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After your app is live and users are using it, you will want to send notifications to engage users and take them to your latest content in the app.

In this guide, we will cover the basics of sending notifications directly from your OneSignal Dashboard, but keep in mind that you also have the option of sending the notifications directly from your WordPress Dashboard.

To get started access your OneSignal account through the following URL: https://app.onesignal.com/login

Now that you are in your account, make sure to select the Mobile App that you previously created, then access the “Messages” area and click on “New Push” as you can see below:

You will be presented with several options to customize your push notification, as well as a preview tool to see exactly how the notification looks like on iOS and Android:

There is one key aspect when sending notifications from your OneSignal Dashboard to the Vendrux Platform, the “Launch URL” field must always be empty, and you must use the “Additional Data” area to specify the URL that must be opened when users click on the notification.

Under the “Additional Data” area you will have two fields to fill, these must be filled different depending on the platform you are using.

You will need to fill the “Key” field with “url” and the “Value” field with the URL that must be opened (e.g. https://yourwebsite.com)

You can now proceed with sending the notification, make sure to select the best sending method, if you are sending breaking news mark the “Send Immediately” option, otherwise we’d recommend using the “Smart Delivery”.

Just press “Confirm” to start sending the notifications.

Sending a push via the OneSignal dashboard is somewhat straightforward and will not be detailed in this document, as Onesignal already provides extensive documentation for basic usage.Here’s something specific to your Canvas app you will need to take into consideration:Adding a URLIf you’d like your users to open a URL directly in the browser (without opening your app) when tapping on a notification in the Notification Bar or on a push list item in the Alerts list, you will need to fill in this field:

If you’d like the URL to open within your app when the notification is opened, then you’ll need to leave the field above empty and add the URL in the notification’s Additional Data, using the “website’ key, as shown below.

Adding images to notificationsYour app is capable of displaying an image attached to a notification in the Alerts screen.Attaching an image to a push needs to be made in the “Additional Data” field in the dashboard and always use the “large_image” name for the key. Any other key name for the image will be ignored by the app.

Additionally, if you’d like the image to show up in the notification itself in the lock screen or notifications list on iOS and Android, you’ll have to add the image to the appropriate fields for each platform.For Android devices, enter the image URL in the field “Big Picture”, so it will get displayed by the OS in the notification itself.

For iOS devices, you’ll have to fill in the media URL field for iOS 10 devices.

Icons and other imagesThe Android OS (not supported by iOS) allows for small images to be displayed alongside the title and text of the push in the Notification bar, so you can fill out the “Small Icon URL” field in the dashboard as well.