ILIAS Push Notification im Forum

1 Summary

The major purpose of the Forum is the communication of users for exchange and share of information with other users directly or user groups. In difference to other object types, the Forum does that by providing tools for an open dialog via direct responses and re-responses.

A key to keep such dialogs pleasant and vivid is a low latency between posts and responses which should be ensured via notification.

This Feature Request wants to improve/decrease this latency to provide a more pleasant experience in the usage of the Forum object and to increase the interaction between users.

2 Problem Statement

To make users aware of new content on which they can react to inside the forum, a notification is sent via mail.
This notification, therefore, is a major factor in initiating a user’s response and therefore to keep the dialog alive.

Unfortunately, the notification via mail can only provide low latency to a certain level since it requires an active user action (pull) to be notified.
And most users do not check their mails hourly, which can be crucial for a lively conversation.
There is currently no passive/prompter way of notification for the forum.

3 Concept

4 User Interface Modifications

4.1 List of Affected Views

4.2 User Interface Details

4.3 New User Interface Concepts

None

4.4 Technical Aspects

The deployment of push notification may increase the server workload and may be interpreted as spam by the end device, depending on the usage.
This may lead to denied push notifications and therefore a fallback to mail.

This FR does not provide any measures on the performance of push notifications (like queues etc.)

5 Non-Functional Implications

5.1 Security

Push notifications are encrypted.
ILIAS doesn't use any third-party software for deployment.
But strictly this is not end-to-end-encryption (like mail).

5.2 Privacy

Push notifications may contain private date, even within the title.
The exposement of push notifications can be configured on the end device (e.g. "hide on login screen", "show no notification content", ...)

5.3 Accessibility Implications

Due to their volatility, Push notifications can never be fully accessible.
The accessible presentation of push notifications is processed by the end device (Hardware, OS, Browser) and in its responsibility.

6 Process Information

6.1 Involved Authorities

If this request is related to multiple components, please list both authorities for all related components.

6.2 Contact

Person to be contacted in case of questions about the feature or for funding offers: Szmais, Ingmar [iszmais] and Stake, Sebastian [sstake]

6.3 Funding

Funding status and funding parties are listed in the block 'Status of Feature' in the right column of this page.

If you are interested to give funding for this feature, please get into contact with the person mentioned above as 'Contact'.

7 Discussion

8 Implementation

Feature has been implemented by {Please add related profile link of this person}

8.1 Description and Screenshots

{ Description of the final implementation and the changed behaviour in the related components. Please add screenshots to visualise the changes if possible. }

8.2 Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

8.3 Privacy

Information in privacy.md of component: updated at {date} by {user} | no change required

8.4 Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.