Push notification system
Summarize
Summary of Push Notification System
The push notification system within ServiceNow facilitates the delivery and management of push messages for both the ServiceNow Classic mobile application and custom-built applications. Key components include the customer instance, push proxy, push provider, and the mobile push application itself.
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Key Features
- Push Proxy: Acts as an intermediary that collects notifications for the ServiceNow Classic mobile application and forwards them to the respective push notification services (APNs or FCM).
- Push Notification Process: Notifications are triggered by activities on the instance and sent to the appropriate push service based on user preferences. This includes sending message content and instance details for proper response handling.
- Response Handling: Users can respond to notifications (e.g., approving requests) through a REST message back to the instance, where a designated script processes the response.
- Custom Applications: Users can customize their push applications to allow responses to notifications, using scripts associated with each message to define possible actions.
Key Outcomes
By leveraging the push notification system, ServiceNow customers can enhance user engagement and streamline workflows through immediate notifications and actionable responses. This system ensures that notifications are effectively managed and that user actions are accurately processed to maintain operational efficiency.
The push notification system involves several key elements that manage the delivery of push messages and push notification responses.
- Customer instance
- Your ServiceNow instance.
- Push proxy
- An instance that collects all push notifications that go to the ServiceNow Classic mobile application and forwards them to the ServiceNow applications for Apple iOS or Android. If you create a custom push application, you do not use the push proxy.
- Push provider
- The provider of push messages, which is the Apple Push Notification service (APNs) or Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) service, for the ServiceNow Classic mobile app or custom mobile apps.
- Push application on a mobile device
- The application, such as the ServiceNow Classic mobile application. You can also build and customize your own push application.
Push notification process
- Activity on the instance triggers a push notification.
- The instance looks for who to send the notification to and checks the user notification preferences to find their push device settings.
- The instance sends the push notification to the push notification service, either the Apple Push Notification service (APNs) or Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) service. If you are using the ServiceNow Classic mobile app, the instance sends the notification through a push proxy instance, which then forwards the notification to the APNs or FCM service.
- The push notification service sends the notification to the user's push application. When the instance sends the notification to the push notification service, it includes message content along with the instance name and ID. This information ensures that a response to the notification is sent back to the correct instance. If the user can reply to the notification, such as sending an approval to a change request, the response is sent via REST message back to the instance.
- The instance identifies a script to run to handle the response.
- The script performs an action on the instance, such as marking a change request approved. If there is invalid JSON or if the script fails, an error response is sent back to the device.
Push notification responses
With custom push applications, you can have your users act on records in the instance by responding to a push notification.
The actions that they can take are defined in a script that you associate with the notification message. The response is sent to the instance in this format:
https://{instance_name}/api/now/v1/push/{application Name}/action/{action}