1. Enhance Your Mobile Engagement Strategy with Azure
Elio Damaggio | Program Manager II, Azure Notification Hubs
Miranda Luna | Product Manager, Azure Mobile

2. Course Topics Enhance Your Mobile Engagement Strategy w/ Azure
01 | Azure Mobile
06 | Push-to-Sync (sync w server)
02 | Notification Hubs
07 | Push-to-Pull (pull from server)
03 | Broadcast Push
08 | Retargeting & Coupons
04 | Segmented Push
09 | Scale & Security
05 | Localized Push
10 | Resources

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Setting Expectations
Target Audience
Mobile app developers that want to drive
higher customer engagement and retention
Suggested Prerequisites/Supporting Material
MVA Notification Hubs Deep Dive
Azure Fridays
Broadcasting Alerts
Filtering Alerts
Templates & Internalization
User Specific Alerts

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5. 01 | Azure Mobile

6. Mobile Backend Push Notifications Device Messaging
4/6/2017
Mobile Backend
Ready-made mobile app backend for iOS, Android and Windows
Create new mobile apps or add a mobility layer to existing systems
Speeds up development time and reduces ongoing maintenance cost
Push Notifications
Mobile push notification engine for existing apps
Enhance push notifications in any app with personalization and localization
Improves user engagement and retention by delivering relevant content more quickly
Device Messaging
Messaging infrastructure that sits between and within applications
Build multi-tier and hybrid applications or smart device information exchange patterns
Delivers inter- and intra-app messages faster and connects on-premises systems to the cloud
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

7. 02 | Notification Hubs

8. Mobile Push Notifications 101
4/6/2017
Mobile Push Notifications 101
Register device handle at app launch
Client app contacts Platform Notification Service (PNS)
App updates handle in backend
client app
Platform
Notification
Service
Send Notification
App backend sends notification to PNS
PNS pushes the notification to the app on the device
Maintain device handles
Delete expired handles when PNS rejects them
App back-end
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

9. Push Notification Challenges
4/6/2017
Push Notification Challenges
While there are significant benefits to using push notifications in a mobile app, rolling your own push infrastructure is extremely difficult in terms of implementing a system capable of:
Cross-Platform Push Notifications
Each push service (APNS for iOS, GCM for Android, WNS for Windows, etc.) has different protocols (e.g., HTTP vs. TCP, xml payload vs. JSON payload)
Personalizing on the server-side based on interest and location
Segmenting users based on interest tags and routing only the most relevant content to each segment
Localizing notifications on the client-side based on language, currency, device, etc.
Each device displays notifications differently
High-Volume with Low Latency
Limited by the capability of each VM so need to spin up scores of VMs and shard your application in order to serve a large user base
Maintaining accurate device handle registry
Adding registrations upon installation, updating tags, pruning upon on uninstall
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

10. Azure Push Notifications
One-time set up
Create a Notification Hub
Register
The client app retrieves its current handle from the PNS.
Client app (or app backend) registers the handle with Notification Hub
Send Notification
The app back-end sends a message to the Notification Hub.
Notification Hub pushes it to the PNS
Android app
iOS app
Windows 8.x
app
App back-end
GCM
APNs
WNS
MPNS
Notification Hub

11. Without Notification Hubs With Notification Hubs
4/6/2017
Challenge Area
Without Notification Hubs
With Notification Hubs
Cross-Platform Push
Separate registration logic
Separate communication paths using different protocols for each platform push notification service
Upload credentials and go
Notification Hubs establishes and maintains communication paths
Personalization
Field to create and maintain in device registry for each segmentation point
Nulls for existing registered devices as additional interest points are added
Logic to route each message through the appropriate and available VM(s)
Assign interest tags to each registered device and send to any subset of uses you can define with a Boolean expression of tags
Localization
Send different messages for different formats, languages, etc. since each message contains different content
Create a template for each device based on display preferences (banner vs toast, language, currency, etc.)
No additional logic required
Single message to send
High-Volume, Low Latency
Go with small VMs to process the work and end up with higher latency due to the time it takes to spin up many machines
Go with large VMs, always keeping a few ready and waiting, and end up paying for idle VMs
Automatically handled by Notification Hubs, which is designed to deliver millions of notifications within minutes
Pay only for the push notifications you send, never idle VMs
Maintaining Device Registry
Create and maintain device table with likely many null values as you add new interest tags
Logic to handle expirations due to uninstalls; possible suspensions from PNS if incomplete
Maintains device registry and automatically updates based on uninstalls
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

12. Tags and Templates Use Tags for Segmentation
Only send message to this segment of users
Use Templates for Personalization & Localization
Display message in a particular format

13. 03 | Broadcast Push

14. Bing News Build 2013 4/6/2017 Register device ChannelURIs WNS
Windows 8 devices
Breaking news
Notification Hubs
MPNS
Bing Notification Platform
Windows Phone devices
© 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

15. Broadcast to all users Tags
4/6/2017
Broadcast to all users Tags
App back-end
App back-end
Broadcast a notification to all users by making a single API from your app backend w/o specifying any tags
Notification Hub
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

16. Broadcast to all users, in batches Tags
4/6/2017
Broadcast to all users, in batches Tags
App back-end
App back-end
Tags can be used to represent groups of users for sending notifications to all users in batches
Client app authenticates with the app backend
Devices pass device handle to the app backend
App backend registers the devices for the tag “batchNo”
Target batches in sequence by specifying particular “batchNo” tags in sequential API calls
Notification Hub
Tag: ”Batch1”
Tag: ”Batch4”
Tag: ”Batch4”
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

