Parcelvoy iOS SDK

Installation

Installing the Parcelvoy iOS SDK will provide you with user identification, deeplink unwrapping and basic tracking functionality. The iOS SDK is available through common package managers (SPM & Cocoapods) or through manual installation.

Version Information

• The Parcelvoy iOS SDK supports
  • iOS 12.0+
  • Mac Catalyst 13.0+
• Xcode 13.2.1 (13C100) or newer

Swift Package Manager

Go to File -> Swift Packages -> Add Package Dependency and enter: https://github.com/parcelvoy/ios-sdk

Usage

Initialize

Before using any methods, the library must be initialized with an API key and URL endpoint.

Start by importing the Parcelvoy SDK:

import Parcelvoy

Then you can initialize the library:

Parcelvoy.initialize(apiKey: "API_KEY", urlEndpoint: "URL_ENDPOINT")

Identify

You can handle the user identity of your users by using the identify method. This method works in combination either/or associate a given user to your internal user ID (external_id) or to associate attributes (traits) to the user. By default all events and traits are associated with an anonymous ID until a user is identified with an external_id. From that point moving forward, all updates to the user and events will be associated to your provider identifier.

Parcelvoy.shared.identify(id: "USER_ID", traits: [
    "first_name": "John",
    "last_name": "Doe"
])

Events

If you want to trigger a journey and list updates off of things a user does within your app, you can pass up those events by using the track method.

Parcelvoy.shared.track(
    event: "Event Name",
    properties: [
        "Key": "Value"
    ]
)

Notifications

Register Device

In order to send push notifications to a given device you need to register for notifications and then register the device with Parcelvoy. You can do so by using the register(token: Data?) method. If a user does not grant access to send notifications, you can also call this method without a token to register device characteristics.

Parcelvoy.shared.register(token: "APN_TOKEN_DATA")

Handle Notifications

When a notification is received it can contain a deeplink that will trigger when a user opens it. To properly handle the routing you need to pass the received push notification to the Parcelvoy handler.

func application(
    _ application: UIApplication,
    didReceiveRemoteNotification userInfo: [AnyHashable : Any]
) async -> UIBackgroundFetchResult {
    Parcelvoy.shared.handle(application, userInfo: userInfo)
    return .newData
}                     

In-App Notifications

To allow for your app to receive custom UI in-app notifications you need to configure your app to properly parse and display them. This is handled by a custom delegate that you set when you initialize the SDK called InAppDelegate.

class CustomInAppDelegate: InAppDelegate {
    func handle(action: InAppAction, context: [String : AnyObject], notification: ParcelvoyNotification) {
        print("PV | Action: \(action) \(context)")
    }
}

Parcelvoy.initialize(
    apiKey: apiKey,
    urlEndpoint: urlEndpoint,
    inAppDelegate: CustomInAppDelegate(),
    launchOptions: launchOptions
)

This delegate contains three methods that you can configure to help you determine how and when notifications should display.

public protocol InAppDelegate: AnyObject {
    var autoShow: Bool { get }
    func onNew(notification: ParcelvoyNotification) -> InAppDisplayState
    func handle(action: InAppAction, context: [String: Any], notification: ParcelvoyNotification)
    func onError(error: Error)
}

• autoShow: boolean: Should notifications automatically display upon receipt and app open
• onNew(notification: ParcelvoyNotification) -> InAppDisplayState: When a notification is received (and autoShow is true), what should the SDK do? Options are:
  • show: Display the notification to the user
  • skip: Iterate to the next notification if there is one, otherwise do nothing. This does not mark the notification as read
  • consume: Mark the notification as read and never show again
• handle(action: InAppAction, context: [String: Any], notification: ParcelvoyNotification): Triggered when an action is taken inside of a notification. Possible actions are:
  • close: Triggered to dismiss and consume a displayed notification
  • custom: Triggered with custom data for the app to utilize
• onError(error: Error): Provide errors if any have been encountered

If you would like to manually handle showing notifications, this can be achieved by turning autoShow to false and then calling Parcelvoy.shared.showLatestNotification()

Helper Methods

• getNofications() async throws -> Page<ParcelvoyNotification>: Returns a page of notifications
• showLatestNotification() async: Display the latest notification to the user
• show(notification: ParcelvoyNotification) async: Display a provided notification to the user
• consume(notification: ParcelvoyNotification) async: Mark a notification as being read
• dismiss(notification: ParcelvoyNotification) async: Dismiss a notification if it is being displayed and mark it as being read

Handling In-App Actions

The SDK handles actions in a couple of different ways. At its simplest, to close a notification you can use the parcelvoy://dismiss deeplink.

If you'd like to pass information from the in-app notification to the app (for example based on what button they click, etc) you can use the JS trigger window.custom(obj) or use any other deeplink using the parcelvoy:// scheme such as parcelvoy://special/custom

Deeplink & Universal Link Navigation

To allow for click tracking links in emails can be click-wrapped in a Parcelvoy url that then needs to be unwrapped for navigation purposes. For information on setting this up on your platform, please see our deeplink documentation.

Parcelvoy includes a method which checks to see if a given URL is a Parcelvoy URL and if so, unwraps the url, triggers the unwrapped URL and calls the Parcelvoy API to register that the URL was executed.

To start using deeplinking in your app, add your Parcelvoy deployment URL as an Associated Domain to your app. To do so, navigate to Project -> Target -> Select your primary target -> Signing & Capabilities. From there, scroll down to Associated Domains and hit the plus button. Enter the domain in the format applinks:YOURDOMAIN.com i.e. applinks:parcelvoy.com.

Next, you'll need to update your apps code to support unwrapping the Parcelvoy URLs that open your app. To do so, use the handle(universalLink: URL) method. In your app delegate's application(_:continue:restorationHandler:) method, unwrap the URL and pass it to the handler:

func application(_ application: UIApplication, continue userActivity: NSUserActivity, restorationHandler: @escaping ([UIUserActivityRestoring]?) -> Void) -> Bool {

    guard let url = userActivity.webpageURL else {
        return false
    }

    return Parcelvoy.shared.handle(universalLink: url)
}

Parcelvoy links will now be automatically read and opened in your application.

Example

Explore our example project which includes basic usage.