Notifications

This page is outdated. Please go to our new documentation under https://docs.fulfillmenttools.com/documentation.

Introduction

Notifications within the Operations Android App are handled by default via Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). In order to successfully utilize this feature users must not impose any firewall limitations.

If you are not able to operate the Operations Android App without a firewall or in a network that imposes a specific whitelisting of hosts, that are used by the devices' apps, please contact us.

Firebase Cloud Messaging as Transport Layer

fulfillmenttools uses FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging) as an underlying transport layer for delivering notifications. Details can be found at https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging. When it comes to limitations and best practices the following page presents some useful insights: https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/appstandby#bucket-best

Requirements

• Stable internet connection

• No firewall restrictions applied

• Sound of the device is on & volume is up

• Permissions to receive notifications have been granted to fulfillmenttools App

• A user has to be logged in & a facility has to be selected

Functionality explained

As soon as users logout from the device the app loses its affinity to the selected facility and notifications cannot be delivered to the device. Thus, logging out should be avoided if notifications should still be received when the app is closed.

Best Practices

The notification process works by leveraging Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM). This system delivers notifications to devices that entitle for receiving notifications.

A device does not entitle for notifications if notification banners of past notifications are not "acknowledged" (swiped away) for several hours (currently ~4h after receiving the first unacknowledged notification). This should avoid spamming of notifications that do not get attention.

Keep unused devices active If you would like to receive notifications to devices, that are not in use (for example when they serve a stand-by devices), you need to either restart the device or acknowledge (swipe away) all open notifications every 3-4 hours (e.g. begin of a shift, lunch time & close to closing time). This behavior will mimic active usage and notifications will keep being delivered to the device.

Keep only devices turned on that are actually in use

In order to avoid manual operations it helps if there are only devices turned on that are really in use. It also helps to save energy and will prolong the lifespan of your devices.

Use personalized accounts & enforce a security aware usage

We suggest using personalized accounts ([e-mail]) in favor of group accounts ([e-mail]) for accessing the App. This is a security advice and should be followed in order to keep the operations and data secure.

When using personalized accounts the user will login during the beginning of the shift and logout in the end. Also he will possibly logout during lunch break.

Also swiping out all notifications that reached the device in the past but are still shown on (at least) a regular basis should be part of the employee training.