Push notifications from pwa to native apps

[IbrahimB]

Hi, I have two apps currently in Adalo, I use one for my clients (which is going to be published as a native app) and the other one as a backend (PWA). Can I send push notifications from the backend (PWA) to the customers in the native app? Both apps use the same set of collection (database)

[newbie_maker]

From my understanding, Push Notifications can only be sent in from the same app even if they share the same database. The way you described it is two separate apps, then AFAIK its not possible. Because in theory you could even have one Web App / PWA, and a Mobile App in Adalo sharing the DB, but since they’re two separate Apps, notifications don’t “travel” so-to-speak across apps. I don’t have a technical background to be able to explain why.

You need to have a separate user type in same Mobile App who have the permisison to create notifications, and filter notifications to be sent and displayed to the other relevant user type. I have an app which is PWA and both Native versions, and I’m able to successfullly create and send notifications from within the PWA to Native apps, using above separate user type method.

If its possible using combination of zapier, etc. stack of third party services I’d be interested to learn as well. Would be extra cost of using such services.

Hope that helps.

[imjohnston]

I can confirm that it works to send a push notification from a desktop web app to a native app that shares the same database.

I have an admin dashboard set up as a desktop web app and use that to send push notifications to our 2 native user apps.

[pushingpandas]

but PWA cant receive PushNotifications

[newbie_maker]

This is useful knowledge.

Because app I’m talking about was built and launched in November 21, and we tried Separate Web App + Separate Native Apps sharing common DB approach, but we weren’t able to send notifications from Web to Native. So we went with Native Only and different User Types approach I described in my previous post.

Would you mind sharing how you’re able to manage? Is this something more recent after Nov 21, or did we go wrong in our implementation? Appreciate if you can help.

[IbrahimB]

Thanks for your reply! Yeah, I see what you are saying, I kind of new I couldn’t do it, however, wanted to be sure. @imjohnston could you share more about how you were able to send your push notifications please.

[imjohnston]

I have a form set up on the desktop web app with 2 actions:

1. Create new News item
2. Trigger Notification with the following settings:

• Recipient: All users
• Title: News item title
• Body: News item subtitle
• Screen: Other Apps > [Native App Name] > Native App News Page

The ‘Other Apps’ option can be found at the bottom of the screen selection list

Screenshot of the Screen selection setup here:

[newbie_maker]

This is awesome !

When DBs are shared across apps, option for ‘other apps’ appears in notifications actions and screen. Checked it in my editor as well.

Thanks a lot @imjohnston