Intermediate
Enable the Push Notification service for your iOS app
2019-08-08
30 min.
Use the SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services and Apple Developer Account to enable Push Notifications for you iOS app.
You will learn
In this tutorial you will learn how to setup Push Notifications on SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services and Apple Developer account.
Prerequisites
- Development environment: Apple iMac, MacBook or MacBook Pro running Xcode 10 or higher
- SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS: Version 3.0 SP01
- Apple ID: A paid Apple developer account is required
- Completed Set Up the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS
You can use the Apple Push Notification Service to propagate information from the backend to the device. In this tutorial you use the native iOS push services to enable APNS for your iOS app. To enable your app for push notifications, you need to carry out the following tasks:
- Create an App ID (automated)
- Create provisioning profile (automated)
- Create CSR (Certificate Signing Request) file
- Create a CER file
- Install the CER file and create a p12 file
- Update your application to use Push Notifications
- Configure APNS in SAP Cloud Platform cockpit
In order to implement Push Notifications, a paid Apple developer account is required. Students or other developers with a personal Apple ID for their team will not be able to use push notifications, because they won’t have access to the Developer Portal to generate the required certificate.
Step 1: Use Xcode to create an App ID and Provisioning Profile
The App ID is used to identify your app and ensures the Apple Push Notification Servers will properly send push notifications to your app. The Provisioning Profile will be used to sign your app later on.
With the help of Xcode we don’t have to do much manually to create those two things.
Open up your Product Sample App project in Xcode.
We make sure everything is set up correctly. First let’s see if the project is configured correctly. Click on the xcodeproj file to open the project configuration of your app. Make sure you are on the General tab.
Make sure your Bundle Identifier is correct in the Identify section. Check if Automatically manage signing is activated and you chose the correct Signing Certificate in the Signing section.
Next we make sure the app uses the Push Notification capability. For that click on the Capabilities tab and enable Push Notifications. If two grey check marks appear in the section then the enablement was successful.
Our App Project is now configured.
Step 2: Create the Certificate Signing Request file
In order to use the Apple Push Notification service, we need to create a CSR file.
On your Mac, open the Keychain Access application, and navigate to Keychain Access > Certificate Assistant > Request a Certificate From a Certificate Authority…
In the dialog, enter the email address which is associated with your Apple Developer account. Also, make sure you check the Request is saved to disk and the Let me specify key pair information option.
Click Continue.
Choose a folder to store the certificate – it is good practice to store generated files in a separate folder for each project – and click Save.
Once you see a dialog saying the certificate is saved successfully, click Done to finish.
The certificate is now saved to you hard drive and added to your Keychain as well as a public and private.
Step 3: Create .CER file in your Apple Developer Account
Go to your Apple Developer Account and click on Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.
From there click on Identifiers to get the list of all your apps.
Now locate the com.sap.mobile.example.ProductApp. Click on it to see the details.
If by any chance you’ve used a different App name or/and bundle identifier, select that one in the list.
If in any case you can’t see your app listed here please go ahead and follow the creation process of an App ID with the Plus icon. Make sure the app name and identifier are the same as your Xcode project.
In the upcoming detail screen please scroll down until you see the Push Notifications shows up in the list.
You can see Xcode also made sure that Push Notifications are enabled for your app. Now you have to configure this app feature. Click on Configure.
Click on Create Certificate to start the workflow for creating the needed .CER file.
The workflow asks you to upload the previously created CSR file. Please click on Choose File and upload the file. To download your CER please click on Continue.
Apple will now create a .CER file for you which is issued by the Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Certification Authority.
Click on the Download button to download your certificate.
If you go back to the certificates list of your app, you should see the just created certificate listed.
Step 4: Install the .CER file and create the .p12 file
In order to configure the APNS on SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services we need to install the .CER file and create the needed .p12 file.
A
.p12file is a encrypted container for the certificate and private key. This file is needed by Mobile Services for theAPNSconfiguration.
Locate your downloaded .CER file and double click on it in order to install the certificate.
In case the Add Certificate dialog pops up make sure to choose Login from the dropdown and click on Add.
If the certificate is added correctly to the Keychain you should see it in the MyCertificates section, make sure you selected login as keychain.
Select the certificate as well as the private key and right-click to export those two items.
Make sure that in the dropdown Personal Information Exchange (.p12) is selected and click on Save. You will be prompted to enter a password, click on OK to export the files.
While you have the option to leave the password empty, you must provide a password when configuring the certificate for use with SAP Cloud Platform mobile service for development and operations.
Step 5: Assign Notification User Role to your Cloud Platform account
In order to send notifications later on, you need a Notification User role.
Open up the SAP Cloud Platform Cockpit and select Neo Trial to go to the Neo landscape.
Assign your P/S-User to the Notification User role
After you have assigned the role, navigate back to to Development & Operations and click on Go to Service to open SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services
Navigate to Applications, select your application and from the context menu select Configure and switch to the Push tab.
Scroll down a bit to the Apple panel and provide the following details:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| APNS Endpoint | Select Sandbox |
| Certificate | Browse to the .p12 certificate you just exported |
| Password | Enter the password you provided during the export |
Next on the right hand side you will see Roles. Click to configure additional roles.
