How do I show and update a Live Activity on the lock screen from a journey?

Use the Live Activity element. It shows a live card on the iOS lock screen and Dynamic Island, an ongoing notification with a progress bar on Android 16 and later, or both. Each element does one action, so a typical journey uses three:

• Start: create the card, for example when an order is placed.
• Update: change the card, for example when the courier's ETA changes.
• End: close the card, for example on delivery.

Before you start, your developers need to add Live Activity support to the app. For iOS, they also publish a widget schema, which then appears in the Widget list. For Android, the app needs SDK 6.11+ with the pushwoosh-liveupdates module.

To set it up:

1. Drag Live Activity onto the canvas, double-click it, and enter a Step name.
2. In Action, choose Start, Update, or End, and under Platforms turn on iOS Live Activity, Android Live Updates, or both.
3. On Update and End, select the Start step in Card created by. Otherwise the update won't reach the card.
4. Fill in the card content and click Apply.

Things to know:

• If both Alert title and Alert text are empty, the iOS card still changes, but the lock screen shows no banner and plays no sound.
• The step's statistics don't report whether the device showed the card. Check it on a test device.
• Sending about ten Start actions for the same person in a short time while testing may make Apple stop showing new cards without an error. Leave a gap between test runs.

Learn more: Live Activity