Types of registered devices
How we deal with device registration and what categories of registration entries we have in Pushwoosh accounts
There are three types of records about devices registered with Pushwoosh:
Total Devices
Total Devices number is indicated in your Pushwoosh account — the right-hand number on the top left of the Control Panel.
Total Devices include all devices that were registered with Pushwoosh and were active within the last 90 days. They may or may not have push tokens. Devices with no push tokens are reachable with In-App Messages.
Push token is a unique key that identifies an app on a specific device; it is issued by cloud gateways and used to deliver push notifications to the device.
The device is registered once a user opens the app with the Pushwoosh SDK for the first time after installation. Once the app is launched, the SDK will make several calls to our backend, such as /applicationOpen and /getInApps. For example:
This will record a device with its hwid (hardware id) to the Pushwoosh database and make it eligible for receiving In-App Messages, and the app open stats will be increased by one. Once the device is recorded to a database, you can start submitting Tags for that device and assign a userID, if necessary.
At this point, the push token does not exist yet, and this device will fall under the Total Devices category.
If a device is not active for more than 90 days, e.g., there are no /applicationOpen requests from our SDK for that device, no Events triggered, and that device does not have a push token, it will be erased from the database. This period of inactivity is configurable; to reset the inactivity period, apply to your Customer Success Manager or our Customer Support team.
Push Enabled devices
Push Enabled are devices with push tokens associated. That means you can send push notifications to such devices, and cloud gateways will deliver your pushes.
Push Enabled devices number is indicated in your Pushwoosh account — the left-hand number on the top left of the Control Panel.
As soon as the user agrees to receive push notifications, the push token is issued by cloud gateways, such as APNS and FCM, and our SDK sends an API request to /registerDevice endpoint of Pushwoosh with this token:
Now, since we have a push token registered in our database for a device, it is considered Push Enabled, and you can start sending push notifications to that device.
In practice, even if there is a push token associated with a device, some users may not see push notifications in case they disabled alerts manually from their device settings. Those users are reachable with Background (silent) pushes, In-App Messages, and can receive notifications to the Inbox. See Push Alerts Enabled for more info.
When you're sending a push notification, the APNS and FCM return us the status of each recipient's push token. If any token is marked invalid or nonexistent, we will remove it from the database, and the number of Push Enabled devices will decrease accordingly.
When the push token is removed from the system, the device is no longer in the Push Enabled category but remains in Total Devices. If a user opens the app after that, the device will be assigned a new push token and go back to Push Enabled devices. If there is no activity within 90 days after removing the token, the device is totally erased from the database.
Push Alerts Enabled devices
Push Alerts Enabled devices can display push notification alerts outside the app: on the lock screen, in the notification center, or as a badge on the app icon. It depends on whether a user enables or disables push notifications alerts from their device settings.
Devices with alerts enabled are marked with the "True" value of the Push Alerts Enabled default tag, while the rest are marked "False." You can check this in your Tags' statistics. This Tag tracks how many users can actually receive push notification alerts when they have the app in the background or closed.
Push Alerts Enabled tags is a default one and is collected automatically by Pushwoosh SDK. Latest versions of Pushwoosh SDK (released Fall 2018 or later) are required.
Important!
The alerts status can only be updated in Pushwoosh if the user opened the app at least once after changing the notification preferences in device settings. In case the user allows push notification alerts but doesn't open the app, we won't recognize such user as a Push Alerts Enabled one; that's why it's so important that you target all devices with tokens to ensure maximum reach.
Comparing Push Enabled and Push Alerts Enabled devices gives you a better picture of your opt-in rates and can help to choose the right communication channel to engage with the broader audience. Building a segment of devices with disabled alerts allows you to reach them via alternative channels and motivate them to re-enable the notification alerts.
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