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Available on all Chat plans

If you are offering Zendesk Chat through your own mobile app, you can enable push notifications to alert customers to responses and updates to their chats.

For Zendesk Chat accounts on paying plans, push notifications can be configured to notify the user even when the app is in the background on their mobile device. These notifications can be enabled for multiple mobile apps, if needed.

This article describes the tasks required by administrators to enable Chat push notifications for their mobile apps, and includes the following topics:

  • Preparing to add the app
  • Enabling push notifications on your mobile app
  • Editing an app’s information
  • Disabling push notifications for an app
  • Testing push notifications
  • Note for former users of Chat Mobile SDK V1
Note: To enable push notifications for Zendesk Chat on multiple mobile apps, those apps must be using Chat Mobile SDK V2 or later.

Preparing to add the app

Before your developers can turn on push notifications, a Chat admin must upload FCM server credentials (for Android) or a PEM certificate (for iOS) to the Chat account.

The developers should provide you with the FCM server credentials or PEM certificate file. If they have questions, refer them to the following docs on the Zendesk developer portal:

  • https://developer.zendesk.com/embeddables/docs/chat-sdk-v-2-for-ios/push_notifications
  • https://developer.zendesk.com/embeddables/docs/chat-sdk-v-2-for-android/introduction

Enabling push notifications on your mobile app

Note: Google will remove FCM XMPP and HTTP legacy APIs in June 2024. Existing customers using the Chat SDK on Android must re-upload the credentials in the latest format. See Migrate from legacy FCM APIs to HTTP v1.

To enable push notifications, administrators must add their mobile apps to the Mobile SDK list, which is accessed through your Chat dashboard. When an app is added to this list, an app ID is generated, which is then shared with your mobile development team.

To add an app to the Mobile SDK list

  1. On your Chat dashboard, go to Settings > Account > API & SDKs.
  2. In the Mobile SDK section, click Add App.

  3. On the Add App page, enter your app’s information, including:
    • Name: A name for your app that developers and other administrators will recognize.
    • Description: A brief statement about what the app does.
    • (for Android) Upload the Service Account private key containing the private credentials, client email (also called a service account email), and project ID by clicking Generate New Private Key in the Firebase console. See Initialize the SDK in non-Google environments. You must also add google-services.json to your Android project. See Push notifications.

      In most migration scenarios, the Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) v1 API is enabled by default. If you encounter errors when trying to contact the endpoint, ensure that Firebase Cloud Messaging API is enabled in the list of APIs and services within the Google Cloud console.

    • (for iOS) Upload a PEM certificate.
  4. Click Save Changes.

Your app is now created, and assigned an App ID.

Inform your development team that the credentials or certificate has been uploaded. After receiving this confirmation, they must make changes to the app code to enable push notifications. For more information, refer them to the developer docs linked above.

Editing an app’s information

You can edit the Name and Description assigned to your mobile app, as described in Enabling push notifications on your mobile app, above.

To edit an existing app's settings

  1. In the dashboard, go to Settings > Account > API & SDKs.
  2. In the Mobile SDK section, click on the app you'd like to edit.
  3. On the Edit app page, make your changes, then click Save Changes.

Disabling push notifications for an app

If you no longer want to offer Chat push notifications for a mobile app, you can remove it from the Mobile SDK list.

Once an app is deleted, visitors using this app ID will no longer receive push notifications from your service. You cannot create another mobile SDK app with the same app ID, and the deletion is irreversible.

To delete one or more app

  1. In the dashboard, go to Settings > Account > API & SDKs.
  2. In the Mobile SDK section, select the app(s) you'd like to delete.
  3. Click Delete Selected.

Testing push notifications

If your app is available on iOS devices, you can test your push notifications before making them available through your active app.

To send push notifications to the test environment (iOS only)

  1. In the dashboard, go to Settings > Account > API & SDKs
  2. In the Mobile SDK section, click on the app which you'd like to send push notifications to the test environment
  3. In the iOS section, select For APNs Sandbox.
  4. Click the Save Changes button.

Note for former users of Chat Mobile SDK V1

If you previously used the Chat Mobile SDK V1, you may find that you cannot delete one of the apps called "App 1" in my account.

If you have an app using the Mobile SDK V1 created on the old Mobile SDK settings experience, we've migrated the existing app to the new experience. You can easily identify it by looking for its pre-assigned name "App 1" (you can change this in the app's settings).

We've disabled the deletion for this app on your dashboard as it's using the older Mobile SDK version that's no longer allowed to be added as a new app if deleted accidentally.

If you wish to deactivate this app:

  1. Click App 1 in the Mobile SDK section
  2. Click Edit App.
  3. Remove the FCM server key and/or the PEM file.
  4. Click Save Changes.
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