App Design
When developing aBulletin, we considered two notification mechanisms in order to best facilitate this:
Google Notifications
These essentially send a notification that can be received by the device regardless of whether the App is running or not. This method was abandoned early in the design phase of aBulletin, however, as if the user were to swipe away a notification, it is lost forever and the App never knows it existed.
In-App Notifications
These are received by the App, and so are only received and displayed when the App is running, which means that the notifications do not get lost. However, there is the drawback with this method that means if a user forgets to start the App when they start their phone or subsequently kill the App, they will not see the notification.
Current Implementation
Of the two options, we felt In-App Notifications to be the best fit for this type of App, as we feel it is imperative that a record of the notification is maintained at all times.
Use Cases
If App is running
A notification will be received to the device to confirm that a new Bulletin is available to be downloaded, read, signed, or shared, and that this is available within aBulletin. The App will retain a copy of the notification until this has been acted upon, ensuring that Bulletins cannot be easily missed. If a user were to receive an urgent Bulletin, this method prevents the user from swiping away the notification, and therefore, never knowing that an urgent Bulletin needed to be signed off.
If App is not running
No notifications will be received to the device until the App is started. However, upon doing so, all notifications received whilst App was 'off' will be displayed and retained in-App. As set out below, there are ways in which we can direct attention toward new Bulletins to assist here.
Further Options
Having chosen the In-App Notification method as our notification mechanism, there are further developments we can make to improve performance:
Configuring web notifications from ACMS
These can be utilised to send the user an email when they receive a notification that tells them to start the App to read it.
Configuring MDM to push App to start on devices
This depends on the MDM's capabilities and will need to be set up by the customer's IT department.
AssessTech Development
We are currently working on separating the part of the App that receives the notification from the main App, so that this can be always running as a service regardless of the status of the main App.