.NET

Learn how to use Novu to quickly send multi-channel (SMS, Email, Chat, Push) notifications from a .NET app.

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Requirements

To follow the steps in this quickstart, you’ll need:

• A Novu account. Sign up for free if you don’t have one yet.
• A working .NET development environment with a .NET version of .NET Core 2.0+ and .NET Framework of 4.6.1+.

You can also view the completed code of this quick start in a GitHub repo.

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Install Novu .NET SDK

The .NET SDK provides a fluent and expressive interface for interacting with Novu’s API and managing notifications.

Now install the Novu .NET SDK by running the following command in your terminal:

dotnet add package Novu

Otherwise, modify your .csproj file add the following to it:

<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Novu" Version="*" />
</ItemGroup>

Next, install the SDK by running the following dotnet command:

dotnet restore

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Initialize & Configure the Novu SDK

Create a new file, Program.cs in your application and add the following code to it:

Program.cs:

using Novu.DTO;
using Novu.DTO.Topics;
using Novu.Models;
using Novu;

 var novuConfiguration = new NovuClientConfiguration
{
    ApiKey = "<NOVU_API_KEY>",
};

var novu = new NovuClient(novuConfiguration);

Replace the ApiKey’s value with the authentic key from the API Key section of your Novu Dashboard and be sure to use your specific Novu instance URL.

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Set Up A Channel Provider

A channel provider is a service that provides one or more notification functionality such as sending an email, SMS, push notification etc. Our integration store includes four channels: Email, SMS, Chat, and Push. These channels have multiple providers associated with them.

Only one provider can be active per channel. Connect any of your favourite providers to get started. The email channel comes with Novu’s email provider, which is active by default and includes 300 credits.

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Create A Workflow

A workflow is a blueprint for the notifications that will be sent. It holds the entire flow of messages sent to the subscriber. This is where all the different channels are tied together under a single entity.

The workflow includes the following:

• Workflow name and Identifier
• Channel-tailored content:

Please proceed to create a workflow.

1. Click Workflows on the left sidebar of your Novu dashboard.
2. Click the Create Workflow button on the top right.
3. The name of the new workflow is currently Untitled. Rename it to a more suitable title.
4. Select Email as the channel you want to add.

Choose email as the channel you want to add

5. Click on the recently added channel, fill the email subject and click “Update”.

Fill in email subject

6. Click on the “Test” tab and send a test email to verify your workflow.

Send test email to verify your workflow

You should get an email within seconds. Yaaay, you have successfully sent your first notification via the Novu dashboard! Now, let’s take it a step further to trigger notifications via code.

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Create A Subscriber

The recipients of a triggered notification are called subscribers.

Click “Subscribers” on the left sidebar of the Novu dashboard to see all subscribers. By default, the dashboard will display a subscriber, as you were added automatically during sign-up.

Subscribers from the left sidebar shows all the subscriber

Now, let’s create a subscriber on Novu. Copy and paste the following code to do so:

// Create subscriber

var newSubscriberDto = new SubscriberCreateData
{
  SubscriberId = "77809", //replace with system_internal_user_id
  FirstName = "John",
  LastName = "Doe",
  Email = "benlin1994@gmail.com",
  Data = new List<AdditionalDataDto>{
    new AdditionalDataDto
    {
        Key = "External ID",
        Value = "1122334455"
    },
    new AdditionalDataDto
    {
        Key = "Job Title",
        Value = "Software Engineer"
    }
  }
};

var subscriber = await novu.Subscriber.Create(newSubscriberDto);

Run the code in your terminal like so:

dotnet run Program.cs

You should see the subscriber on your Novu dashboard.

You should see the subscriber on your Novu dashboard

I’d like to publicly announce that abc@gmail.com is a random unlikely email your users will have. To update this to an alternative email, you can call the UpdateSubscriber method like so:

Program.cs:

// Update subscriber detail
var subscriber7789 = await novu.Subscriber.GetSubscriber("7789");

subscriber7789.Email = "validemail@gmail.com"; // replace with valid email
subscriber7789.FirstName = "<insert-firstname>"; // optional
subscriber7789.LastName = "<insert-lastname>"; // optional

var updatedSubscriber = await novu.Subscriber.Update("7789",subscriber7789);

Other valid fields that can be updated are phone, avatar, and data . The data field can accept an array of metadata that you want to attach to the subscriber.

