Push
In the portal: Journeys, then a notify action on a node.
What it is
A push notification is the short alert that appears on a participant's lock screen. It carries a title, one line of body text, and a place the tap lands.
Five alerts can appear on a participant's phone, and one of them is yours to write. That one is the journey notify action. The other four carry copy set in the app.
Push is deliberately thin, so that a lock screen never shows anything private. It never carries the text of a chat message, a health reading, or anything that names the person or their tenancy. Everything of substance stays behind the sign-in, and the push says only that something is there. So plan flows on the basis that the participant opens the app to read anything that matters.
What each one says
This is the exact copy, word for word. Four of the five are set in the app. The fifth, at the bottom, is the one you write.
A coach assigns a sequence to one participant.
New activity Your coach added a new activity for you.
The tap opens Home.
A coach assigns a journey to one participant.
New activity Your coach added a new activity for you.
The tap opens Home. Same words as the one above, on purpose: from the participant's side both are the same event.
Somebody posts a message in a chat the participant is in.
New message Tap to read.
The tap opens Chat. It goes to every other member of the conversation, never back to the sender.
A journey posts a chat message.
Health Coach You have a new message.
The tap opens Chat.
A journey reaches a node carrying a notify action.
your title your body
The tap opens Home. This is the one you write.
When you would use one
You do not choose to send a push. A push follows from something else happening, and the only one you author is the journey notify action.
A worked example. A tenancy runs a four week sleep course. At the end of week two the journey reaches a node that unlocks the second half. Without a notify action on that node, the new content simply appears on the home screen and the participant finds it whenever they next open the app. With one, their phone tells them. The decision is made per node.
The controls
The notify action takes a title and a body, and both are required.
| Field | What it accepts | Default | What changes on screen |
|---|---|---|---|
title | text, required | none | The bold first line of the alert. |
body | text, required | none | The line under it. |
A notify tap opens Home. If the participant needs to reach something else, say so in the body text and let them navigate there.
Write both title and body. A notify action missing either one records the
problem and sends nothing, so a half-written alert never reaches anybody.
How it behaves
A push is sent after the thing that caused it has already happened. The assignment, the message or the journey step is saved first, and the push goes out afterwards. If a push does not arrive, the thing itself is still done, so a participant who misses the alert still has the content waiting when they open the app.
Quiet hours decide when a push arrives, and the kind of message decides which rule
applies. A chat message is held until the window closes. The two assignment alerts and
a notify action are not sent, because the thing they announce is already on the home
screen whenever the participant next opens the app. See
Channels.
A push goes to every phone that participant has signed in on. If they use two phones, both light up.
A push reaches a participant once they have signed in on their phone and allowed notifications. On somebody's first day, before that has happened, email is the channel that reaches them.
A coach self-assigning does not push. A push goes out when one person assigns something to another. If a participant picks something up themselves, nothing is sent, which is right: they already know.
A journey speaks through the notify action. Journeys create deliveries on the phone as they run, and that is silent by design, so put a notify action on the node when the participant should know the moment something arrives.
Two of the five make the app fetch straight away. The two assignment pushes tell the app not to wait for its next scheduled sync, so the new item is on the home screen by the time the participant has finished tapping. The other three do not, which is correct: the thing they announce is already there.
One push is deliberately silent. When a journey chains into another journey, the participant's phone is woken to fetch the new content and nothing is shown. It is not a coach handing them something, so it does not announce itself as one.
Next
Five alerts, one of which you write. The decision is per node: put a notify action on a node when the participant should know the moment something new is waiting, and leave it off when they will find it on their next visit anyway.
Channels sets push beside email and text messages, so you can pick the one that fits what you are trying to say.
Red dots and badges is the second chance a participant gets after a push has been dismissed.