Basics

To get started with In-App Inbox for your mobile App

you will need an account on xtremepush and to have a project configured. You can login at dashboard.xtremepush.com. Once logged in if you don't have one ready to use, add a NEW project. 

If you are creating a New project you will need to enter the following details and click save to initialise your project: 

• Title: Name used to identify project on the platform, something obvious to help you find it.  
• Description: A short description of what the project is for.
• Timezone: The timezone used for analytics in the project. Important this will dictate the starting point for analytics like daily users. You can set this to the local timezone of platform users if this makes sense. Default is UTC, which is a good compromise if users are likely to be spread across different timezones. 
• Icon: Helps to identify project on the platform, use app icon to help you find it.   
  
  

Deploying the SDK

If you have already setup push notifications in your App the SDK will already be deployed and you can skip to the next section. If not you will need to integrate the SDK. Skip to the Mobile App - Notifications Quick Start Guide which has a breakdown of what is required. This includes details on how to:

• Add mobile applications to a project
• Do an Android Integration
• Do an iOS Integration

NOTE: If you want to integrate the SDK but don't want to enable notifications also read the following article on integrating with notifications disabled:

• Disabling Notifications
  
  

Enabling the Inbox Messaging Channel

To find out if the Inbox Messaging Channel has been enabled Go to Create Campaign > Send-Now or Schedule Notification. If you don't see the Inbox Channel as an option it is not enabled.

To enable it go to  App Settings > Inbox Settings and to set In-App Messaging to Enabled and click save. 

Return to Create Campaign > Send-Now or Schedule Notification and you will see the inbox channel as an option:

Setting Up the Inbox

Once the inbox is enabled you need to configure if you want to enable it for iOS and Android, and configure the look and feel of your inbox. This can all be done from App Settings > Inbox Settings. The Inbox has a two default styles Light and Dark (below) and you can also fully customise the look and feel of the inbox.

From  App Settings > Inbox Settings you can configure: 

Adding the Inbox In Your App

To the add the inbox to your app you will need to enable it and add a button to your app that can be pressed to open the inbox. It is straightforward to implement with an SDK method to enable the inbox and a method to open the inbox.

There are native methods for adding the inbox to your App for Android and iOS. Skip to the appropriate section for the type of App you are working with to get details on the OS specific variations when adding the Inbox:

• Adding the inbox on Android
• Adding the inbox on iOS

Setting Up a Message

Before you set up your first message please review our creative guidelines for the Inbox to get an understanding of how to create professional looking messages:

• Creative Guidelines

Then provided you have enabled the inbox and added it to your app, you are ready to setup your first campaign. Campaign setup is covered in our Platform Guide Docs:

• In-App Inbox Campaign

Inbox messages can be added as a complimentary channel to a campaign that also includes a notification or another comms channel. One common use case is to add a copy of a notification to the inbox to persist it in the app. Another is to use the inbox as a fallback channel for users who have not opted-in to other notifications. Inbox messages can be trigged just like other messages one use case for this  is basket or other drop-off recovery type messages:

• Event triggered notifications
• Drop-off recovery type campaigns  

Managing Your Inbox Feed

Once you have sent some messages managing the inbox is a little different to other comms channels. For channels like notification, SMS and email messages go to the notification tray or client application and can be managed by users from there on.

Once sent messages will stay in your users inbox.  There is capability in campaign scheduling for messages that should not persist indefinitely for example an offer that expires on a given day or a message related to an event that is no longer relevant once the event is over. In campaigns that contain an inbox message on the schedule tab you will see the option to set when the inbox message should be removed:

If you need to check what inbox messages are still active in the Inbox you can check this out in Campaigns > Inbox Feed. From here you can also expire a message if needed for whatever reason. More details can be found on the Inbox Feed in the article linked below:

• Inbox Feed

There is also an API method for removing messages from a users inbox feed. This can be used to expire a message based on some action for example if a user redeems an offer then the offer message could be removed from the user's inbox with this API call:

• Remove a Message via API