Novu provides the @novu/notification-center a React library that helps to add a fully functioning notification center to your web application in minutes. Let’s do a quick recap on how you can easily use it in your application.

  1. Install @novu/notification-center npm package in your react app
npm install @novu/notification-center
  1. Add the below code in the app.tsx file
import {
  NovuProvider,
  PopoverNotificationCenter,
  NotificationBell,
  IMessage,
} from "@novu/notification-center";

function Novu() {
  return (
    <NovuProvider
      subscriberId={"SUBSCRIBER_ID"}
      applicationIdentifier={"APPLICATION_IDENTIFIER"}
    >
      <PopoverNotificationCenter colorScheme="dark">
        {({ unseenCount }) => <NotificationBell unseenCount={unseenCount} />}
      </PopoverNotificationCenter>
    </NovuProvider>
  );
}

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Go to this react app browser tab, there will be a bell icon. On clicking that bell icon, you will see a notification component popover

subscriberId

applicationIdentifier

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Use your own backend and socket URL

By default, Novu’s hosted services of API and socket are used. If you want, you can override them and configure your own.

import {
  NovuProvider,
  PopoverNotificationCenter,
  NotificationBell,
} from "@novu/notification-center";

function Novu() {
  return (
    <NovuProvider
      backendUrl={"YOUR_BACKEND_URL"}
      socketUrl={"YOUR_SOCKET_URL"}
      subscriberId={"SUBSCRIBER_ID"}
      applicationIdentifier={"APPLICATION_IDENTIFIER"}
    >
      <PopoverNotificationCenter colorScheme="dark">
        {({ unseenCount }) => <NotificationBell unseenCount={unseenCount} />}
      </PopoverNotificationCenter>
    </NovuProvider>
  );
}

​
Notification center without bell

If you don’t want to show the bell icon, you can directly render the notification center component without passing the bell, use <NotificationCenter> component in place of <PopoverNotificationCenter>

import {
  NovuProvider,
  NotificationCenter,
} from "@novu/notification-center";

<NovuProvider
  subscriberId={"SUBSCRIBER_ID"}
  applicationIdentifier={"APPLICATION_IDENTIFIER"}
>
  <NotificationCenter colorScheme="dark" />
</NovuProvider>

​
HMAC Encryption

When Novu’s user adds the notification center to their application they are required to pass a subscriberId which identifies the user’s end-customer, and the application Identifier which is acted as a public key to communicate with the notification feed API.

A malicious actor can access the user feed by accessing the API and passing another subscriberId using the public application identifier.

HMAC encryption will make sure that a subscriberId is encrypted using the secret API key, and those will prevent malicious actors from impersonating users.

​
Enabling HMAC Encryption

In order to enable Hash-Based Message Authentication Codes, you need to visit the admin panel In-App settings page and enable HMAC encryption for your environment.

How to enable HMAC encryption for In-App notification center

  1. Next step would be to generate an HMAC encrypted subscriberId on your backend:
import { createHmac } from "crypto";

const hmacHash = createHmac("sha256", process.env.NOVU_API_KEY)
  .update(subscriberId)
  .digest("hex");
  1. Then pass the created HMAC to your client side application forward it to the component:
<NovuProvider
  subscriberId={"SUBSCRIBER_ID_PLAIN_VALUE"}
  subscriberHash={"SUBSCRIBER_ID_HASH_VALUE"}
  applicationIdentifier={"APPLICATION_IDENTIFIER"}
>
  <NotificationCenter colorScheme="dark" />
</NovuProvider>
If HMAC encryption is active in In-App provider settings and subscriberHash along with subscriberId is not provided, then notification center will not load

​
Notification Actions

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onNotificationClick

This function is invoked when the user clicks anywhere on the notification except for CTA actions.

import {
  NovuProvider,
  PopoverNotificationCenter,
  NotificationBell,
  IMessage,
} from "@novu/notification-center";

function Novu() {
  function handleOnNotificationClick(message: IMessage) {
    // your logic to handle the notification click
    if (message?.cta?.data?.url) {
      window.location.href = message.cta.data.url;
    }
  }

  return (
    <NovuProvider
      subscriberId={"SUBSCRIBER_ID"}
      applicationIdentifier={"APPLICATION_IDENTIFIER"}
    >
      <PopoverNotificationCenter
        colorScheme="dark"
        onNotificationClick={handleOnNotificationClick}
      >
        {({ unseenCount }) => <NotificationBell unseenCount={unseenCount} />}
      </PopoverNotificationCenter>
    </NovuProvider>
  );
}

