the .plist of your Notification Content Extension Target, set the UNNotificationExtensionCategory attribute to your custom iOS category. The value given here must match what is set in the Braze dashboard under iOS Notification Category.

As seen in the example, you may also include an image in your push notification. To do this, you must integrate rich notifications, set the notification style in your campaign to Rich Notification, and include a rich push image.

Handling button actions

Each action button is uniquely identified. The code checks if your response identifier is equal to the actionIndentifier, and if so, knows that the user clicked the action button.

Handling Push Notification Action Button Responses

• swift
• objective-c

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func didReceive(_ response: UNNotificationResponse, completionHandler completion: @escaping (UNNotificationContentExtensionResponseOption) -> Void) {
  if response.actionIdentifier == "YOUR-REGISTER-IDENTIFIER" {
    // do something
  } else {
    // do something else
  }
}

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- (void)didReceiveNotificationResponse:(UNNotificationResponse *)response completionHandler:(void (^)(UNNotificationContentExtensionResponseOption))completion {
  if ([response.actionIdentifier isEqualToString:@"YOUR-REGISTER-IDENTIFIER"]) {
    completion(UNNotificationContentExtensionResponseOptionDismiss);
  } else {
    completion(UNNotificationContentExtensionResponseOptionDoNotDismiss);
  }
}

Dismissing pushes

Push notifications can be automatically dismissed from an action button press. There are three pre-built push dismissal options that we recommend:

1. completion(.dismiss) - Dismisses the notification
2. completion(.doNotDismiss) - Notification stays open
3. completion(.dismissAndForward) - Push dismisses and the user gets forwarded into the application