🚀 Send a notification

Prerequisite

• A NotificationAPI account - sign up for free
• A configured notification in the dashboard (new accounts already have a demo notification)

Overview

Your team, even non-technical members, can use our dashboard to configure and design your standard notifications without any coding knowledge. For example, they would configure an alert to go over email and completely design its content, subject, etc.

Then, through our SDKs or API, your back-end lets us know when to send this notification to a user. We then take care of the rest.

Let's learn...

Step 1: Setup the SDK

Node

npm install notificationapi-node-server-sdk
# yarn add notificationapi-node-server-sdk
# pnpm add notificationapi-node-server-sdk

Python

pip install notificationapi_python_server_sdk

PHP

composer require notificationapi/notificationapi-php-server-sdk

Go

go get github.com/notificationapi-com/notificationapi-go-server-sdk

C#

// Create the followinng class in your application:

using System;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Text;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

class NotificationAPI {
  private string baseURL = "https://api.notificationapi.com";
  private string clientId;
  private HttpClient httpClient;

  public NotificationAPI(string clientId, string clientSecret) {
    this.clientId = clientId;
    string authToken = Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes($"{clientId}:{clientSecret}"));
    this.httpClient = new HttpClient();
    this.httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Authorization", $"Basic {authToken}");
  }

  public async Task<string> send(string request) {
    HttpContent payload = new StringContent(request, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
    var response = await this.httpClient.PostAsync($"{this.baseURL}/{this.clientId}/sender", payload);
    var responseContent = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
    return responseContent;
  }

  public async Task<string> retract(string request) {
    HttpContent payload = new StringContent(request, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
    var response = await this.httpClient.PostAsync($"{this.baseURL}/{this.clientId}/sender/retract", payload);
    var responseContent = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
    return responseContent;
  }

  public async Task<string> IdentifyUser(string userId, object userData) {
      using (var hmac = new HMACSHA256(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(clientSecret))) {
          string hashedUserId = Convert.ToBase64String(hmac.ComputeHash(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(userId)));
          string customAuth = Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes($"{clientId}:{userId}:{hashedUserId}"));
          httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new System.Net.Http.Headers.AuthenticationHeaderValue("Basic", customAuth);

          string jsonString = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(userData);
          HttpContent content = new StringContent(jsonString, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
          var response = await httpClient.PostAsync($"{baseURL}/{clientId}/users/{Uri.EscapeDataString(userId)}", content);
          return await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
      }
  }

  public async Task<string> CreateSubNotification(string notificationId, string subNotificationId, string title) {
      var payload = new { title = title };
      string jsonString = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(payload);
      HttpContent content = new StringContent(jsonString, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
      var response = await httpClient.PutAsync($"{baseURL}/{clientId}/notifications/{notificationId}/subNotifications/{subNotificationId}", content);
      return await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
  }

  public async Task<string> DeleteSubNotification(string notificationId, string subNotificationId) {
      var response = await httpClient.DeleteAsync($"{baseURL}/{clientId}/notifications/{notificationId}/subNotifications/{subNotificationId}");
      return await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
  }

  public async Task<string> SetUserPreferences(string userId, object userPreferences) {
      string jsonString = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(userPreferences);
      HttpContent content = new StringContent(jsonString, Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
      var response = await httpClient.PostAsync($"{baseURL}/{clientId}/user_preferences/{userId}", content);
      return await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
  }

}

Ruby

# Create the following class in your application

require 'net/http'
require 'json'
require 'base64'
require 'openssl'

class NotificationAPI
  def initialize(client_id, client_secret)
    @base_url = 'https://api.notificationapi.com'
    @client_id = client_id
    @auth_token = Base64.strict_encode64("#{client_id}:#{client_secret}")
    @http_client = Net::HTTP.new('api.notificationapi.com', 443)
    @http_client.use_ssl = true
  end

  def send(request)
    payload = request.to_json
    response = @http_client.post(
      "/#{@client_id}/sender",
      payload,
      {
        'Content-Type' => 'application/json',
        'Authorization' => "Basic #{@auth_token}"
      }
    )
    response.body
  end

  def retract(request)
    payload = request.to_json
    response = @http_client.post(
      "/#{@client_id}/sender/retract",
      payload,
      {
        'Content-Type' => 'application/json',
        'Authorization' => "Basic #{@auth_token}"
      }
    )
    response.body
  end

