Overview
PreStartGo's push channel — the phone notifications that carry invalidated checks, licence changes, and assigned work — is delivered through Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), the platform channel used by the overwhelming majority of Android and iOS applications. This article is the plumbing view: what IT and device-management teams need to know to keep the channel healthy at fleet scale. For what individuals can tune, see Notification Preferences.
How delivery works
- Each signed-in phone registers a delivery token with the platform; tokens are per person per device, so a shared handset delivers to whoever is signed in.
- Notifications are rendered per recipient (in their language) and dispatched through FCM to Android and iOS alike.
- Critical notices travel at high priority — they use a dedicated high-importance channel on Android and time-sensitive delivery on iOS, so they break through focus modes where the OS permits.
- Delivery is tracked. The platform records per-device delivery health; a phone that hasn't successfully received a push in a fortnight gets an in-app warning banner rather than silently missing things. And for critical notices that provably can't reach a phone, the platform falls back to SMS.
What device management needs to allow
Fleet-managed (MDM) devices sometimes ship locked-down in ways that break push. The checklist for your device-management team:
- Google Play services present and permitted (Android) — FCM depends on it.
- Notification permission allowed, ideally pre-granted by policy, for the PreStartGo app.
- Battery optimisation exemption for the app on aggressive OEM builds — several Android vendors freeze background delivery for "optimised" apps.
- No blocking of FCM endpoints on corporate Wi-Fi.
Edge cases
- Silent data pushes — the platform also uses invisible pushes to nudge the app to sync; these don't need notification permission, so a user who declines notifications still syncs promptly, they just don't see alerts.
- Shared devices — sign-out deregisters the departing user's delivery on that phone.
- Notifications are the copy, never the record — every notice also lands in the in-app feed, so a delivery gap loses immediacy, not information.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| One user gets no pushes | Permission off, or a stale registration | See Notifications Not Arriving |
| A whole fleet of managed devices gets none | MDM policy blocking Play services or FCM | Work the checklist above with your device team |
| Pushes stop after weeks on some Androids | OEM battery "optimisation" | Exempt the app by policy |
| Critical notices arriving as SMS | Push provably undeliverable to that phone | The fallback working — fix push for the richer experience |