Resources & FAQ

Q: What does the Location-Based Notifications Using Amazon Pinpoint solution do?

A: This solution allows you to engage with your customers based on their location. You can use this solution to create and manage geographic boundaries (geofences) around businesses or points of interest. These geofences help you customize your engagement campaigns by sending push notifications to your customers when they enter or exit a geofence. For example, you can send a notification when a customer is walking to meet their rideshare, or when they enter an airport to check-in for a flight.

Q: What are the use cases for this solution?

A: You can use this solution to create personalized engagement with users passing by a store, a mall, or any other commercial location. The solution can also be used to track and alert users whenever they are entering a dangerous area.

Other example use cases include the following:  

• Airlines can use the solution to alert passengers that are not near the gate when a plane is ready for boarding.
  
• Rideshare apps can use it to communicate to drivers when they are getting close to their customer.
  
• Game companies can use it to add real life experiences to their games.
  
• Logistic companies can use the solution to track whether a package is on track and reached the desired destination.
  
• Truck companies can use it to make sure their drivers are not getting off the optimal safe route.
  
• Entertaiment venues (for example, sports stadiums) can use it to connect food vendors to customers wanting a specific type of good.
  
• Any company can use it to track how much time their users are spending in each geofence and understand which geofences are the most popular, and gather data about what makes that area popular.
  

Q: How small or large can the geofence size be?

A: Geofences can be as large or small as required. There is no specific limitation. Creating reasonably sized geofences for your use cases ensures the best user experience.

Q: How long will it take from the time that someone enters the geo-fence for them to receive a message?

A: This solution uses transactional messages, which means that they are time-sensitive and sent as quickly as possible, usually instantly. Messages could take longer depending on external factors, for example, the quality of the internet connection your user has and the external services used to send push notifications (Apple Push Notification Service for iOS devices and Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android devices).

Q: Can I have multiple geofences combined into one campaign?

A: No, v1.0.0 does not support multiple geofences in the same campaign.

Q: What permissions must the user accept in order for the solution to capture their location?

A: iOS and Android devices require that users conscent to having their location tracked. When the user launches an application the first time, the operating system asks for the proper permissions.

Q: What kind of data does this solution gather from users and how can I access it?

A: This solution can capture the amount of times a user enters and exits a specific geofence, the time a user spends within a geofence, which endpoint they used, their location, the version of the application that they used, and more.

You can use the included Kibana dashboard to create reports and view the gathered data.

Q: Are there any privacy concerns for using a customer's location?

A: No. We prioritize security over functionality.

In order to engage with the solution, users must firest be authenticated. We use Amazon Cognito to sign up and sign in users. Amazon Cognito creates temporary tokens which are used to interact with the solution’s APIs. All data in-transit and at-rest is encrypted.

Amazon Cognito also secures the administration portal and the Kibana dashboard. We authenticate administrators and end users in different user groups. Each user group has different sets of security rules and security roles.

Q: Will I lose a user's location if they enter a building?

A: If a user steps into a building and loses their GPS signal, the solution will stop tracking. A geofence must be set around places where a GPS signal is available.

Because messages are sent via internet connection (either a mobile network or WiFi) they are not impacted when users enter a building.

Q: How challenging is it to integrate the AWS Amplify SDK?

A: This solution was developed with the AWS Amplify SDK. If you want to use AWS Amplify, you can easily integrate with the solution using the native iOS SDK, native Android SDK, or any of the other supported languages.

Q: Can I deeplink a push notification to a particular part of the app?

A: No. This solution sends push notifications as standard messages.

Q: Can I combine a geofence with another attribute?

A: Yes. All data is stored in Amazon S3, and you can use the provided Kibana dashboard to create custom reports.

Q: Can I deploy Location-Based Notifications Using Amazon Pinpoint in any AWS Region?

A: This solution uses Amazon Pinpoint, AWS AppSync, Amazon Cognito, Amazon OpenSearch Service, and Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose services which are currently available in specific AWS Regions only. Therefore, you must launch this solution in an AWS Region where these services are available. For more information, refer to the AWS Regional Services List.