Send SMS texts in lieu of push notifications to users who reject push permissions

[aphexcx]

• Create boolean column
• iOS should update this column if push permission was approved or rejected accordingly @mkulumadzi
• Cloud code should check this column before sending a push to the user; if it is false, send a text instead
• Localize texts Localize cloud push notifications #7
• Texts may need to contain special links to open the app on launch

[aphexcx]

Localizing SMSes will be a royal pain.

Problem

Cloud code does not have access to the actual notification string. It only sends clients the keys referring to those strings. The clients do the key -> string mapping, because only the clients can do localization, because only the clients know what language they're currently using.

For example:
Take a look at this cloud code. As an example, the key sent by cloud code for the title of the notification is "notif_pickup_complete_title", which the client will take and map to "Donation Picked Up" or "Spende abgeholt" depending on the current client language.

Possible solutions

• Move notification strings to Parse or some other storage that cloud code and clients can access. Complex because the cloud code still doesn't know which language to pick when sending a given client an SMS. This means we might have to store the user's preferred language somewhere, like on their user object. We'd have to keep this up to date anytime this changes. Way less elegant than the current method of just deferring to the built in localization facility in the iOS and Android frameworks.
• Don't localize SMSes and just send them in English (not very user friendly, but rather simple to implement)
• Other options? @brennanMKE @mkulumadzi @mrbombastic ideas?

[brennanMKE]

I think the pushEnabled property on the User object to indicate if a user will ever receive a push and just fall back to SMS immediately. The important detail to know is that a user's device received the message. That can be detected by having the device update the related record with a received date. If that value is null after a period of time and push was enabled then that is good indication that messaging should fall back to SMS. What I would do is have the client (iOS or Android) set this date on the pickup request and run a job. When the message it sent another date property could be set to know how long it has been since it was sent. If it has been at least 15 minutes and the received date is still null and the pushEnabled is true the SMS message can be sent as a fallback option. This solution could at least handle this simple fallback to SMS.

To go a bit further it possible to create an object in Parse for OutgoingMessage and create a new object and with a reference to the related object and the type of message, whether it is Push or SMS and the sent date. When the client app is opened and acts on the message it can update a received or read date. What is useful about an OutgoingMessage object in Parse is the app can query for all recent messages and check their date values for received and read dates to show them as Notifications so users can view and respond to them. Right now there is just have a single notification but I expect the app will have additional reasons to notify users about different activities. For the current purpose it will help escalate a failed Push to SMS and then perhaps even if the user did not respond to the SMS it can try again in 24 hours and a week later before marking that donation as abandoned.

[aphexcx]

I started with adding a 'sendSMS' property to the Installation object -- but I'm coming around to your idea, @brennanMKE. Mainly because I realized that while the ability to receive pushes is installation-specific, receiving SMS is user specific. The user will only ever have one phone to receive SMSes at, so it doesn't make sense to have a per-installation sendSMS property.

So for now, I'll give the following a shot:

• Add a 'pushEnabled' property to user objects
• Cloud code: if this property is false, send an SMS instead
• iOS client: if push permission is rejected, set this option to true

[aphexcx]

@mkulumadzi Update your code to set pushEnabled to true on the user object when push permissions are rejected, instead of sendSMS on the Installation object. (You should still save the installation object in all of the right places - that'll keep user's localeIdentifier up to date.)