If your occupier users use the white-labeled essensys mobile app, you can communicate with them in the following ways:
You can send push notifications to your users. These pop-up messages alert users to events or other time-sensitive information.
You can add articles to the newsfeed seen by your users. These articles provide users with information about the site, services, or anything else that they may want to digest at any time.
Important: These services are managed using a third-party tool called "Contentful". You are assigned up to four user accounts on Contentful for sending push notifications and pushing newsfeed articles to the essensys mobile app.
Note: The following reflects the Contentful process as it was at time of publication. If there are changes to the third-party tool, you should investigate those changes in their user materials.
Managing Push notifications and Newsfeed posts
Before you begin
Only operators send notifications and add to the newsfeed seen by users.
Your customer success team will create the Contentful account and space for you (the operator) with up to 4 admin log ins. Each user will receive an invite by email that includes their Contentful log in details.
Note: Mobile app users can disable push notifications in their settings.
Accessing Contentful
Your customer success team team at essensys will invite you to use Contentful by email. If you have any issues logging in with those details, contact us.
When you log in to Contentful with the user details supplied by essensys, you will see Content types: Newsfeed post and Push notification. These are the two types supported by essensys.
Create a push notification
If you want to create and send a pop-up notification to all devices with push notifications enabled, you need to add a new entry of content type "push notification" to Contentful.
Example: You might send a push notification to all users when there is a fire drill at their site. In this case, the notification might indicate the action that users should take.
From the Add entry drop-down list, select the content type Push notification.
The Push notification editor opens.Specify the details of your message:
Type a short title for the notification.
Type the main message body.
By default, the notification is stored as a DRAFT and not sent. You do not need to save the message.
If your notification is only for your mobile app users at one or more specific sites:
Click the Tags tab.
From the Tags drop-down list, select the sites where the notification is relevant.
Note: The push notification will be seen by users whose Wi-Fi homesite is one of the selected sites. Users without a Wi-Fi homesite will receive all push notifications.
Your push notification is saved as a draft. Your mobile app users will not receive the notification until it is published. For more information, see Publishing, scheduling, and archiving content.
Create a newsfeed post
If you want to add a new newsfeed post to the home page of your user's mobile app, you need to add a new entry of content type "newsfeed post" in Contentful.
Example: You might want to tell all of your users about new facilities that are available at their site, such as new water coolers. In this case, the article may include full details of the water cooler locations.
From the Add entry drop-down list, select the content type Newsfeed post.
The Newsfeed post editor opens.Specify the details of your message:
Type a short title for the post.
Type a short text description for the post.
Note: If you choose to notify your users about this article, the short title and short text description will be used in the push notification.Select a category for the post.
The category indicates where the new newsfeed post will be presented when it is shown in the user's mobile app. For example, selecting Alerts adds this post to the Alerts section.
Tip: If you require a new category, we can add one for you, contact us.Optionally, add an expiry date for the post.
The post is removed from the mobile apps at this date and time.
Tip: Make sure that you select the correct time zone from the right-most drop-down list.Optionally, add an image for your article:
Select Add existing media to select an image that you have used previously.
Select Add new media to add a new image to Contentful, save it, and then select it.
Note: This image will appear on the left-hand side of the tile and as a banner on the article itself.
Add the text of your article into the Content field.
You can do some basic formatting within the article as you would in any WYSIWYG form. This includes adding hyperlinks.To pin this article on the mobile app home page, select Yes as the Pinned option.
Note: Pinning the article means that the category is ignored and the post is added at the top of the home page. You can have multiple pinned articles.
Tip: To better emphasize your newsfeed, you should limit the number of pinned articles to one or two.To notify the users about this article, select Yes as the Push Notification option.
Note: The push notification, in this case, will use the title and short text that you defined at the top of this form. When the user clicks on this type of notification, the article opens in the mobile app.
If your article is only for your mobile app users at one or more specific sites:
Click the Tags tab.
From the Tags drop-down list, select the sites at which the article is relevant.
Note: The article will be seen by users whose Wi-Fi homesite is one of the selected sites. Any user without a Wi-Fi homesite will receive all newsfeed articles.
Your newsfeed post is saved as a draft. Your mobile app users will not receive the article until it is published. For more information, see Publishing, scheduling, and archiving content.
Publishing, scheduling, and archiving content
If you have newsfeed posts and push notifications saved as DRAFTs, you can either archive them or publish them to your mobile app users.
Tip: In the Content page in Contentful, you can see the Published, Changed, Archived and Draft newsfeed posts and push notifications in Views.
Publish your content now
Open the newsfeed post or push notification that you want to publish.
Click Publish.
The content is published straight away.
Publish your content at a scheduled time in future
Open the newsfeed post or push notification that you want to publish.
Click the drop-down list alongside Publish.
Select Change status to > Set schedule.
The Set schedule dialog box opens.To publish at the scheduled date:
Specify a Publish on date and time.
Select the Time zone that should apply.
Click Set schedule.
The content is published once the scheduled date and time is met.
Archive your content
Open the newsfeed post or push notification that you want to archive.
Click the drop-down list alongside Publish.
Select Change status to > Archive.
The content is archived. You can still use it in future, but this means it is listed separately.