Push Notifications

Push notifications are the primary engagement channel for a mobile-first volunteer platform where users are not logged in continuously. Without reliable push delivery, coordinators cannot reach peer mentors about urgent assignments, and time-sensitive follow-up reminders go unnoticed, directly reducing activity registration rates and service quality. For organizations like Blindeforbundet where encrypted assignment delivery confirmation is mandatory, push is the critical last-mile signal. Retaining device tokens correctly across login sessions also reduces support burden caused by missed notifications after app updates or re-installs.

Flutter integration uses the firebase_messaging package for FCM on Android and APNs on iOS, with push_token records stored per user and per device in the database. Token refresh is handled via the onTokenRefresh callback and synced to the backend immediately. The backend dispatches notifications via the FCM HTTP v1 API from Next.js API routes, with delivery status logged. Notification payloads carry a typed action field so the Flutter client can deep-link directly to the relevant screen. Background message handling uses flutter_local_notifications to surface alerts when the app is in the foreground. All notification content must pass through the organization labels system so display strings respect per-tenant terminology.