Push Notifications from SOAP API

Clareman

I have a client who uses SOAP for their APIs but would like to enable push notifications on their app using the API, I was wondering if there's anything that can be done for either something listening for an API change or for the app to keep checking for new messages?

Graham

Your main options are:

Make the app poll the API at pre-defined intervals.
Rewrite the clients current system to send push notifications.
Introduce a middle layer, a system that polls the API at predefined intervals and sends push notifications when appropriate.

Much depends on what systems you can actually change/build-on, how many notifications, notification types (one-to-one or one-to-many/all).

Clareman

Graham wrote: »

Your main options are:

Make the app poll the API at pre-defined intervals.
Rewrite the clients current system to send push notifications.
Introduce a middle layer, a system that polls the API at predefined intervals and sends push notifications when appropriate.

Much depends on what systems you can actually change/build-on, how many notifications, notification types (one-to-one or one-to-many/all).

Thanks for that, it's going to send messages to specific people from time to time and to all at other times, think courier system that'll notify you when you're going to get a delivery and also notify everyone in an area of a special offer. Splitting up the members will be done by the main system.

It's there any third party products that could be just bought to do it??

Graham

There's plenty of 3rd party products that will deliver messages. I'm assuming you're talking about Apple Push Notifications, Android Push Notifications.

You need to work out how you're going to generate the messages for delivery, for that I don't know of any 3rd party products that will monitor a SOAP API and listen for changes to instigate a message.

Realistically I think someone is going to have to code this for you.

Clareman

Graham wrote: »

There's plenty of 3rd party products that will deliver messages. I'm assuming you're talking about Apple Push Notifications, Android Push Notifications.

You need to work out how you're going to generate the messages for delivery, for that I don't know of any 3rd party products that will monitor a SOAP API and listen for changes to instigate a message.

Realistically I think someone is going to have to code this for you.

Thanks, the messages sit on a api called MsgContent, at the moment it's viewed through a Web portal, the client wants to have and app that'll show the same message

Graham

If you don't need the user to be notified when there's a new message, just have the app pull from the API when it's opened. Alternatively you're back to my original 3 suggested approaches.

Make the app poll the API at pre-defined intervals but be prepared to field comments from your users when the app starts sucking battery.

Rewrite the clients current system to send push notifications rather than just generate the message content. i.e. the backend does more than just generate the message content, it pushes the messages somewhere,

Introduce a middle layer, a system that polls the API at predefined intervals and sends push notifications when appropriate.

Whatever way you look at it, something is going to have to either push the messages out from the existing system or pull the messages in.

Clareman

Thanks for that Graham, I like the idea of having the app poll the API as it gives the user a bit of control of deciding when the messages are displayed as well

Graham

Clareman wrote: »

Thanks for that Graham, I like the idea of having the app poll the API as it gives the user a bit of control of deciding when the messages are displayed as well

You'll loose out on some of the benefits of push notifications and if you're talking about polling at defined intervals you'll potentially get spotted as a power-hungry app. Probably the easiest to implement given the limited info I've seen about your setup.

Also keep in mind your app will offer no notifcations/polling if it hasn't been loaded since the last device reboot.

Clareman

Good points, I'm thinking a third party provider that'll keep listening for messages that'll push them out afterwards might be the best option now.

Graham

Clareman wrote: »

Good points, I'm thinking a third party provider that'll keep listening for messages that'll push them out afterwards might be the best option now.

They all 'listen', the part you're going to struggle with is your API doesn't shout.

Any of the messaging providers I've looked at offer an API where you submit your messages. Your API sits there waiting for messages to be collected. It's the gap between the two that you'll need to address.

Clareman

Graham wrote: »

They all 'listen', the part you're going to struggle with is your API doesn't shout.

Any of the messaging providers I've looked at offer an API where you submit your messages. Your API sits there waiting for messages to be collected. It's the gap between the two that you'll need to address.

I've noticed that as well, nothing seems to go out and try to grab the data, I think it would be a massive piece of work to change from SOAP to REST API for the client just to enable push notifications, some compromise will have to be made somewhere

Graham

Clareman wrote: »

I've noticed that as well, nothing seems to go out and try to grab the data, I think it would be a massive piece of work to change from SOAP to REST API for the client just to enable push notifications, some compromise will have to be made somewhere

An API is an interface not a delivery method. Changing your clients API isn't going to make it magically talk to another API.

If you can make changes to your clients system, it shouldn't be a huge job to add functionality to push messages as they are generated.