Best way to implement a chat system?

Questions
1

Hi all,

I would like to implement a one on one chat for my users so they can always reach me or another admin. I think there are two ways to do it.

  1. Build chat from the ground up in bubble with repeating groups etc. Q: Can I use one signal or similar to produce app notifications once a new chat message arrives?

  2. implement an existing SDK at the time of wrapping the app for the stores. Q: is it easy to do and will it look “native” to the app?

Thank you for your help.

2

I forgot one of the chat plugins, will they enable me to have notifications on the app icon and in the mobile tray?

which one to recommend?

3

Hi rico,

I had a similiar problem and solved it by e-mail notification, so the admins don’t have to be logged into the bubble app all the time. The e-mail is sent by the workflow behind the posting button, and within a few moments lands in the admins inbox where it gives a nice “ding” :grinning:. One can also add a customized link to the e-mails text body, which then takes the admin right where he needs to go.

All the best, O.

4

I think @rico meant whether it’d be possible for a user to receive push notifications when he messages the user through e.g. Intercom.

I couldn’t make this work when I last integrated Intercom onto my app (web app, wrapped with stock WebView wrapper apps for iOS and Android) - perhaps I didn’t try hard enough.

To my limited understanding, I think there’re 3 different ways. I’m assuming you use OneSignal for your mobile app push notifications. (If not, replace ‘OneSignal’ below with the push service of your choice.)

  1. Make Intercom talk to Bubble i.e. get Intercom to notify Bubble when your user gets a new message from you, and use that to somehow trigger a workflow that sends a OneSignal notification to your user. I believe no such plugin has been built yet though.

  2. Make Intercom talk directly to OneSignal. Get Intercom to trigger a OneSignal push notification when your user gets a message from you. I’m also not sure if there exists such an integration between the 2 services. See this link for Intercom’s documentation on what is already possible: https://developers.intercom.com/docs/intercom-mobile-push-notifications

  3. Get Intercom to take care of all your push notifications. I have no idea if they actually have this feature though… and the top stock Android/iOS WebView wrapper apps will likely only use OneSignal, or possibly Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging, by default.

In any case, I don’t think this will be easy for you. Hopefully other Bubblers have got further than me!

1 Like
5

Hello @rico i would recommand to you CONTUS Fly for this solution. i hope you this article will help you https://hackernoon.com/how-to-build-your-own-real-time-chat-app-like-whatsapp-9d1d058afd5b

6

Thank you @richardonline90, I have stopped development of the app for now but will try it out when I start again. I do appreciate the help.

1 Like