Send push notifications from Laravel to IOS & Android

#laravel #notifications #fcm #firebase

In this article, we will see how to send push notifications from a Laravel app to iOS and Android apps using FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging).

Prerequisites:

• A Laravel project
• Firebase account
• Create a new app in Firebase

Step 1: Get `fcm_token` from Firebase

Click on the app settings icon, then choose project settings

Then, from the tabs, go to Cloud Messaging and you will get the token there. Copy it.

Step 2: Create the Config file

Now, in your Laravel project, go tothe Config directory & create a new file called fcm.php containing:

<?php

// config/fcm.php

return [
    'token' => "AAAA6ll7Hs4:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
];

As you see above, you should put the token that you get from FCM dashboard in fcm_token.

Step 3: Add a column in the `users` table

Now go to users migration & add a new column fcm_token:

Schema::create('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
    $table->id();
    .....
    $table->string('fcm_token')->nullable();
    $table->timestamps();
});

What is the benefit of this column?

Each device should have one token, so the ISO & Android developers should install Firebase SDK on the ap,p and each time a new user joins your app, they should generate a token for the user device then send it to your API as a Backend to save this token in the user's table.

I prefer the way when any user register in your apps, the mobile developer send me a token of this user and I store it with the user's information.

Step 4: Make `services` folder

In the app directory, create a new folder Services and inside it create a file FCMService.php containing:

<?php

namespace App\Services;

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Http;

class FCMService
{ 
    public static function send($token, $notification)
    {
        Http::acceptJson()->withToken(config('fcm.token'))->post(
            'https://fcm.googleapis.com/fcm/send',
            [
                'to' => $token,
                'notification' => $notification,
            ]
        );
    }
}

Step 5: Send notifications to apps

Now in your controller, you can use FCMService class to send notifications to apps, in my case, I have UserController, the code is going to be as follows:

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Models\User;
use App\Services\FCMService;
use App\Http\Controllers\Controller;

class UserController extends Controller 
{
    public function sendNotificationrToUser($id)
    {
       // get a user to get the fcm_token that already sent.               from mobile apps 
       $user = User::findOrFail($id);

      FCMService::send(
          $user->fcm_token,
          [
              'title' => 'your title',
              'body' => 'your body',
          ]
      );

    }
}

Extra stuff

1 - If you want to send an image with the notification, you can easily do it by storing the image in a place( your server or something like S3 from AWS), then get the full path of the image and add to the second array of the notification as follows:

 // store the image & get the URL `$image_url`
 FCMService::send(
    $user->fcm_token,
    [
        'title' => 'your title',
        'body' => 'your body',
        'image' => $image_url
    ],
);

2- If you want to send a notification to all users that you have from your admin panel or somewhere, you need to use a queue job, especially if you have a large number of users in your database.

3- If you want to use another way, check this PKG out
https://laravel-notification-channels.com/fcm/#contents