Sending your first message

You will send your first notification to a Test GroupA preview group is audience group used for previewing personalized content in the dashboard. Wherever a personalization preview is available, you can select a preview group, and its group members’ attributes will appear for any Handlebars references to attributes. You can enable any preview group as a test group so you can send test messages to its group members. These messages appear as tests in Messages Overview. that contains your Channel IDAn Airship-specific unique identifier used to address a channel instance, e.g., a smartphone, web browser, email address. as a member. Your Channel ID is available after integrating the Airship SDK with your app or website.

To find your Channel ID, you can speak with one of your developers about adding it to a Test Group or do so yourself:

1. See Find a Channel ID in Finding identifiers.

2. Create a Test Group in the Airship dashboard:

   1. Go to Audience, then Preview and Test Groups.
   2. Select Create group.
   3. Enter a name for the group.
   4. Enable Test group.
   5. Select Save and continue.
   6. Select Add user and enter your name and app or web Channel ID.
   7. Select Done.

   See Preview and Test Groups for caveats and additional information.

Now you are ready to send your message:

1. Select the plus icon () in the dashboard header, then Message.

2. Select Test Users and choose your test group.

    Note

   You can modify which channels are included in your audience, but since this is a new project configured for a single channel, a single app channel or Web should already be enabled.

3. 

   Select Content in the header, then Push Notification, then Add Content.

4. 

   Enter the text that will display in your message. A preview will display as you type.

5. Select Delivery in the header, then Send Now.

6. 

   Select Review & Send in the header, then review the device preview and message summary. Use the arrows to page through the various previews. The channel and display type dynamically update in the dropdown menu above. You can also select a preview directly from the menu.

7. Select Send Message.

If all has been configured correctly, you just sent your first push or web push notification! Because the message was sent to Test Users, you should see the push notification appear on the mobile device or web browser for the users defined in your selected Test Group. If this is not the case, review the steps for creating your Test Group and reattempt this procedure.