Hi, this was posted in our slack channel and I wanted to bring the answer here.
Hi all Just updated to the latest version of PlayFab SDK for Unity & I see that the Dashboard now has the settings for Push notifications?
If I plan to use OneSignal for PushNotifications? How does all this fall in place?
Does PlayFab still uses its PN’s? Or, do I need to configure these differently?
First off, sorry for the delay in reply. It has been a busy week over here at PlayFab :)
So there is a bit to address here on this topic of Push Notifications and there are a couple of things to understand. Firstly, PlayFab has it's own Push Notification service that behind the scenes uses AWS Messaging service to send out Push Notifications to devices. This works with GCM ( Google Cloud Messaging ) and allows us the ability to Push Notifications to any device that supports GCM.
With that said, nothing really has changed moving from UnitySDK V1 to UnitySDK V2 (currently in beta). However, there were some changes that needed to be done to support the ever evolving GCM as they move away from GCM and on to FireBase. One of the major things we needed to do was remove the Unity Push Notification out of the default SDK and make it its own package. This allows you to install the Unity SDK and use any Push Notification Service (eg. One Signal) without any conflict. We'll get to One Signal later, but our Push Notification Plugin is a standalone product that works in conjunction with our Unity SDK.
We now have two separate versions of the plugin, one that supports 4.x and one that supports 5.x versions of Unity. This is because Unity 4.x does not support .AAR file format and Google has moved their libraries to a pure .AAR format.
You can download the Push Notification Plugin from the here.
Usage is the same, and yes we have added some new features in Game Manager that make it easier to get Push Notifications setup. Previously you needed to use the Admin API to get Push Notifications setup, and you no longer need to do that part. You can now do it right from Game Manager.
You can also send a push notification from within Game Manager to a particular user via segments or if a User is registered for push notifications you will see this in their profile.
Clicking on Send Push Notification will present you with a Pop-Up to send a push message to that individual user. We have plans for bulk push notifications, but that feature is not yet complete.
One Signal is a different situation. Currently, you don't use any of PlayFab's Push Notification features to Send Push notifications. you'll need to add their SDK to your project and you will need to follow their setup procedures. All push notifications are managed via their dashboard. For more information in setting up One Signal visit their website: https://documentation.onesignal.com/docs/using-onesignal-in-your-unity-sdk-app
We do have a future Market Place Partner Addon that is coming soon, and the objective of that Addon would be to allow you to send push notifications via PlayFab and they would use the One Signal Service. However, this feature is also not complete yet.
For the time being, if you are going to use One Signal, do not install the PlayFab Push Plugin and just install the One Signal SDK.
I hope this clears up any confusion on PlayFab Push Notification vs. One Signal in our new Unity SDK, as always feel free to post more questions about this and we will answer them the best we can.
Thanks!
Thank's @marco@playfab.com that resolves my confusion for now. Now that we are talking about two different options here:
- PlayFab's Push Notification that uses AWS messaging and Googles FireBase
- OneSignal's PN's system: Seems to be super mature, in terms of the dashboard and cross platform functionality
Since both these are listed as options in the PlayFabs's ecosystem of services. Do you have any recommendations based on the kind of support we can expect from you PlayFab, Cost, & Scalability for a game that is targeting a cross-platform support for VR, PC, Mobile, and TV? If not what should someone consider?
Other developers feel free to comment or share your experiences on using OneSignal?
@Amar - We just use AWS Messaging ( not FireBase ), I was just stating that Google has plans to remove GCM and replace it with firebase at some point and that has not happened as of yet.
As for recommendations:
1> If you plan to send Millions of of Push Notifications out to users in bulk then One Signal is definitely the right solution for that. While PlayFab push notifications could potentially handle that type of traffic, I would still recommend using a more mature Push Notification system like One Signal.
2> if you plan to send "One off" push notifications to a client based on that users actions, then our Push Notification system is really good. For example, if you create a segmented action in Game Manager to notify a player that he has gain his daily amount of gold. This is a great use case for using PlayFab's internal push notifications.
Hope that helps.
