5 Client and App Profile Lifecycle

If your mobile app uses push notifications or you want to use analytics to examine and improve your app, you need a client. You associate the client, which represents a backend binary, with a backend. Use profiles to store notification credentials that can be shared between your clients. Clients go through similar lifecycle phases as other artifacts with a few differences, detailed in this chapter.

Mobile Hub can help you manage client lifecycle. You can publish and export a client. You can modify its version number and move it to the trash when you don’t need it anymore. Clients are top-level artifacts and their relationships with backends can affect how both types of artifacts are exported, imported, and moved to the trash.

If you want a general introduction to how artifacts interrelate in the overall lifecycle, see Understanding Lifecycles.

Publish a Client

When you’re satisfied with a client configuration, you can publish it, but only if it’s associated with a backend.

1. Click and select Development > App Profiles from the side menu.
2. Select the client that you want to publish.
3. Click Publish.
   Dependencies are checked. If the associated backend is in Draft state, the confirmation dialog lists it and informs you that it will be published with the client. If the backend is already published, no dependencies are shown.

   If the backend has downstream dependencies in Draft state, those dependencies will also be published. For example, MyAppProfile 1.1 references MyMobileBackend 1.0. MyMobileBackend has dependencies on published MyAPI2.2 and unpublished MyAPI2.4. When you publish MyAppProfile 1.1, the confirmation dialog only lists MyMobileBackend1.0 as a dependency but MyAPI2.4 is also published.

4. Click Publish All.
   If the backend is in the trash, you won't be able to publish the client. Cancel the publish operation, and either restore the backend or associate the client with a different backend. Then try publishing again.

Usually, once an artifact is published it can't be changed. In the case of clients, you can add or remove the associated app profiles even if a client is published.

Update the Version Number of a Client

When you create a client, you assign it a version number that is usually the version of the mobile app that the client represents. You can update its version number at any time if the client is in a Draft state. This is useful if a change to the binary was made and you need a new version designation.

1. Click and select Development > App Profiles from the side menu.
2. Open the client that you want to update from the list.
3. On the Settings page, change the value in the Mobile App Version field.
   You'll get a message letting you know if you enter a duplicate version number.

Create a New Version of a Client

You can create a new version of a client regardless of whether it's in a Draft or Published state. When you create a new version of a client, you’re basically cloning the client configuration. You can then make changes to the new version. For example, although a client can be associated with only one instance of a backend, that backend can reference multiple clients. You could create new versions of a client, where each version corresponds to a specific platform of a mobile app (iOS, Android, and Windows), and then edit each client to reference the same backend.

Another reason for creating new versions is to create multiple clients for the same platform if there are multiple mobile app binaries for the same platform that use the same backend.

Unlike other artifacts, which require that the version number use the Major.minor format, the version number for a client should be the same as the mobile app binary that’s set by the app store. Depending on the version of the mobile app binary, the version could take the format of Major.minor or include an alphanumeric suffix with or without parentheses, a hyphen, space, or full stop. For example:

• 1.2

• 1.2 build 3452

• 1.2 (3452)

• 1.2–3452

• 1.2.3 (01–Jun-2016)

1. Click and select Development > App Profiles from the side menu.
2. Select the client and then select More > New Version.
3. Enter a version number in the Mobile App Version field. (The same as the mobile app binary set by the app store.)
4. Click Save.

The new version is created in a Draft state.

Move a Client to the Trash

Remove a draft or published client by moving it to the trash. If it’s needed later on, you can restore it from the trash.

Moving a client to the trash does not move the associated backend or any profiles referenced by the client to the trash.

1. Click and select Development > App Profiles from the side menu.
2. Select the client, then select More > Move to Trash.
3. Click Trash in the confirmation dialog if there are no dependency issues.
   If you think you or someone else might restore it later on, enter a brief comment about why you're putting this item in the trash.

Restore a Client

starting with v3, topic no longer used in pre-OMC flavors of guide

1. Click and select Development > App Profiles from the side menu.
2. Click Trash ().
3. In the list of items in the trash, select the client and select Restore from Trash.
4. Click Restore in the confirmation dialog if there are no conflicts.

Restoring an artifact can cause conflicts if a duplicate exists.

Manage Your Clients and App Profiles

When at least one client or app profile exists, you'll be taken to the Clients page every time you click and select Development > App Profiles from the side menu. On the left side of the page, you see a list of all the clients, their version numbers, and their Draft or Published state (clients in the trash aren't displayed).

On the Clients page, you can open, test, publish, and view see the dependencies and history for your clients:

Description of the illustration client_keys.png

• Click Open to see details about the selected client.

• Click Publish to change the state of the client.

• Click More to create a new version, export the client to another instance, or move the client to the trash.

• Click Trash ( ) to see which clients are in the trash.

• Expand Keys to obtain the values for the client ID and the application key.

• Expand Notifications to see which push notifications, if any, are enabled for this app profile.

On the lower right side of the page, you can view data about the selected client:

• Expand Dependencies to see the backend and app profile that this client references.

  Note:

  If the backend has downstream dependencies, go to Development > Backends and view them from the Dependencies section of the selected backend.

• Expand History to quickly see the latest activity for the client.

Click the Profiles tab to view available app profiles and create new app profiles for your clients.