Sending Push Notifications from App Center using PowerShell

Sending Push Notifications from Microsoft App Center using PowerShell

So I made an app…

Last weekend I has able to spend a whole lot of hours deepdiving into the world of App Development. With the registration as an Apple Developer done, I dived right in. The goal was (at the end of the weekend), to create an app that successfully included the ability to receive Push Notifications from Microsoft App Center.

Please read the official Microsoft Docs found here for more detailed information about using their REST API.

Hey you! As described in the documentation, there are two different URLs used against App Center. One to use if the app belongs to a username, and one if the app belongs to an organization. This function is targeted against the username version.

Send-PushNotification

<#
.Synopsis
   Use this custom function to send Push Notifications with the help of the Microsoft Visual Studio App Center REST API.
.EXAMPLE
   Send-PushNotification -Title "This is the title> -Body "Enter some text here"
   #>
function Send-PushNotification
{
    [CmdletBinding()]
    [Alias()]
    [OutputType([int])]
    Param
    (
        [Parameter(Mandatory = $True,
        ValueFromPipeline = $False,
        Position=0,
        HelpMessage = "Enter desired title")]
        [string[]]$Title,

        [Parameter(Mandatory = $True,
        ValueFromPipeline = $False,
        Position=1,
        HelpMessage = "Enter body text")]
        [string[]]$Body


    )

    Begin
    {}

    Process
    {

       try {

        $headers = New-Object "System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary[[String],[String]]"
        $headers.Add("Content-Type", "application/json")
        $headers.Add("X-API-Token", "<ENTER-YOUR-API-TOKEN-HERE>")

$json = @"
            {
            "notification_content": {
            "name": "PushFromPowerShell",
            "title": "$Title",
            "body": "$Body",
            "custom_data": {"sound": "default"}
            },
            "notification_target": null
            }
"@

$response = Invoke-RestMethod 'https://appcenter.ms/api/v0.1/apps/<Username>/<AppName>/push/notifications' -Method 'POST' -Headers $headers -Body ([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($json))


            }


       catch {

        Write-Host $_ -ForegroundColor Red }

    }

    End
    {}

}

Please note that this function is made for sending Push Notifications to all registered devices (broadcast). If you require a different functionality, you’ll have to edit the function to match your needs.

Installing the module:

Copy the entire text in the code block above (or grab a copy in my GitHub repo). Open PowerShell ISE, Visual Studio Code or your editor of choice. Paste in the code and save it as a .psm1-file named Send-PushNotification.

Create a new folder named Send-PushNotification (matching your .psm1-file) and then, move your Send-PushNotifcation .psm1-file into the folder with the same name.

Then, move the folder containing your .psm1-file to your desired PSModulePath.

See my selected path below:

Example:

The syntax is very simple. Is requires only two parameters, a Title and a Body.

Send-PushNotification -Title "Hello World" -Body "Sending Push Notification using PowerShell"

I have choosen to hardcode the name of the push in the HTTP body. Please note that this is NOT a text displayed in the actual Push Notification. It’s only a name to keep track of different Push Notifications sendt via the App Center. You could of course change this if you like to. See the screenshot below for a example of this behavior:

A beautiful, Powered by PowerShell Push Notification will appear on the devices with your app installed after a few seconds

Hope someone found this little function useful.

Freddie