Notifications in your app

1. 1

   Ask for them in the chat

   For example: “Add a switch for notifications, so people get our news and reminders before their class.” frascati adds a switch to the app's settings and, where it helps, offers notifications after a booking or a sign-up. It never asks when the app opens for the first time.

2. 2

   People turn them on

   They tap the switch and confirm the phone's question. They can turn them off in the app at any time.

3. 3

   You write and send

   In the Cloud tab under Notifications: a title, a text and the screen it opens. Send a test to your own phone first, then send it to everyone.

Title

Up to 60 characters. Short and specific, like “New autumn classes”.

Text

Up to 240 characters; phones show the first two or three lines. One or two sentences: what it is and what to do.

Opens

The screen a tap opens, like the class schedule or the news. Without a choice, the app opens at its start.

Write with AI

Say in a few words what it is about, and the AI writes the title and the text in your app's language. It is billed at what it costs, mostly 0.1 credits. Change anything before you send.

Send a test to my phone goes to your own phones only. The button with the number of phones asks once more, then sends to everyone. Under Sent you see each notification with how many phones it reached. For the App Store and Google Play version, Apple and Google confirm after about 15 minutes; until then it says waiting for Apple and Google.

1. 1

   Click On your phone in the editor and scan the QR code. Add the app to your home screen; on an iPhone, open it from there.

2. 2

   Turn on notifications in the app and allow them. This phone is now yours: it gets your tests.

3. 3

   In the Cloud tab, write a notification and click Send a test to my phone.

The App Store version counts as your phone when you sign in to the app with the email address of your frascati account, in apps with sign-in.

On the home screen

The app from On your phone. Android: in Chrome and other browsers, also before it is on the home screen. iPhone and iPad: with iOS or iPadOS 16.4 or later, once the app is on the Home Screen (Share, then Add to Home Screen). The app explains this to people when they turn notifications on.

App Store version

Needs your own free Expo account and a push key from your Apple developer account, both added once when you publish. See below.

Google Play version

You publish it yourself from the download, with your own Expo account and your own Firebase project. See below.

Notifications of the App Store and Google Play versions go through Expo's push service with your own Expo account, the way payments go through your own Stripe account. Expo is then your service, under your own agreement with Expo. frascati builds the App Store version of an app with notifications in your Expo account and sends the notifications you write in the Cloud tab with its access token. Apps without notifications need no Expo account.

1. 1

   Create a free account at expo.dev, or sign in to yours.

2. 2

   Open Access tokens in your account settings, click Create token and name it frascati. Copy the token.

3. 3

   In the Publish window, in the build step under Your Expo account, paste the token and click Connect.

4. 4

   If the token reaches several Expo accounts, for example your team's organization, choose the one your apps are built in.

frascati checks the token with Expo, keeps it encrypted and never shows it again. It works for all your apps. You can disconnect it in the same place, or delete it at Expo; the next build of an app with notifications then asks for a token again. Builds frascati makes in your account count as builds of your Expo account.

Apple sends notifications to iPhones only for a key from the app owner's developer account, and Apple lets nobody create it through an app like frascati. You create it once, and it works for all your apps. In Publish your app in the App Store, the build step asks for it when your app has notifications.

1. 1

   Open Keys in your Apple Developer account. You need the role Account Holder or Admin.

2. 2

   Add a key, name it for example frascati push and tick Apple Push Notifications service (APNs). If Apple asks, choose Sandbox & Production and Team Scoped (All Topics). Register it.

3. 3

   Download the .p8 file. Apple offers it only once: keep it safe. Note the Key ID shown next to the key.

4. 4

   In the build step of the Publish window, enter the Key ID, choose the file and click Save key.

frascati asks Apple whether the key works for your team, keeps it encrypted and never shows it again. It turns on Push Notifications for the app in your Apple account and gives the key to the app's project in your Expo account, whose push service delivers the notifications. Apple allows two such keys per team.

You publish the Google Play version yourself from the downloaded app project (see Publish on Google Play). Its notifications go through Expo with your own Expo account and through Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging, with keys in the app's project in your Expo account:

1. 1

   Sign in with your own Expo account (npx eas-cli login) and run npx eas-cli init in the app project, so the app has its project ID in your account.

2. 2

   Create a project in the Firebase console and add an Android app with the package name from app.json. Put its google-services.json into the project folder and add "googleServicesFile": "./google-services.json" under android in app.json.

3. 3

   In Firebase under Project settings, Service accounts, generate a new private key. Upload it with npx eas-cli credentials (Android, Google Service Account, FCM V1).

4. 4

   Build the app again. The download's README has the same steps.

frascati sends to this project with your Expo account's access token when you connected the same account (see above). Without a connected account it sends without a token, so leave Expo's enhanced security for push notifications off for this project.

• Notifications must stay optional: the app works without them and gives nothing extra for turning them on.
• Offers and other advertising only to people who agreed to them in the app: the switch must say that they get offers, and they can turn them off in the app. Ask in the chat to name offers in the switch's sentence.
• No sensitive personal or confidential information in a notification.

When someone turns on notifications, frascati stores the phone's push address for your app, encrypted, in its database in Frankfurt, linked to the person's account when they are signed in. It is deleted when they turn notifications off, or when the push service says the phone no longer has the app. Notifications are delivered through Expo's push service (650 Industries, Inc., USA) with your own Expo account and through Apple's or Google's push service, on the home screen through the browser's push service. Expo is your service, as Stripe is for payments: name it in your app's privacy policy. Your app's privacy note and its privacy page on frascati.app say this.