Now look for the Notification User and select it. At the bottom you can now click on Assign to assign a new user to that role.
In the popup, please enter your P- or S-User and click on Assign.
You know assigned yourself to the role of Notification User. This will allow you to send notifications to your app later on.
[ACCORDION-BEGIN [Step 6: ](Import .p12 file into SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services)]
In order to have an APNS up and running an import of the .p12 file to SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services is necessary.
Please login to your Mobile Services account and click on Mobile Applications and then Native/Hybrid to get an overview of your existing apps. Select the MyProductApp to configure the Push Notification feature.
It could be that you named the app differently. If you followed the Create a Sample App tutorial mentioned in the prerequisites that is the name used.
On the right-hand side you’ll see the Push Notification feature listed. Click on it to configure the APNS.
On this configuration screen you can configure the needed APNS. You also have the option maintain different configurations for different platforms.
In the APNS section please select Sandbox as APNS Endpoint.
For the Certificate (P12) field please browse for the previously created Certificates.p12 file. Enter the password you chose while creating the Certificates.p12 file.
Click on Save at the top. We successfully configured the APNS Endpoint, we now have the server side setup.
Step 6: Examine your application's Push Notifications code
The generated code will have all push notifications code in the AppDelegate.swift file. Open the AppDelegate.swift file to inspect the notifications code.
First, the device registers for remote notifications by calling the method registerForRemoteNotifications(:). Then, you have specified the types of notifications your app will support, as well as added a reference to the notification settings class, which enables your application for the push notifications to be received. This will result in your application to display the “App Name” Would Like to Send You Notifications confirmation dialog.
Let’s look at the initializeRemoteNotification(:) method. This method will take care of registering the app for receiving remote notifications and it will trigger the authorization request.
func initializeRemoteNotification() {
// Registering for remote notifications
UIApplication.shared.registerForRemoteNotifications()
let center = UNUserNotificationCenter.current()
center.requestAuthorization(options: [.alert, .badge, .sound]) { _, _ in
// Enable or disable features based on authorization.
}
center.delegate = self
}
The uploadDeviceTokenForRemoteNotification(_:Data) will take care of uploading the app’s device token to the SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services.
func uploadDeviceTokenForRemoteNotification(_ deviceToken: Data) {
guard let session = sessionManager.onboardingSession else {
// Onboarding not yet performed
return
}
let parameters = SAPcpmsRemoteNotificationParameters(deviceType: "iOS")
session.registerDeviceToken(deviceToken: deviceToken, withParameters: parameters) { error in
if let error = error {
self.logger.error("Register DeviceToken failed", error: error)
return
}
self.logger.info("Register DeviceToken succeeded")
}
}
The next methods located under the AppDelegate method implementations for remote notification handling mark, are delegate methods for all remote notification handling.
func application(_: UIApplication, didRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithDeviceToken deviceToken: Data) {
self.uploadDeviceTokenForRemoteNotification(deviceToken)
}
func application(_: UIApplication, didFailToRegisterForRemoteNotificationsWithError error: Error) {
self.logger.error("Failed to register for Remote Notification", error: error)
}
// Called to let your app know which action was selected by the user for a given notification.
func userNotificationCenter(_: UNUserNotificationCenter, didReceive response: UNNotificationResponse, withCompletionHandler completionHandler: @escaping () -> Void) {
self.logger.info("App opened via user selecting notification: \(response.notification.request.content.body)")
// Here is where you want to take action to handle the notification, maybe navigate the user to a given screen.
completionHandler()
}
// Called when a notification is delivered to a foreground app.
func userNotificationCenter(_: UNUserNotificationCenter, willPresent notification: UNNotification, withCompletionHandler completionHandler: @escaping (UNNotificationPresentationOptions) -> Void) {
self.logger.info("Remote Notification arrived while app was in foreground: \(notification.request.content.body)")
// Currently we are presenting the notification alert as the application were in the background.
// If you have handled the notification and do not want to display an alert, call the completionHandler with empty options: completionHandler([])
completionHandler([.alert, .sound])
}
If you now run the app on your device, you will notice it will first ask permission to display notifications:
Walk through the onboarding process to see the actual app.
It is time now to send the first push notification from the SAP Cloud Platform Mobile Services push notification feature.
Please login to your Mobile Services account and click on Mobile Applications and then Native/Hybrid to get an overview of your existing apps. Select the your app to send a push notification.
In case that you walked through the onboarding process from different devices you will have multiple Registration IDs so make sure to select the correct one. Click on Send Notifications to send a notification to this device.
You can enter whatever you want and click on Send to send the notification to your device.
If you happen to have an Apple Watch, and have it configured to display push notifications received on your iPhone, the push notification you have sent via SAP Cloud Platform mobile service for development and operations will also be displayed on your Apple Watch.
Navigate tutorial steps
-
Step 1: Use Xcode to create an App ID and Provisioning Profile
-
Step 2: Create the Certificate Signing Request file
-
Step 3: Create .CER file in your Apple Developer Account
-
Step 4: Install the .CER file and create the .p12 file
-
Step 5: Assign Notification User Role to your Cloud Platform account
-
Step 6: Examine your application's Push Notifications code
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