Amazon SNS

Last modified: November 19, 2024

Introduction

The Amazon SNS connector provides a way for you to enrich your Mendix app with app-to-app and app-to-person notifications by implementing Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS).

Typical Use Cases

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) can send app-to-app (A2A) and app-to-person (A2P) notifications. The A2A functionality provides high-throughput, push-based, many-to-many messaging between distributed systems, microservices, and event-driven serverless applications. These applications include Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon Kinesis Data Firehose, AWS Lambda, and other HTTPS endpoints. The A2P functionality lets you send messages to your customers with SMS, push notifications, and email.

Prerequisites

The Amazon SNS connector requires Mendix Studio Pro 9.18.0 or above.

To authenticate with Amazon Web Service (AWS), you must also install and configure the AWS authentication connector. The Amazon SNS Connector version 3.0.0 and newer require at least version 3.0 of the AWS Authentication Connector. For more information about installing and configuring the AWS Authentication connector, see AWS Authentication.

Ensure that the AWS user account used for authentication has the appropriate permissions to access the SNS service in AWS.

Licensing and Cost

This connector is available as a free download from the Mendix Marketplace, but the AWS service to which is connects may incur a usage cost. For more information, refer to AWS documentation.

Most AWS services provide a free tier that allows easy access to most services. To find out if this service is included in the free tier, see AWS Free Tier. To calculate the potential cost of using an AWS service outside of the free tier, use the AWS Cost calculator.

Depending on your use case, your deployment environment, and the type of app that you want to build, you may also need a license for your Mendix app. For more information, refer to Licensing Apps.

Installation

Follow the instructions in How to Use Marketplace Content to import the Amazon SNS connector into your app.

Configuration

After you install the connector, you can find it in the App Explorer, in the AmazonSNSConnector section. The connector provides a domain model and several activities that you can use to connect your app to Amazon SNS. Each activity can be implemented by using it in a microflow. To ensure that your app can connect to the AWS service, you must also configure AWS authentication for the connector.

Configuring AWS Authentication

In order to use the Amazon SNS service, you must authenticate with AWS. To do so, you must set up a configuration profile in your Mendix app. After you set up the configuration profile, the connector module handles the authentication internally.

As of version 3.0.0 of the AWS Authentication Connector, all the resources and logic required to set up authentication are centralized inside the AWS Authentication Connector module.

The AWS Authentication Connector supports both static credentials and temporary credentials. For more information and detailed instructions please refer to the AWS Authentication Connector documentation page.

Configuring a Microflow for an AWS Service

After you configure the authentication profile for Amazon SNS, you can implement the functions of the connector by using the provided activities in microflows.

Subscribing to a Topic

To subscribe to a topic in your AWS environment and receive email notifications from it, implement the Subscribe activity by performing the following steps:

In the App Explorer, right-click the name of your module, and then click Add microflow.
Enter a name for your microflow, for example, ACT_Subscribe_Email, and then click OK.
In the App Explorer, in the AmazonSNSConnector section, find the Subscribe activity.
Drag the Subscribe activity onto the microflow you are working on.
Double-click the Subscribe activity and configure the AWS_Region parameter by doing the following steps:
1. Click Edit parameter value, edit the ENUM_Region parameter, and change Type to Expression.
2. In the expression builder, type ENUM_Region, and then press Ctrl + Space.
3. In the autocomplete dialog, select AWSAuthentication.ENUM_Region, then type . and select your AWS region from the list.
In the App Explorer, in the AWSAuthentication > Operations section, find the GetStaticCredentials and GetTemporaryCredentials actions.
Drag the one you would like to use onto the microflow you are working on, and position it between the microflow start event and the Subscribe activity.
Double-click the microflow action and then configure the required ENUM_Region parameter in the same way as described in step 5.
Double-click the Subscribe activity and configure the Credentials parameter by doing the following steps:
1. Click Edit parameter value.
2. Edit the Credentials parameter and let it auto-fill.
From the Toolbox, drag a CreateObject activity to the microflow and position it before the Subscribe activity.
Select SubscribeRequest as the object to create.
Set the TopicARN attribute to the ARN of a SNS Topic to subscribe to.
Drag another CreateObject activity next to the SubscribeRequest object and configure it to create an object of type EmailEndpoint.
Set the EmailAddress attribute to a valid Email address that should receive messages.
Set the SubscribeRequest_AbstractEndpoint association to the SubscribeRequest object you created in step 11.
Double-click the Subscribe activity and configure the SubscribeRequest parameter by doing the following steps:
1. Click Edit parameter value.
2. Edit the SubscribeRequest parameter and let it auto-fill.
Open a page that contains a data view to show all the parameters of the SubscribeResponse, which is the response of the Subscribe activity.
Configure a method to trigger the ACT_Subscribe_Email microflow. For example, you can associate the activity with a custom button on a page in your app. For an example of how this can be implemented, see Creating a Custom Save Button with a Microflow.