  def identify_user(user_id, user_data)
    digest = OpenSSL::Digest::SHA256.new
    hmac = OpenSSL::HMAC.digest(digest, @client_secret, user_id)
    hashed_user_id = Base64.strict_encode64(hmac)
    custom_auth = Base64.strict_encode64("#{@client_id}:#{user_id}:#{hashed_user_id}")

    send_request('POST', "users/#{URI.escape(user_id)}", user_data, custom_auth)
  end

  def create_sub_notification(notification_id, sub_notification_id, title)
    payload = { title: title }
    send_request('PUT', "notifications/#{notification_id}/subNotifications/#{sub_notification_id}", payload)
  end

  def delete_sub_notification(notification_id, sub_notification_id)
    send_request('DELETE', "notifications/#{notification_id}/subNotifications/#{sub_notification_id}")
  end

  def set_user_preferences(user_id, user_preferences)
    send_request('POST', "user_preferences/#{user_id}", user_preferences)
  end

  private

  def send_request(method, uri, data = {}, auth = "Basic #{@auth_token}")
    payload = data.to_json
    response = @http_client.send_request(
      method,
      "/#{@client_id}/#{uri}",
      payload,
      {
        'Content-Type' => 'application/json',
        'Authorization' => auth
      }
    )
    response.body
  end

end

Step 2: Send the Notification

Our send function or POST /sender API call takes a JSON payload that specifies which notification to send and to whom. It also has a mergeTags field that you can use to personalize the notification.

Node

// import/require:
import notificationapi from 'notificationapi-node-server-sdk';
// const notificationapi = require('notificationapi-node-server-sdk').default

// init
notificationapi.init('CLIENT_ID', 'CLIENT_SECRET');

// send
notificationapi.send({
  notificationId: 'new_comment_notification',
  user: {
    id: 'TEST_USER_ID',
    email: 'TEST@TEST.COM', // required for email notifications
    number: '+15005550006' // required for SMS/Calls
  },
  mergeTags: {
    firstName: 'Stranger'
  }
});

Python

# import
from notificationapi_python_server_sdk import (notificationapi)

# init
notificationapi.init("CLIENT_ID", "CLIENT_SECRET")

# send
notificationapi.send({
        "notificationId": "new_comment_notification",
        "user": {
            "id": "TEST_USER_ID",
            "email": "TEST@TEST.COM",   # required for email notifications
            "number": "+15005550006"    # required for SMS
        }
    })

PHP

# import
use NotificationAPI\NotificationAPI;

# init
$notificationapi = new NotificationAPI('CLIENT_ID', 'CLIENT_SECRET');

# send
$notificationapi->send([
    "notificationId" => "new_comment_notification",
    "user" => [
        "id" => "TEST_USER_ID",
        "email" => "TEST@TEST.COM",   # required for email notifications
        "number" => "+15005550006"    # required for SMS
    ]
]);

Go

package main

// import
import (
    notificationapi "github.com/notificationapi-com/notificationapi-go-server-sdk"
  "encoding/json"
)

func main() {
    // init
    notificationapi.Init("CLIENT_ID", "CLIENT_SECRET")

    // send
    jsonParams := `{
    "notificationId": "new_comment_notification",
    "user": {
      "id": "TEST_USER_ID",
      "email": "TEST@TEST.com",
      "number": "+15005550006"
    },
    "mergeTags": {
      "firstName": "Stranger"
    }
  }`
  var params notificationapi.SendRequest
  json.Unmarshal([]byte(jsonParams), &params)

  notificationapi.Send(params)
}

C#

NotificationAPI notificationapi = new NotificationAPI("CLIENT_ID", "CLIENT_SECRET");
string request = @"{
    ""notificationId"": ""hello_world"",
    ""user"": {
        ""id"": ""123"",
        ""email"": ""test@test.com"",
        ""number"": ""+15005550006""
    },
    ""mergeTags"": {
        ""firstName"": ""FIRST_NAME""
    }
}";
notificationapi.send(request);

Ruby

# require:
require './NotificationAPI'

# init
notificationapi = NotificationAPI.new("CLIENT_ID", "CLIENT_SECRET")

# send
notificationapi.send({
  notificationId: 'new_comment_notification',
  user: {
    id: 'TEST_USER_ID',
    email: 'TEST@TEST.COM', # required for email notifications
    number: '+15005550006' # required for SMS
  }
});

info

You can get your CLIENT_ID and CLIENT_SECRET from here.

Next Steps

You are now successfully sending notifications to any channel you wish. 🎉

Let's do a few more things:

• 🔔 Display In-App Notifications
• ⚙️ Manage User Notification Preferences
• 📱 Setup Mobile Push
• 🌐 Setup Web Push