17. 04 | Segmented Push

18. 4/6/2017
Sochi 2014 Results App
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

19. How Sochi used Notification Hubs
Build 2013
4/6/2017
How Sochi used Notification Hubs
Register device ChannelURIs
APNS
country, sport, athlete, medals, emergency alerts,...
Register device tokens for tags
GCM
Result Alerts
MPNS
Notification Hubs
Sochi.ru backend
WNS
© 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

20. Notify a segment, based on interest Tags
4/6/2017
Notify a segment, based on interest Tags
App back-end
Tags as interest groups
Client app can register with a set of interest tags.
Tags are simple strings (no pre-provisioning is required)
App backend can target all clients with the same tag in a single API call
Tag Expressions allow you to segment any subset of interest tags that can be expressed using Boolean expressions
Users tagged for Rolling Stones AND Beatles (band:RollingStones && band:Beatles)
Users tagged for either Rolling Stones or Beatles (band:RollingStones || band:Beatles)
Users tagged for Rolling Stones but not also Beatles (band:RollingStones && !band:Beatles
Users tagged for Rolling Stones or Beatles in Seattle
((band:Rolling Stones || band:Beatles) && loc:Seattle)
App back-end
Tag: ”Beatles”
Notification Hub
Tag: ”RollingStones”
Tag: ”Beatles”
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

21. Notify a single logical user Tags
4/6/2017
Notify a single logical user Tags
App back-end
App back-end
Tags can be used to represent individual logical users
Client app authenticates with the app backend
Devices pass device handle to the app backend
App backend registers the devices for the tag “userId”
Target individual users by specifying particular “userId” tag
Notification Hub
Tag: ” ”
Tag: ” ”
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

22. 05 | Localized Push

23. Localization Templates
Build 2013
4/6/2017
Localization Templates
<toast>
<visual>
<binding template=\"ToastText01\">
<text id=\"1\">$(tempF)</text>
</binding>
</visual>
</toast>
Registration
Client apps can register with personalized templates, e.g.,
Alice’s Surface wants to receive weather information in F degrees.
Bob’s iPhone wants weather information in C degrees.
Send notification.
App back-end sends a message including both temperatures: {tempC: “16”, tempF: “61”}.
Template Expressions.
Template support a simple expression language:
E.g., {‘Sam, ’+$(friend)+’ added you to ’+$(groupName)+‘ group’}. 16
{tempC: “23”, tempF: “73”}
App back-end
Notification Hub {
aps: {
alert: “$(tempC)” } 61
© 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

24. 06 | Push-to-Sync

25. 4/6/2017
Push to Sync
Use push notifications to update all devices when user makes an update on one
Adding music to a playlist on tablet, then syncing that update to phone
Send notification to ‘wake up’ the client app
Client app pulls update from app backend
User never experiences a visual tile or toast, just views the synced content on all devices
App back-end
Platform
Notification
Service
Notification Hub
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

26. 07 | Push-to-Pull

27. Push to Pull Send a push notification to the device
4/6/2017
Push to Pull
Send a push notification to the device
Push notification prompts the device to pull information from the app backend
Device then pulls the information directly from the app backend
Information does not flow through PNS or NH
PNS pushes the notification to the app on the device
Information is displayed to the user just like a normal mobile push notification, even though it travels more directly and securely
Platform
Notification
Service
Notification Hub
App back-end
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

28. 08 | Retargeting & Coupons

29. Retargeting
Every time you send a push notification, you learn something about that customer
Use that information to inform tag updates and send more targeted content
Key points to remember:
Keep user profiles in app back-end
Regularly update tags with updated segments coming from analytics/CRM…

30. Demo Example Shopping app sends push to:
Notify of status of current purchases
Retarget users that do not complete purchases
Publicize coupons/offers
Notification system has to handle:
Segments
Advanced targeting

31. Retargeting & Coupons

32. Coupon Lifecycle Register tags based on Target users with offer
Location
CRM/demographics
App usage
Target users with offer
Track coupon performance
Update Tags
Retarget
App back-end
Tapped coupon
CRM
Loc:NYC && loyalty:gold
Loc:NYC && loyalty:gold && !tapped:{couponId}
Notification Hub 32

33. 09 | Scale & Security

34. Scale & Security
Each namespace can have 50 hubs, but scale namespaces, not hubs
Maintain a test hub and a prod hub
If you regularly broadcast to >5M devices, might want to shard against multiple namespaces in different regions for optimal performance
Implement security on the device, use multi-factor auth
Manage PNS creds at the namespace-level if you have multiple departments with send and read rights
Warning: this introduces additional complexities

35. 10 | Resources

36. Mobile Engagement at //build
Mobile Push Notifications to Any Client with Azure Notification Hubs
Wednesday 4/2 5:30 – 6:30 PST
Elio Damaggio
@ElioDamaggio
Powerful mobile apps with Mobile Services and ASP.NET Web API
Thursday 4/3 5:30 – 6:30 PST
Kirill Gavrylyuk, Yavor Georgiev
Building Cross-Platform Line of Business Apps with Mobile Services
Friday 4/4 12:30 – 1:30 PST
Donna Malayeri, Chris Risner
All videos will be available on Channel9

37. Notification Hubs Resources
4/6/2017
Notification Hubs Resources
Windows Azure Mobile Services Overview, Tutorials and Resources
Azure Documentation Center
MSDN Documenation
Android (tutorial)
iOS (tutorial)
Windows Store (tutorial)
Windows Phone (tutorial)
Learn/Channel 9 Introduction | iOS | Windows Store | Tags and Templates
REST API Reference
Windows Azure Pricing
Microsoft Azure Certified Training
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.