Aspen Mobile Setup

Aspen Mobile Setup

Overview

Aspen Mobile is a Progress Web Application (PWA) built into Aspen Discovery. It enables many “app” features, like Push Notifications, on any mobile or desktop device, without having to manage a separate app codebase and upgrade cycle.  Configuration changes made in Aspen Discovery are instantly available to all users.

You can use Aspen Mobile via your browser for free. To get your Aspen Mobile PWA into the App Stores, you’ll need to either build and submit it yourself (the site pwabuilder.com has guidance on how to do this), or contract for this service with ByWater. All the usual challenges of app store submission still apply, but once accepted, you should only need to upgrade the app itself infrequently.

Prerequisites

Notes
You’ll need Aspen 26.05+

If you haven’t already, go to DB Maintenance from the Aspen Admin and run the database updates for Aspen PWA (If they do not show up here you should already have the updates)

Setup Steps

Enable the Aspen Progressive Web Application (PWA) module

  1. In the Aspen Admin, go to the modules under the System Administration section.
  2. Find Aspen Progressive Web Application (PWA) and make sure the enabled checkbox is checked for the module.
  3. Save.

Add the Permissions from the Module 

  1. Again in the System administration section of Aspen Admin, this time go to Permissions
  2. Choose your role at the top (likely opacAdmin but this could be any role you wish to do this setup).
  3. Find the Aspen Progressive Web Application (PWA) section and enable all the permissions there for the role you are using to do this initial setup
  4. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and hit Save changes.

Setup Firebase

Firebase is a Google service that allows for the delivery of push notifications to partner devices.

  1. Create a new Firebase project (https://console.firebase.google.com/?pli=1).  If you have an existing firebase project you want to re-use, you can skip this step.
  2. Once you have your project, create a new app within the project
    1. choose “web”
    2. give it a nickname
  3. At this point, you should have a block of code with a variable called "firebaseConfig" displayed. Save those values to add to your Aspen Settings later.
    1.   apiKey ->Firebase API Key
        authDomain -> Firebase Authorization Domain

        projectId -> Firebase project ID

        storageBucket -> Firebase Storage Bucket

        messagingSenderId -> Firebase Messaging Sender ID

        appId -> Firebase application ID
  4. In the Settings for your new app, go to the Cloud Messaging tab and click the “Generate key pair” button in the “Web Push certificate” section
    1. The value under "Key pair" should be copied, and placed into the setting Web Push Certificate (VapidKey) in the next step
  5. On the same tab, click “Manage service accounts”
  6. On the page that opens, click the three dots under Actions and choose “Manage keys”
  7. From here
    1. choose from the add key dropdown “Create new key”
    2. Leave “json” checked
    3. Hit “Create” and a file will download

Add Settings in Aspen

  1. In Aspen, go to the Settings in the PWA section (/AspenPWA/Settings)
  2. Create a new Settings object 
    1. All the Firebase settings should be from the config you saved in the previous section “Setup Firebase”. If you do not remember them you can go to the General Settings section in the app you created in Firebase and scroll to the bottom to see the values there
    2. The value for Web Push Certificate is on the Cloud Messaging tab of the settings for the firebase app you created.
    3. Service Account and Confirm Service account require the contents of the file you downloaded at the end of the firebase setup. Open the file up in a text editor and copy the values into the fields
    4. The SHA-256 Cert Fingerprint field is only necessary when putting an app in the Google Play store and can be updated with the value you get from Google so they can verify that your website is what is supposed to be in the app.
    5. Name, Short name, and description fields are up to you 
    6. The theme field is what theme will be used for colors defined in the manifest. 
    7. For Manifest ID, use the url for your website backwards. (i.e. your-library.example.com becomes com.example.your-library)

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