You have configured Notification Pack plugin with Google FCM, you can now send push notifications. But nobody can still receive them. For this, you must obtain the agreement of each recipient on each of their devices (mobile, desktop…), including you. Here’s how to proceed.

Allow push notifications

Notification Pack provides a shortcode to make push notification authorization easy.

• Place the [banp_push_permission_button] shortcode wherever you want on your site
• If you are logged in, a button appears where you have placed it
• Click this button, an authorization pop-up (specific to your browser) appears
• Click on “Allow”
• Wait for the loading to end, a success feedback appears near the button

If the user clicks on “Allow”, he will receive your push notifications! He will receive them on the device and the browser where he currently is. To receive your push notifications on all his devices (mobile, computer, tablet …), he must repeat the operation on each of them.

Be careful however, if he clicks on “Deny” or if he closes the pop-up several times, the browser will automatically block push notifications AND even authorization requests from your site. The button will become useless. The user will have to manually allow the reception of push notifications coming from your site, and then clicks on the button. The procedure is different on each browser and on each system. So make sure your customers know what to do when they click on this button.

Supported browsers

Push notifications can be received only on the following browsers:

• Desktop: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera
• Mobile (Android only): Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Samsung Internet

(See the updated and detailled compatibility list (or here))

Content and recipients

Now let’s see how to configure the notifications themselves.

• Go to the Booking Activities settings, “Notifications” tab
• Click the notification of your choice in the available notifications list. On this page you will find a “Push Notifications Settings” section
• Enable push notification
• If the notification is addressed to an administrator, you can enter the ID (or IDs) of the users in question (separated by commas)
  • A user ID is a number you can get in the URL of his profile page
  • Each of them must have allow push notifications from your site thanks to the shortcode button mentioned above
• Write the contents of the push notification
  • You can use tags (ex: {booking_id}) but not HTML
  • Make sure these notifications are short and give specific information

Customizing the notification

You can also customize the appearance and the behavior of your push notifications.

• Go to the Booking Activities settings, “Notifications” tab
• In the “Push notification settings” section, you will find several customization options
• “Click action”: Put the URL users will be redirected to when they will click the notifications (it must be HTTPS)
• “Icon”: Put the icon URL that will come with your notifications (your logo for example)
• “Badge”: When you receive a notification on your phone, a small white icon appears in the status bar, this is the badge. You can your own badge URL here, it must be monochrome and white.
• “Silent notification”: Depending on user preferences, notifications arrive on mobile by vibrating, ringing, turning on the device, and flashing. However, you prevent this behavior by enabling this option. The user will discover your notification when he turns on his device.

Now you have completely configure your Push notifications, congratulations!
We invite you to do the same for the SMS notifications, if not already done. Else, discover how to integrate event-specific messages in your notifications.