You can send send messages manually to your users individually using your own server and our API. This method works for push notifications, app inbox messages, email, and webhooks.

Create the message

First, you need to create and start the message in the Leanplum Dashboard. Go to the Messaging dashboard and create a new message.

Select Push Notification, Email, Webhook, or App Inbox Message. Set the Delivery to Manual. When you're finished composing the message and setting your targets, click Start.

Create the sendMessage API call

You can trigger the message using the sendMessage method of our API. If you want to send the message to the selected user even if they do not match the targets, use force = true.

You must provide a deviceID and/or a userID. If deviceID is provided, the message will be sent to the corresponding device only; if you only provide the userID, the message will be sent to all devices of the user with specified userId. Messages are queued, so they will be sent after the call completes.

If the user/device does not exist, the API call is skipped and a warning will be returned. You can modify this behavior with the createDisposition option (see below).

Parameter	Type	Description
apiVersion required	string	The version of the Leanplum API to use. The current version is 1.0.6.
action required	string	The API method. Set this to sendMessage.
appId required	string	Your App ID. To find your appId, go to App Settings, find your app, and click Keys & Settings.
clientKey required	string	Your Production API key. To find your clientKey, go to App Settings, find your app, and click Keys & Settings.
userId required (unless you choose to use deviceId)	string	The user ID of the targeted user. You can set this to an email address or whatever you use at your company for user IDs. Leave it blank to use the device ID. For more info, see Selecting a user.
messageId required	number	The ID of the message, found in the URL when viewing a message (e.g. `www.leanplum.com/dashboard#/{APP_ID}/messaging/{MESSAGE_ID}`.
createDisposition	string	The policy that determines whether users are created by the API. Possible values: `CreateIfNeeded` creates a user with the given IDs if one does not already exist. `CreateNever` requires that the user already exists, otherwise the API call is skipped and a warning will be returned. The default value for this method is `CreateNever`
deviceId only required if you do not include a userId	string	A unique ID for the device targeted by the call. You must provide a deviceId and/or a userId. See Selecting a user.
devMode	boolean	Whether the user is in Development Mode, i.e. the caller is a developer and not a user. This is important for reporting purposes. Default: false.
force	boolean	Whether to send the message regardless of whether the user meets the targeting criteria. Default: `false`.
values	object	A JSON object of key-value pairs to override Jinja values in the message. For example, if the message text is `Hello {{Value "name"}}, you have {{Value "numMessages"}} new messages!`, you can set values to `{"name": "Bob", "numMessages": 5}` to produce: Hello Bob, you have 5 new messages! Important note:* If certain values are set to null, Leanplum will return the key as a string. See more details to prevent this issue.

Where do I find the message ID?

Navigate to the message in the Leanplum dashboard. The number after the last slash in the URL is the ID.

Example: http:// ... /dashboard#/12345__164/messaging/123456789

Example

Your API call should look something like this:

https://api.leanplum.com/api?appId=yourAppIdHere&clientKey=yourClientKeyHere&action=sendMessage&apiVersion=1.0.6&messageId=messageId&userId=theUserIdOfTheUser&values={{"messageText":Hello World!"}}