🏠 Overview › 🎯 Features ›🎯 Push Notifications

Push Notifications

Feature Detail

medium complexity critical priority must have MVP extracted Notifications & Communications Confidence: 100%
5
Components
58
Shared
0
User Stories
Yes
Analyzed

Description

Push Notifications enable the mobile app to deliver real-time alerts and updates to peer mentors, coordinators, and administrators even when the app is not actively in use. The system handles notification delivery infrastructure, permission management, badge counts, and a dedicated notifications screen where users can review their notification history. Notifications are tied to key events such as new assignments, activity reminders, approval outcomes, and system messages, ensuring users stay informed without needing to actively check the app.

User Flow

Push Notifications user flow
Click to expand

Analysis

Business Value

Push notifications are a foundational engagement mechanism for a mobile-first volunteer platform. Without reliable push delivery, coordinators miss time-sensitive approval requests, peer mentors miss assignment dispatches, and the platform loses its real-time utility. For organizations like HLF and Blindeforbundet, where follow-up timeliness is a documented pain point, push notifications directly address the 40% dissatisfaction rate around peer mentor follow-up. By surfacing the right information at the right moment, notifications reduce the coordination overhead on administrators and increase the responsiveness of the entire volunteer network, which is central to the platform's value proposition.

Implementation Notes

Implementation uses Flutter's firebase_messaging package with Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) as the cross-platform delivery backbone for both iOS and Android. The backend (Next.js on Vercel) sends notifications via FCM server-side SDK triggered by database events or scheduled jobs. Device tokens are registered on login and stored against user records in PostgreSQL. The notifications screen is a paginated list of past notifications stored server-side, ensuring users can review history even after dismissing alerts. Permission handling follows platform best practices: iOS requires explicit opt-in prompt, Android 13+ requires POST_NOTIFICATIONS permission. Badge counts are managed via the notification payload and reset on screen visit. All notification content must be accessible and screen-reader compatible per WCAG 2.2 AA requirements.

Dependencies

role-based-access-controlrest-api-backend

Definition of Done

Push notifications delivered on iOS and Android via FCM
Notification permission request flow implemented for iOS and Android 13+
Device token registration and refresh on login
Notifications screen displays paginated history with read/unread states
Badge count updates correctly on notification receipt and clears on screen visit
Notification deep-linking navigates to the relevant screen
WCAG 2.2 AA compliance verified for notifications screen
Backend API endpoints for notification history and mark-as-read implemented

Components (63)

User Interface (2)

ui Notification Badge Widget low ui Notifications Screen medium

Service Layer (1)

service Push Notification Service high

Data Layer (1)

data Notification Repository medium

Infrastructure (1)

infrastructure Notification Infrastructure high

Shared Components

These components are reused across multiple features

Infrastructure (20)

infrastructure JWT Infrastructure medium Shared infrastructure JWT Infrastructure low Shared infrastructure Auth Middleware medium Shared infrastructure Report API Middleware low Shared infrastructure Report Access Guard low Shared infrastructure Approval Audit Logger low Shared infrastructure End-to-End Encryption Infrastructure high Shared infrastructure Email Delivery Infrastructure low Shared infrastructure Invitation Token Infrastructure medium Shared infrastructure Signed URL Provider low Shared infrastructure Multi-Tenancy Infrastructure high Shared infrastructure Calculator Export Infrastructure medium Shared infrastructure Request & Response Interceptors high Shared infrastructure Design Token System medium Shared infrastructure Semantic Labels Infrastructure medium Shared infrastructure Connectivity Infrastructure low Shared infrastructure Local Database Infrastructure high Shared infrastructure Secure Storage Infrastructure medium Shared infrastructure Connection Pool Infrastructure medium Shared infrastructure Database Migration Infrastructure medium Shared

User Stories

No user stories have been generated for this feature yet.