What are Providers?

If you've read the previous chapter, you know what is a Channel. Now, let's understand about Providers. Providers are services that enables notification delivery through a particular channel. For example, if you want to deliver notifications through email channel, you must use an SMTP server, or an email service such as Sendgrid.

tip

To make your life easier, Engagespot provides a default provider for each channel that you can use with zero configuration. If you want more capabilities, Engagespot easily allows you to switch to any other supported third party provider such as Sendgrid.

And guess what, you'll get all the powerful features of Engagespot (such as smart delivery, user preferences etc) even if you switch to your favorite provider!

note

Each provider is identified by a unique identifier called provider identifier

Default Providers

We've included one provider in some channels that is enabled by default and needs zero configuration. This helps you to start sending notifications to your users without any third party services.

Channel	Provider	Identifier
inApp	Engagespot Inbox	default_inapp
webPush	Engagespot Web Push	default_webpush
email	Default Email	default_email
sms	Default SMS	default_sms

info

With default_sms provider, you get free 50 SMS credits. After that, it will start throwing error. All default providers are meant to be used in testing environment only. For production usage, you must use a proper provider for each channel.

For advanced features, you can configure any of the supported third party provider.

Supported Providers for Each Channel

In addition to the default providers, following Providers supported in each channel.

InApp

• Engagespot In-App with Inbox

Web Push

• Engagespot Web Push

Email

• Sendgrid
• Mailgun
• AWS SES
• SMTP

Mobile Push

• Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)

SMS

• Engagespot SMS
• Twilio
• Textlocal
• Gupshup
• Plivo

WhatsApp

• Gupshup
• Twilio

Slack

• Slack

Provider Requirements

To setup providers, you have to do few configurations (don't panic, it takes only afew mins).

Provider Configurations

To setup a provider (except for default providers), you must specify configurations depending on the provider. For example, if you want to setup Sendgrid provider, you must specify the Sendgrid API KEY. Configurations can be updated from your Engagespot dashboard.

To know more about each providers and their configurations, please see the Configuring Providers section.

Overriding Configurations via API

If you want to override a configuration you've defined in Engagespot dashboard for a particular provider, you can do that via API. You can override both configurations, and the notification content.

The override parameter in the send notification endpoint is where you can override the configurations. The override object must have a key in the name of provider identifier (For example - sendgrid_email). To learn more about, please read the article for the specific provider from "Configuring Providers" section.

Example

{
    ...
    "override":{
        "sendgrid_email":{
            "override":"params"
        }
    }
}

Profile Attribute Requirements for Providers.

For providers to send notifications, your user's profile must have some attributes. It differs with every provider. For example if you want to send email notifications via Sendgrid, your user's profile needs to have an email attribute.

Each providers profile requirements are specified in their respective pages under Configuring Providers section.

FAQ

Frequntly asked questions around Providers

Is it possible to have two providers in a channel?

No. A channel can have only one provider. If you try to enable a new provider, the existing provider will be turned OFF.