Push Notifications from FileMaker Server to IOS / OS X / (Windows/Android*)

[Ocean West]

I needed a way to notify users that the server just received X number of new emails as I am using a server side plugin (360Works) to fetch mail every few minutes.

However unless someone actually does something that triggers a script they have no visual notification in the database to know there is new mail waiting. Or they have to leave outlook/mail open just to hear the chime.

I would like to introduce to you Boxcar http://www.boxcar.io an app/service that uses the push notification protocol to alert you on your iPhone with audible alerts, visual banners, badges, to see when an important event happened.

The setup is this: Sign up for Boxcar - you can choose from among different "services" that they have in their system. I elected "EMAIL".

Their method for getting notification was to have your email forward to them so that it a notice will be pushed - however I didn't feel comfortable forwarding confidential mail to some .io domain (Indian Ocean TLD)

You do this by adding a unique email address they provide to your mail forwarder.

[email protected]

In my situation I decided to take a different approach - after I fetched my email I then counted how many new messages were received - then formatted a new email and sent blank message to this unique email address with the subject: "8 new messages were received on FMS"

Within seconds my iPhone/iPad and MacBook all chimed with an alert. You can configure the OS X version to also work with Growl - the Mac app adds a menu to the menu bar:

I haven't fully dialed in all the settings fully, but you can even do some cool things with the app for example if you setup a custom service that would launch FMGO when a new push event happened. Inside the IOS app you can add a custom URL to the event and then use the fmp7script:// protocol to tell the IOS to launch FMGO targeting your script on the remote database to present the data you need. Reference

*According to the Boxcar website, Android and Windows versions of the app are coming (in beta) - so this will be very promising.

I haven't had a chance to investigate in any depth but it appears they also have an API that uses REST over HTTPS with JASON responses. Perhaps I will tinker with ScriptMaster that could be a way to talk directly to the SERVICE and perhaps be able to create a plugin and become a provider. I will keep you posted on that front.

I hope you enjoy, and i'd love to hear your experience.

Cheers

Stephen

[Glitchtracker2]

Hi, can you elaborate on the mac side of things. Boxcar's websites only talks iOS, there's no download for a Mac app (anymore ?)

Thanks