Advanced Topic: Message Center
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Make sure that all previous Flight Plan guides have been completed before continuing with this article.

Overview:

The Urban Airship Message Center is a place in your app where you can display persistent rich content which can include an image, video, or custom HTML. Benefits of deploying a Message Center include:

The ability to reach your entire audience
Persistent content: now and later reading
Non-interruptive messaging: not every campaign is worth interrupting your customers’ day with a push notification
Rich content without needing to update the app
Message expiration
Badge the app icon to drive app opens (iOS only)

Message Center messages are different than standard, opt-in push notifications that appear on your lock screen. Message Center messages don’t require an opt-in. They actually live on Urban Airship servers and are displayed within your app in a standard inbox style. Push notifications and Message Center messages can be the same text content, but Message Center allows you to have longer and more visually engaging content.

Customers often will send both a push notification and a Message Center message reaching both opted-in and opted-out audiences. High-performing apps see over 50% of opted-in user and 25% of opted-out users reading message center messages.

Caption: out of the box Message Center (suggest using the graphics from docs)

<<<<<<<<<<<GAMESTOP MC IMAGE HERE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Caption: Game Stop’s highly branded and customized Message Center.
Game Stop’s Message Center generates nearly 8x the read rate compared to direct taps / swipes on a push notification.

<<<<<<<<<<<FOREVER21 MC IMAGE HERE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Caption: customized icons in Forever 21’s Message Center

How does it all work?

By integrating the latest Urban Airship SDK into your app, you will have everything you need to display and style the Message Center Inbox. Additionally, the UA SDK provides user management, authentication and security; message read/unread status, inbox listing, message retrieval, message delete and so on.

Urban Airship will host the Message Center message HTML content on our servers for you, so messages act on “pull” system rather than a “push” system to display content to users. You can notify users of a new message in their Message Center when new content is available through various methods.

How do I get started?

Additionally, ensure you have integrated the Sample App (iOS / Android ) in order to take full advantage of a working Message Center to build off of. This will guide you to a better understanding of the inner workings of the Message Center.

More detailed instructions for implementing the Message Center can be found in our iOS and Android documentation.

How to display the message center

iOS

UAirship.defaultMessageCenter().display()

Android

UAirship.shared().getInbox().startInboxActivity();

How to style the message center

iOS

Styling the Message Center can be done both programmatically and creating a configuration plist file.

Android

Styling the Message Center on Android requires providing a custom style in your application’s theme with the various Message Center Style attributes.

Testing

All messages that you send will stay on devices unless you have an expiry set.

This means that if a mistake gets made with the message content, you will want to remove the message as fast as possible. We strongly encourage anyone who uses the Message Center to follow all setup steps in the following document so mistakes can be corrected in a timely manner: Best practices for Message Center message removal

Strategic advice:

Not every push deserves a shove. Message Center allows brands to reach all app users without interrupting their day. Also, the persistent nature of Message Center messages allows users to go back to content they care about.

Common use cases for Message Center:

Increase app retention with a personalized welcome series to onboard new users
Drive partner revenue with sponsor messages
Create a highly engaging visual experience
Establish a personal communication channel
Drive conversion with incentives and offers
Increase feature adoption
Drive loyalty with increased value
Provide service with shipping and transactional notifications
Distribute digital wallet items

To protect the integrity of your brand, you will want to be ready to remove Message Center messages that are sent in error or have mistakes written in the content. Following the setup steps in the following guide will allow you to quickly fix these problems when they arise: Best practices for Message Center message removal

Implementation best practices:

In order to be successful with the Message Center, below are Best Practices that you should be aware of as you integrate the Message Center into your app.

Best practices for Message Center message removal- For accidental sends or incorrect information.
Set an expiry on all messages - Required to ensure messages are not filling up users Message Centers.
Deeplinking within a Message Center message - Allows you to be able to deeplinks users to other parts of your application
Message Center iOS Badge updates - Provides a way to notify your iOS users of new content without a push notification
Segmentation by platform (Using opt-in/opt-out tag) - How to message specific platforms for Message Center only pushes

Tech Support best practices:

Best practices for Message Center message removal
Best practices for 500 and 503 API errors

Logging examples are also included in this guide

How to find the Channel ID using the Channel Capture Tool
iOS only: Make sure you have your Notification Service Extension implemented correctly to send rich media: iOS 10 Service Extension Troubleshooting & Verification
For new app releases, certificate renewals, or upgrading FCM credentials, keep an eye on the Urban Airship Error Console to make sure there are no problems.
- GCM/FCM Troubleshooting Guide
- Rejected device tokens
Have common troubleshooting guides handy:

Next Steps:

Now that you’ve implemented Message Center, think about the content that users might like to receive.

Start with a welcome message upon first app open,
Provide an overview of app features, share mobile-only offers, or ask customers for preferences
Plan for lapsed users by setting up an inactivity trigger with a push and offer in Message Center.
You can test your content by sending to a list of your test devices
You can also delete messages to keep your Message Center fresh.

Now that you’ve implemented Message Center, this enables to you be able to fully utilize Connect and Insight to report on user engagement within your app. Connect and Insight will allow you to be able to gather data about feature adoption and data relating to which messages are driving increased app engagement.