Posted By: Thomas Shaw, 8:00am Monday 17 January 2011
The whole push notification environment is quite interesting to get your head around. It doesn't matter if the mobile application is designed for iOS (iPhone), Android or Windows 7 operating systems - the overall architecture is much the same. Push notifications should not be seen as a SMS or Email replacement, but as a complement to existing notification services.
We have been working on a number of mobile recruiting projects for clients over the past few months. One of them involves quite a complex push notification project that you may never know exists.
Push notifications are much like receiving an SMS. Your phone is alerted when a new message is received. It can also alert your application and update the badge number. The technology behind push notifications is not new; it's been around for a number of years. The technology has only become "mainstream" after integration within the Facebook iPhone application.
You have ## new jobs matching your search criteria
New resume for ## has been received
Your timesheet is due
Your timesheet is overdue
Please authorise ##'s timesheet
## incident has occurred
Meeting with ## at ## in 10mins
Please call ## on ##
System access alert for ##
Having looked at the open/response statistics from our beta apps on a number of different devices. I am still not convinced it is the most effective way to alert job seekers. However, it dose have many practical applications for the wider HR/Recruitment system landscape. Even with hours of brainstorming, the uses seem to resolve around system messages.
The native application must authenticate and register the users device with the remote applications server to start send/receive messages. If the user removes the app, the device will reject notification.
Push notifications should never be taken for granted. There are many cases of notifications being sent from the server and the application on a device not receiving it. The problem is that the Push Notification message indicators are not built for heavy use. If you have multiple push messages coming in to you phone, only the latest one will be shown on the screen.
Have a read through some old slideshare presentations.
We have been working on a number of mobile recruiting projects for clients over the past few months. One of them involves quite a complex push notification project that you may never know exists.