Verifying And Testing Your SDK Integration

This guide explains how to verify that an SDK integration has been successful. It shows how to check that the SDK is able to register devices correctly back to the Pushologies portal and how to make pushes to your specific device in order to verify they arrive and display correctly.

Overview

The basic steps involve identifying your test device and obtaining a device or subscriber ID. You can use this to check some basic information about your integration. You will then use this to create a segment, which in turn you can use to send one of each of the three types of push notifications we support:

• Standard push
• Video push
• Carousel

You will be able to see how these should look when they arrive and understand possible things to check if they don’t perform as expected.

Getting a Device ID or Subscriber ID

The first step is to install the app you’ve done the integration with onto a test device. For iOS, this must be a real device - the simulator won’t work. For Android, you can use a real device, or the simulators. Note that subscriber ID’s and device ID’s are different. Subscriber ID’s are assigned by the portal and do not change. End devices are not aware of their subscriber ID. Device ID’s are generated and stored by the device.

If you only have a few test devices and you’re the only one doing testing, the easiest way to get your ID is through the User Explorer page on the portal. The most recently seen devices will appear at the top of the list. If you’ve recently opened the app on your test device, it should be the at, or near, the top. Click into a few devices and see if the other attributes match up (is it in the right location - is it the right app and OS version etc.) If everything looks right, copy the long ID from the URL bar. This is your subscriber ID. You will need this later.

As an alternative - and one we recommend - you can provide a way in your app to get the device ID. Our SDK provides a getDeviceId method which will return the ID of that specific device. Commonly this is exposed via a “shake” gesture, or by tapping on a hidden button a few times (similar to activating developer mode on Android). You can then search for this via the User Explorer “search” function and, as above, check that device is the correct one and you can then grab the subscriber ID from the URL, or use the device ID.

Creating a Segment

Subscriber segments are one of the core building blocks of a campaign, allowing you to target subscribers with particular attributes. They are essentially a named list of subscribers for a notification.

See Creating subscriber segments for more details.

1. After logging into the portal, you will be presented with the standard dashboard which looks like this:
   

2. Head to the SEGMENTS menu item and begin to CREATE a Segment. Type a name and description for your segment. Include your name and date preferably, try not to use common things like “test segment” as you may end up with several, and aren’t able to identify which is which.

3. Select either the DEVICE IDS or SUBSCRIBER IDS rule as appropriate for your ID and click ADD.

4. Select your operator as IN, and then paste your DEVICE ID or SUBSCRIBER ID into the text box and press RETURN. The ID should turn into a box with a yellow background:
   

5. Click the refresh icon in the top right next to total users - the number displayed should change to “1”. If not, wait a few seconds and retry in case the device hasn’t registered yet (it can take up to 90 seconds). If you still don’t get a number, check you’ve got the right ID for the rule (are you adding a device ID into the subscriber ID rule or vice versa) and check the ID itself. Note that they are CASE SENSITIVE.

6. You can add more ID’s at this stage if you want to send to several test devices at once.

7. Save your segment, then click NOTIFICATIONS and CREATE to get to the main notification creation screen:
   

8. Now you can start to test. Make sure you select the correct segment from the list on the right, and then start playing.

Standard Notifications

There isn’t really much to do for a standard notification. Select STANDARD from the radio buttons in the top left of the screen and set the TITLE, SUBTITLE (iOS only, and optional), MESSAGE and ANDROID BANNER (Android only, and optional). Select your newly created segment and hit SEND.

A few seconds later you should get a notification arrive on your device that looks something like it does on the preview. Make sure all the fields you’ve filled in are visible and, if using an Android banner, it displays correctly. When you tap the notification, it should open your app.

Video Notifications

As with standard notifications, set your text/banners, but when selecting VIDEO, you’ll then be able to access the VIDEO BUILDER. Set your TITLE, SUBTITLE (iOS only, and optional), MESSAGE and ANDROID BANNER (Android only, and optional) as with the STANDARD notification and then click the VIDEO BUILDER button to head into the designer:

From here you can upload video, overlay buttons and so on. The timeline at the bottom allows you to go forwards and backwards through the video and trim when buttons appear and disappear.

Video Buttons

You can add buttons to your video notification that can link out URLs, or just display text. To add a button select the “+” Icon in the BUTTON LIST.

Once you have a button, you can edit it in the BUTTON DETAILS and PREVIEW panel. You can change the text, colours, size, URL link (optional) and position. You can also add your own button image using the “+” icon in the IMAGE field. The timing of the button can also be altered to bring in the button at different times. You can use IN and OUT options in the BUTTON DETAILS and PREVIEW panel. Just make sure to check the timing of the buttons with the Video Scrubber. Make sure FILL SCREEN and USE EMBEDDED PLAYER options are selected.

Once you are happy with your notification video, click SAVE and then SEND from the main screen. After a few seconds, your notification should arrive. Once you tap it, the video should open and play full screen and you should be able to tap any of the buttons you put links on.

Carousel Notifications

As with standard and video notifications, you set your default message text and then you can enter the CAROUSEL BUILDER. This is pretty straightforward, you drag images around to arrange them in the order you want them to appear in the carousel. Set the links you want them to go in the URL underneath each image and click SAVE.

Hit SEND and wait a few seconds. When it arrives, you need to test two things:

• On iOS, you should long hold the notification to preview it. The images should appear, you should be able to swipe or scroll through them and when an image it tapped, it should open in the default web browser. If you tap the notification itself, it should open the app and you will get a similar carousel which will work in the same way.

• On Android, you should expand the notification to preview it. The images should appear, you should be able to scroll through them and when an image it tapped, it should open in the default web browser. Bear in mind it may be partially obscured by the notification toolbar. If you tap the notification itself, it should open the app and you will get a similar carousel which will work in the same way.

Conclusion

If you’re able to see your device in the device explorer and all three types of notification arrive and display correctly in your test app then congratulations, you’ve integrated the SDK and you’re ready. We would always recommend further testing in different device and app states (hard closed, backgrounded, in certain app states specific to your app etc.) to make sure it works as expected and also check deep links take you to the right place. If you need any further support, please get in touch!