How to clean-up inactive devices automatically

Sometimes you may notice that the number of registered devices in Pushwoosh is larger than in your own CRM or Business Intelligence tool. The reason for that is usually the accumulation of outdated and invalid devices.

The most effective way to keep your user base up-to-date is to send broadcast notifications to the entire audience every once in a while. When you send a broadcast campaign, all push tokens in your user base are validated by Apple and Firebase notification services. If there are any invalid push tokens detected, Pushwoosh removes them from your user base.

However, if you are only sending transactional or segmented notifications to small parts of your user base, this may contribute to accumulation of inactive devices, since Pushwoosh cannot validate your entire user base effectively enough.

To keep your user base up to date without sending any broadcast campaigns, you can use Silent pushes. Silent pushes were designed to pass data to apps remotely without users being aware of that, meaning that such pushes are absolutely invisible to users.

In this article, we will guide you through creation of automation based on Silent Push, which will help keeping your user base nice and clean.

Step 1. Creating Preset with a Silent Push

1. Select application and go to Push Notification → One time push → Send Push form.

2. Deselect all platforms except iOS and Android. Web and Desktop platforms do not support silent pushes.

3. Scroll down and change the iOS Notification Settings Type to Silent Push for iOS:

The message field should become grayed out and not available.

For Android, just scroll down and check the Silent Push checkbox:

4. When this is done, scroll down to the very bottom of the page to review the summary. It should look like this: 

Make sure there is no content, the target platforms are iOS and Android, and for both there is a Silent: true setting.

5. If everything is fine, click Save Preset:

Now that the preset is saved, let's create an automation. 

Step 2. Setting up an Autopush

1. Go to the Push Notification → Autopush section of your app and click Add Autopush. 

2. Give it a name, description, and select a Silent Push preset from the dropdown menu: 

Before proceeding any further, make sure that the message field in preview is empty. 

3. Set up the frequency, day and time for your silent push. It is recommended to send a silent push at least once a week. Timezone Sensitivity may be disabled.

4. Disable Use conditions checkbox to make sure that the silent push reaches your entire user base, and click Save.

Now you are all set! The silent push will be sent out regularly according to the frequency settings that you specified, and will help keeping your user base up to date.