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Trigger A Notification

Copy and paste the following code into your app to trigger a notification:

OnboardEventPayload.cs:

// OnboardEventPayload.cs
public class OnboardEventPayload
{
  [JsonProperty("username")]
  public string Username { get; set; }

  [JsonProperty("welcomeMessage")]
  public string WelcomeMessage { get; set; }
}

Program.cs:

var onboardingMessage = new OnboardEventPayload
{
  Username = "jdoe",
  WelcomeMessage = "Welcome to novu-dotnet"
};

var payload = new EventCreateData()
{
  EventName = "onboarding", //make sure you have a trigger named "onboarding"
  To = { SubscriberId = "7789" },
  Payload = onboardingMessage
};

var trigger = await novu.Event.Trigger(payload);

if (trigger.Data.Acknowledged)
{
  Console.WriteLine("Trigger has been created.");
}

Before running the code, make sure you understand the following:

• The value of EventName should be the workflow’s trigger ID/slug(it’s the value all in small caps).

Make sure your workflow's trigger ID/slug matches the value you'd used

• The value of Payload is an array of the data that you want to be dynamically injected into the workflow content.
• The value of SubscriberId is the id of the subscriber on Novu. Replace 7789 with your subscriberId.

Run the code to trigger a notification!

dotnet run Program.cs

Next, we’ll learn how to send notifications to different groups of subscribers easily via Topics.

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Topics

Novu provides a simple API that offers an easy interface for triggering notifications to multiple subscribers at once. This API is called Topics and allows users to manage their bulk notifications without having to implement complex loops.

A topic is identified by a custom key and this key will be the identifier used when triggering notifications. You can assign a name to a topic for descriptive purposes. This name does not need to be unique and can be changed programmatically.

A topic can have multiple subscribers who will receive a notification whenever a message is sent to the topic.

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Create a Topic

Copy and paste the following code into your app to create a topic:

// Create Topic
var topicRequest = new TopicCreateData
{
    Key = "frontend-users",
    Name = "All frontend users",

};

var topic = await novu.Topic.Create(topicRequest);

Before running the code, make sure you understand the following:

• When creating a Key, ensure it is unique and accurately identifies the topic. Document naming conventions and communicate them to team members to avoid confusion and ensure a smooth workflow.
• The value of Name should be a descriptive topic name.

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Add Subscribers to a Topic

Copy and paste the following code into your app to add subscribers to a topic:

// Add Subscriber to Topic
var topicKey = "frontend-users";
var subscriberList = new TopicSubscriberUpdateDto
{
    Keys = new List<string>
    {
        "7789",
        "7790",
    }
};

//Or

var subscriberList = new TopicSubscriberCreateData(new List<string>
{
    "7789",
    "7790"
});

var result = await novu.Topic.AddSubscriber(topicKey, subscriberList);

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Sending a Notification to a Topic

Thanks to the topics feature, it is possible to trigger a notification to all subscribers assigned to a topic. This helps avoid listing all subscriber identifiers in the to field of the notification trigger.

To trigger a notification to all subscribers of a topic, copy and paste the code below:

Program.cs

// Send notifications to a topic (all frontend users)

var onboardingMessage = new OnboardEventPayload
{
  WelcomeMessage = "Welcome to novu-dotnet"
};

var payloadTopic = new EventTopicTriggerDto
{
  EventName = "onboarding",
  Payload = onboardingMessage,
  Topic = { Type = "7789", TopicKey = "frontend-users" },

};

var triggerTopic = await novu.Event.TriggerTopicAsync(payloadTopic);

if (triggerTopic.TriggerResponsePayloadDto.Acknowledged);
{
  Console.WriteLine("Trigger has been created.");
}

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Conclusion

Great job! If you’ve reached this point, you should now have successfully created a subscriber, workflow, configured a channel provider and triggered a notification in your application.