​
onActionClick

This function is invoked when the user clicks on the action CTA buttons of the notification

import {
  NovuProvider,
  PopoverNotificationCenter,
  IMessage,
  MessageActionStatusEnum,
  useUpdateAction,
  ButtonTypeEnum,
  NotificationBell,
} from "@novu/notification-center";

export default function Novu() {

  const CustomNotificationCenter = () => {
    const { updateAction } = useUpdateAction();

    const handleOnActionClick = async (
      templateIdentifier: string,
      btnType: ButtonTypeEnum,
      notification: IMessage
    ) => {
      if (templateIdentifier === "friend-request") {
        if (btnType === "primary") {
          /** Call your API to accept the friend request here **/

          /** And then update Novu that this action has been taken, so the user won't see the button again **/
          updateAction({
            messageId: notification._id,
            actionButtonType: btnType,
            status: MessageActionStatusEnum.DONE,
          });
        }
      }
    };

    return (
      <PopoverNotificationCenter
        colorScheme={"dark"}
        onActionClick={handleOnActionClick}
      >
        {({ unseenCount }) => <NotificationBell unseenCount={unseenCount} />}
      </PopoverNotificationCenter>
    );
  };

  return (
    <NovuProvider
      subscriberId={"SUBSCRIBER_ID"}
      applicationIdentifier={"APPLICATION_IDENTIFIER"}
    >
      <CustomNotificationCenter />
    </NovuProvider>
  );
}
CTA buttons text and redirect url field supports dynamic variables

​
Avatar Icons

Avatar images can be shown with in-app notifications. To do so, enable Add an Avatar option in in-app step editor as shown below

How to enable avatar icon for in-app notifications

There are 3 ways to show the avatar images in the notifications:

Ways to show the avatar icons in in-app notifications

​
User Avatar

This option will show the avatar of the actor user. actor field can be sent while triggering the worklfow. Each subscriber has avatar field. For this option to work actor should have avatar field set with valid publicly accessible image URL. If the actor doesn’t have avatar field, then the default avatar will be shown. Worklfow trigger example with avatar

await novu.trigger('<WORKFLOW_TRIGGER_IDENTIFIER>', {
  to: {
    subscriberId: 'subscriberId_1',
  },
  payload: {
    "key": "value"
  },
  actor: "subscriberId_2"
});

Here subscriberId_2 is used as actor and workflow is triggered to subscriberId_1

​
Static Avatar Url

This option can be used if you want to show same, static and custom avatar icon for each in-app notification of this workflow in-app step. Make sure to toggle off User Avatar option to enable this. This is a input field where only valid publicly accessible image URL can be entered. Currently variables are not supported in this field.

​
System Avatar Icons

Novu supports 6 system avatar icons. These are default icons that can be selected as avatar icon. Once selected, same icon will be used as avatar icons for all notifications of this in-app step.

​
Realtime sockets

Novu provides a real-time socket API for you to consume and get updates about new notifications added to the user’s feed. To use the socket connection you can use the useSocket hook provided by the @novu/notification-center library. Let’s see an example of that:

import { NovuProvider, useSocket } from "@novu/notification-center";

function Novu() {
  return (
    <NovuProvider
      subscriberId={"SUBSCRIBER_ID"}
      applicationIdentifier={"APPLICATION_IDENTIFIER"}
    >
      <CustomNotificationCenter />
    </NovuProvider>
  );
}

function CustomNotificationCenter() {
  const { socket } = useSocket();

  useEffect(() => {
    if (socket) {
      socket.on("notification_received", (data) => {
        console.log(data);
      });
    }

    return () => {
      if (socket) {
        socket.off("notification_received");
      }
    };
  }, [socket]);

  return <></>;
}

There are three sockets events available:

  1. unseen_count_changed
  2. unread_count_changed
  3. notification_received

​
Toast notification

Novu does not have a native toast component. However, if your project is using any UI library like chakra, material-ui, mantine then toast component (snackbar in case of material-ui) of these libraries can be used with useSocket hook. Add the toast opening code in socket.on callback.

toast.tsx
socket.on("notification_received", (data) => {
  console.log(data);
  // set received notification content as toast content
  setToastContent(data.content)
  // open the toast
  openToast(true)
});

​
Example

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Frequently Asked Questions

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