Sending Messages to a Topic

To be able to send a message to a topic so that all endpoints subscribed to that topic will receive the message, implement the PublishBatch activity by performing the following steps:

In the App Explorer, right-click on the name of your module, and then click Add microflow.
Enter a name for your microflow, for example, ACT_PublishBatch, and then click OK.
In the App Explorer, in the AmazonSNSConnector section, find the PublishBatch activity.
Drag the PublishBatch activity onto the microflow you are working on.
Double-click the PublishBatch activity y and configure the ENUM_Region parameter by doing the following steps:
1. Click Edit parameter value, edit the ENUM_Region parameter, and change Type to Expression.
2. In the expression builder, type ENUM_Region, and then press Ctrl + Space.
3. In the autocomplete dialog, select AWSAuthentication.ENUM_Region, then type . and select your AWS region from the list.
In the App Explorer, in the AWSAuthentication > Operations section, find the GetStaticCredentials and GetTemporaryCredentials actions.
Drag the one you would like to use onto the microflow you are working on, and position it between the microflow start event and the PublishBatch activity.
Double-click the microflow action and then configure the required ENUM_Region parameter in the same way as described in step 5.
Double-click the PublishBatch activity and configure the Credentials parameter by doing the following steps:
1. Click Edit parameter value.
2. Edit the Credentials parameter and let it auto-fill.
In the Toolbox pane, search for the Create Object activity, drag it onto the microflow area, and position it between the GetStaticCredentials or GetTemporaryCredentials and the PublishBatch activity.
Double-click the CreateObject activity and select PublishBatchRequest as the entity to create.
Add another CreateObject activity before the PublishBatchRequest object and select PublishBatchTopic as the entity to create.
Provide values for the ARN and Name attributes of the PublishBatchTopic object.
Add another CreateObject activity after the PublishBatchTopic object and select PublishBatchMessage as the entity to create.
Provide values for the Subject, Body and _Id attributes of the PublishBatchMessage object.
Set the PublishBatchMessage_PublishBatchTopic association to the PublishBatchTopic object created in step 12.
Double-click the PublishBatchRequest and set the PublishBatchRequest_PublishBatchTopic association also to the PublishBatchTopic object created in step 12.
Double-click the PublishBatch activity and configure the PublishBatchRequest parameter by doing the following steps:
1. Click Edit parameter value.
2. Edit the PublishBatchRequest parameter and let it auto-fill.
Open a page that contains a data view to show all the parameters of the PublishBatchResponse, which is the response of the PublishBatch activity.
Configure a method to trigger the ACT_PublishBatch microflow. For example, you can associate the activity with a custom button on a page in your app. For an example of how this can be implemented, see Creating a Custom Save Button with a Microflow.

Technical Reference

The module includes technical reference documentation for the available entities, enumerations, activities, and other items that you can use in your application. You can view the information about each object in context by using the Documentation pane in Studio Pro.

The Documentation pane displays the documentation for the currently selected element. To view it, perform the following steps:

In the View menu of Studio Pro, select Documentation.
Click on the element for which you want to view the documentation.