Sending push notifications with Azure Notification Hubs on Windows Phone

Overview

This tutorial shows you how to use Azure Notification Hubs to send push notifications to a Windows Phone 8 or Windows Phone 8.1 Silverlight application. If you are targeting Windows Phone 8.1 (non-Silverlight), then refer to the Windows Universal version. In this tutorial, you create a blank Windows Phone 8 app that receives push notifications by using the Microsoft Push Notification Service (MPNS). When you're finished, you'll be able to use your notification hub to broadcast push notifications to all the devices running your app.

The tutorial demonstrates the simple broadcast scenario in using Notification Hubs.

Prerequisites

This tutorial requires the following:

• Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows Phone, or a later version.

Completing this tutorial is a prerequisite for all other Notification Hubs tutorials for Windows Phone 8 apps.

Create your notification hub

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

2. Select New > Web + Mobile > Notification Hub.

   

3. In the Notification Hub box, type a unique name. Select your Region, Subscription, and Resource Group (if you have one already).

   If you already have a service bus namespace that you want to create the hub in, do the following:

   a. In the Namespace area, select the Select Existing link.

   b. Select Create.

   If you don't already have a service bus namespace, you can use the default name, which is created based on the hub name (if the namespace name is available).

   

   After you've created the namespace and notification hub, the Azure portal opens.

   

4. Select Settings > Access Policies. Note the two connection strings that are available to you. You will need them to handle push notifications later.

   

6. Click the Notification Services section (within Settings), click on Windows Phone (MPNS) and then click the Enable unauthenticated push check box.

Your hub is now created and configured to send unauthenticated notification for Windows Phone.

Connecting your app to the notification hub

1. In Visual Studio, create a new Windows Phone 8 application.

   ![Visual Studio - New Project - Windows Phone App][13]
   

   In Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 or later, you instead create a Windows Phone Silverlight application.

   

2. In Visual Studio, right-click the solution, and then click Manage NuGet Packages.

   This displays the Manage NuGet Packages dialog box.

3. Search for WindowsAzure.Messaging.Managed and click Install, and then accept the terms of use.

   

   This downloads, installs, and adds a reference to the Azure Messaging library for Windows by using the WindowsAzure.Messaging.Managed NuGet package.

4. Open the file App.xaml.cs and add the following using statements:

    using Microsoft.Phone.Notification;
    using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Messaging;
   

5. Add the following code at the top of Application_Launching method in App.xaml.cs:

    var channel = HttpNotificationChannel.Find("MyPushChannel");
    if (channel == null)
    {
        channel = new HttpNotificationChannel("MyPushChannel");
        channel.Open();
        channel.BindToShellToast();
    }
   
    channel.ChannelUriUpdated += new EventHandler<NotificationChannelUriEventArgs>(async (o, args) =>
    {
        var hub = new NotificationHub("<hub name>", "<connection string>");
        var result = await hub.RegisterNativeAsync(args.ChannelUri.ToString());
   
        System.Windows.Deployment.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
        {
            MessageBox.Show("Registration :" + result.RegistrationId, "Registered", MessageBoxButton.OK);
        });
    });
   

   Note

   The value MyPushChannel is an index that is used to lookup an existing channel in the HttpNotificationChannel collection. If there isn't one there, create a new entry with that name.

   Make sure to insert the name of your hub and the connection string called DefaultListenSharedAccessSignature that you obtained in the previous section. This code retrieves the channel URI for the app from MPNS, and then registers that channel URI with your notification hub. It also guarantees that the channel URI is registered in your notification hub each time the application is launched.

   Note

   This tutorial sends a toast notification to the device. When you send a tile notification, you must instead call the BindToShellTile method on the channel. To support both toast and tile notifications, call both BindToShellTile and BindToShellToast.

6. In Solution Explorer, expand Properties, open the WMAppManifest.xml file, click the Capabilities tab, and make sure that the ID_CAP_PUSH_NOTIFICATION capability is checked.

   ![Visual Studio - Windows Phone App Capabilities][14]
   
   This ensures that your app can receive push notifications. Without it, any attempt to send a push notification to the app will fail.
   

7. Press the F5 key to run the app.

   A registration message is displayed in the app.

8. Close the app.

   Note

   To receive a toast push notification, the application must not be running in the foreground.

Send push notifications from your backend

You can send push notifications by using Notification Hubs from any backend via the public REST interface. In this tutorial, you send push notifications using a .NET console application.

For an example of how to send push notifications from an ASP.NET WebAPI backend that's integrated with Notification Hubs, see Azure Notification Hubs Notify Users with .NET backend.

For an example of how to send push notifications by using the REST APIs, check out How to use Notification Hubs from Java and How to use Notification Hubs from PHP.

1. Right-click the solution, select Add and New Project..., and then under Visual C#, click Windows and Console Application, and click OK.

   ![Visual Studio - New Project - Console Application][6]
   

   This adds a new Visual C# console application to the solution. You can also do this in a separate solution.

2. Click Tools, click Library Package Manager, and then click Package Manager Console.

   This displays the Package Manager Console.

3. In the Package Manager Console window, set the Default project to your new console application project, and then in the console window, execute the following command:

   Install-Package Microsoft.Azure.NotificationHubs
   

   This adds a reference to the Azure Notification Hubs SDK using the Microsoft.Azure.Notification Hubs NuGet package.

4. Open the Program.cs file and add the following using statement:

    using Microsoft.Azure.NotificationHubs;
   

5. In the Program class, add the following method:

    private static async void SendNotificationAsync()
    {
        NotificationHubClient hub = NotificationHubClient
            .CreateClientFromConnectionString("<connection string with full access>", "<hub name>");
        string toast = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?>" +
            "<wp:Notification xmlns:wp=\"WPNotification\">" +
               "<wp:Toast>" +
                    "<wp:Text1>Hello from a .NET App!</wp:Text1>" +
               "</wp:Toast> " +
            "</wp:Notification>";
        await hub.SendMpnsNativeNotificationAsync(toast);
    }
   

   Make sure to replace the <hub name> placeholder with the name of the notification hub that appears in the portal. Also, replace the connection string placeholder with the connection string called DefaultFullSharedAccessSignature that you obtained in the section "Configure your notification hub."

   Note

   Make sure that you use the connection string with Full access, not Listen access. The listen-access string does not have permissions to send push notifications.

6. Add the following line in your Main method:

     SendNotificationAsync();
     Console.ReadLine();
   

7. With your Windows Phone emulator running and your app closed, set the console application project as the default startup project, and then press the F5 key to run the app.

   You will receive a toast push notification. Tapping the toast banner loads the app.

You can find all the possible payloads in the toast catalog and tile catalog topics on MSDN.

Next steps

In this simple example, you broadcasted push notifications to all your Windows Phone 8 devices.

In order to target specific users, refer to the Use Notification Hubs to push notifications to users tutorial.

If you want to segment your users by interest groups, you can read Use Notification Hubs to send breaking news.

Learn more about how to use Notification Hubs in Notification Hubs Guidance.