This post was authored by Austin Laugesen, program manager, and Steve DiAcetis, principal program manager on the Windows Phone team. — Adam
Windows Phone 8 enables companies to publish and distribute Windows Phone apps directly to their employees or other users, bypassing the Windows Phone Store, as documented on MSDN here. Some ISVs and developers have asked about how they can use MPNS technology to enable no-quota (unthrottled) notifications for company apps on Windows Phone. Company apps follow a different process to leverage MPNS to send secure, no-quota notifications as compared to apps published to the Windows Phone Store.
To enable notifications without limits for your company apps, follow these steps:
1. Create a Windows Phone Store developer account if you do not have one. Even though you won’t be submitting apps to the store, you will need to use the Windows Phone Store to manage your certificate.
2. Prepare your push service to use the authenticated endpoint as documented here. Also, retrieve your certificate and set up its service as outlined here.
When you have completed the steps above, do not link it to any app.*
We’ve received several questions about the four-month certificate expiry limit referenced in some documentation on MSDN. Only certificates for beta applications expire after four months; that limit has now been lifted as of yesterday, December 9, 2013. If you have an existing certificate uploaded to Dev Center, associated with a beta application, and it hit the four-month limit prior to December 9, you’ll have to resubmit it to the Windows Phone Developer Portal.
3. Next, set up your application to request https channel URIs. When creating a push channel from within the application, you must pass the subject name of the certificate submitted to Dev Center to the HttpNotificationChannel Constructor.
By following these steps, you will enable your company or enterprise application to take full advantage of the secure, no-quota push notifications for Windows Phone without actually publishing an app in the Windows Phone Store.
Related Links:
- Company app distribution for Windows Phone
- Recommended practices for using Microsoft Push Notification Service (MPNS)
- Push notifications for Windows Phone
- Setting up an authenticated web service to send push notifications for Windows Phone
*Note: Certificates are valid for the timeframe designated by the CA. Neither Dev portal nor MPNS expires these certificates prematurely.