WSO2 EMM uses various notification methods to send the device its corresponding list of pending operations. The notification method will vary based on the type of the mobile OS.
Android notification methods
Android uses the following two notification methods:
GCM
The Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) notification method uses the GCM server to wake-up the device. If the notification type is set to GCM, when there are pending operations that need to be enforced on a device, WSO2 EMM server will send a push notification to the GCM server and the GCM server will in-turn send the message to the respective Android Agent that is within the Android device. The latter mentioned push notification will contain an empty payload. When the Android Agent receives the push notification, it will communicate with the WSO2 EMM server and receive the list of pending operations that need to be enforced on the Android device.
Local
The local notification method will not use Google Cloud Messaging (GCM), but it will use its own local push notification service. The Android Agent within the Android device will trigger a wake-up command every one minute. The wake-up command will be triggered periodically based on the notifier frequency, which determines the time period after which the wake-up command will be automatically triggered by the Android Agent. The notifier frequency needs to be specified in milliseconds (ms) when configuring Android tenant based settings. The default notifier frequency is 60000ms which translates to one minute.
When the wake-up command is triggered the Android Agent will communicate with the WSO2 EMM server and receive the list of pending operations that need to be executed on the respective device.
Setting the notification type
The following are the variations that can be used when setting the notification type:
GCM
If you wish to only enable GCM notification method, you need to select GCM as the notification type and set the notifier frequency to zero.
Local
If you wish to only enable the Local notification method, you need to select Local as the notification type and set the notifier frequency to a value greater than zero. Note that it is incorrect to set the notification type to Local and the notifier frequency zero, as this will disable both GCM and Local.
Local and GCM
If you wish to only enable both GCM and Local notification method, you need to select GCM as the notification type and set the notifier frequency to a value greater than zero.