iOS Features – Real-time Data Sync

Introduction

If your use case requires configuration changes (Eg: changes to your Zone or geofence setup) to be synced to your app in real-time, rather than waiting for the next successful SDK authentication or rule download, you can make use of the Real-time Data Sync feature. Real-time Data Sync uses Firebase Cloud Messaging to send a push notification to your application whenever changes to the project rule set are made, informing the application to use the notifyPushUpdateWithData method on the Bluedot iOS SDK to trigger a new rule set download.

This documentation will guide you through activating Bluedot’s Real-time Data Sync along with Google Firebase Cloud Messaging.

1. Integrate the Point SDK & add Google Firebase to your Android Project
2. Set your Firebase Server key in the Canvas dashboard
3. Connect Bluedot SDK with Firebase

Integrate Firebase SDK into your project

 

To add Firebase to your app, you will need to create a Firebase project and a Firebase configuration file. This can be achieved with the steps documented here.

Disable Firebase method swizzling

Disable Firebase method swizzling by following the steps documented here.

Handle disabled method swizzling

Once you have disabled method swizzling, you’ll need to explicitly map your APNs token to the FCM registration token. This can be achieved with the steps documented here.

If you wish to test APNS in a sandbox environment, you should map your token with the type FIRMessagingAPNSTokenTypeSandbox

// To test with Sandbox Account
[[FIRMessaging messaging] setAPNSToken:deviceToken type:FIRMessagingAPNSTokenTypeSandbox];

Set your Firebase Server key in Canvas

Information on setting the Firebase Server key for your Canvas project is here.

Connect Bluedot with Firebase

To receive Real-time Push Notification, you need to connect Point SDK with Firebase Service by uploading Firebase Server key to Canvas web interface and subscribe the topic with Bluedot Project ID.

Subscribe the topic using Bluedot Project ID

To make sure that push notification will be delivered to your applications which is using specific Bluedot Project. Your client app needs to subscribe to the topic with Bluedot Project ID. The FIRMessaging class handles topic messaging functionality.

Also, your client needs to first register your app with both APNs and FCM to ensure that it can receive notifications.

To subscribe to a topic, implement the didReceiveRegistrationToken method in FIRMessagingDelegate Protocol.

- (void)messaging:(FIRMessaging *)messaging didReceiveRegistrationToken:(NSString *)fcmToken {
    NSLog(@"Subcribing to Topic...");
    NSString *topic = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@", ProjectId];
    [[FIRMessaging messaging] subscribeToTopic: topic];
}

Bluedot Push Interface

When your client app has received the Real-time Push Notification, you need to pass the userInfo from the notification as a parameter to the method notifyPushUpdateWithData: from BDLocationManager:

- (void)notifyPushUpdateWithData: (NSDictionary *)data;

Put the method in UNUserNotificationCenterDelegate userNotificationCenter:willPresentNotification:withCompletionHandler: to handle notifications received when the client app is in the foreground. The message is a UNNotificationobject. Implement FIRMessagingDelegate applicationReceivedRemoteMessage: to handle all data messages that are sent to the client. The message is a FIRMessagingRemoteMessage object.

// Receive displayed notifications
#if defined(__IPHONE_10_0) && __IPHONE_OS_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED >= __IPHONE_10_0
- (void)userNotificationCenter:(UNUserNotificationCenter *)center
       willPresentNotification:(UNNotification *)notification
         withCompletionHandler:(void (^)(UNNotificationPresentationOptions))completionHandler {
    NSDictionary *userInfo = notification.request.content.userInfo;
    [BDLocationManager.instance notifyPushUpdateWithData:userInfo];
    ...
}
 
// Receive data message
- (void)applicationReceivedRemoteMessage:(FIRMessagingRemoteMessage *)remoteMessage {
    [BDLocationManager.instance notifyPushUpdateWithData:[remoteMessage appData]];
    ...
}
#endif