Queue-It iOS WebUI SDK

Library for integrating Queue-It's virtual waiting room into an iOS app that is written in either objective-c or swift.

Installation

Before starting please download the whitepaper Mobile App Integration from GO Queue-it Platform. This whitepaper contains the needed information to perform a successful integration.

Requirements

In version 2.12.X the QueueITEngine will switch on the installed version of iOS as the old UIWebView has been marked deprecated from iOS 12. If the iOS version is above version 10.0.0 the newer WKWebView will be used instead of UIWebView.

Therefore the minimum iOS version for 2.12.X is 8.3, where WKWebViews were introduced. In the same round we have removed the target limit for iPhone only, so the library can be used with iPads as well.

From version 2.13.0 the QueueITEngine no longer supports the UIWebView and will only use WKWebView. Furthermore, the lowest supported version of iOS has been updated to version 9.3.

Version 3.0.0 introduces breaking chances as the interface to QueueITEngine has been modified so the run function is using the NSError pattern to return errors instead of throwing a NSException.

XCFramework

You can manually add the XCFramework that's published in releases.

CocoaPods

CocoaPods is a dependency manager for Cocoa projects. You can install it with the following command:

gem install cocoapods

To integrate the SDK into your Xcode project using CocoaPods, specify it in your Podfile:

source 'https://github.com/CocoaPods/Specs.git'
platform :ios, '9.3'
use_frameworks!

target '<Your Target Name>' do
    pod 'QueueITLibrary', '~> 3.0.3'
end

Then, run the following command:

pod install

Usage

We have a repository with a demo app here, but you can get the basic idea of how to use the library in the following example.

In this example we have a UITableViewController that we want to protect using Queue-it. The header file of UIViewController has following signature:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import "QueueITEngine.h"

@interface TopsTableViewController : UITableViewController<QueuePassedDelegate, QueueViewWillOpenDelegate, QueueDisabledDelegate, QueueITUnavailableDelegate, QueueViewClosedDelegate, QueueSessionRestartDelegate>
-(void)initAndRunQueueIt;
@end

The QueueITEngine class will open a web view to display the queue found from parameters provided.

The implementation of the example controller looks like follows:

-(void)initAndRunQueueIt
{
    NSString* customerId = @"yourCustomerId"; // Required
    NSString* waitingRoomIdOrAlias = @"yourWaitingRoomIdOrAlias"; // Required
    NSString* layoutName = @"yourLayoutName"; // Optional (pass nil if no layout specified)
    NSString* language = @"en-US"; // Optional (pass nil if no language specified)

    self.engine = [[QueueITEngine alloc]initWithHost:self customerId:customerId eventOrAliasId:waitingRoomIdOrAlias layoutName:layoutName language:language];
    [self.engine setViewDelay:5]; // Optional delay parameter you can specify (in case you want to inject some animation before Queue-It UIWebView or WKWebView will appear
    self.engine.queuePassedDelegate = self; // Invoked once the user is passed the queue
    self.engine.queueViewWillOpenDelegate = self; // Invoked to notify that Queue-It UIWebView or WKWebview will open
    self.engine.queueDisabledDelegate = self; // Invoked to notify that queue is disabled
    self.engine.queueITUnavailableDelegate = self; // Invoked in case QueueIT is unavailable (500 errors)
    self.engine.queueUserExitedDelegate = self; // Invoked when user chooses to leave the queue
    self.engine.queueViewClosedDelegate = self; // Invoked after the WebView is closed
    self.engine.queueSessionRestartDelegate = self; // Invoked after user clicks on a link to restart the session. The link is 'queueit://restartSession'.
    
    NSError* error = nil;
    BOOL success = [self.engine run:&error];
    /**
    To enqueue with an enqueue-token or key use one of the following:

    [self.engine runWithEnqueueKey:@"keyValue" error:&error];
    [self.engine runWithEnqueueToken:@"tokenValue" error:&error];
    **/
    if (!success) {
        if ([error code] == NetworkUnavailable) {
            // Thrown when Queue-It detects no internet connectivity
            NSLog(@"%ld", (long)[error code]);
            NSLog(@"Network unavailable was caught in DetailsViewController");
            NSLog(@"isRequestInProgress - %@", self.engine.isRequestInProgress ? @"YES" : @"NO");
        }
        else if ([error code] == RequestAlreadyInProgress) {
            // Thrown when request to Queue-It has already been made and currently in progress. In general you can ignore this.
        }
        else {
             NSLog(@"Unknown error was returned by QueueITEngine in DetailsViewController");
        }
    }
}

// This callback will be called when the user has been through the queue.
// Here you should store session information, so user will only be sent to queue again if the session has timed out.
-(void) notifyYourTurn:(QueuePassedInfo*) queuePassedInfo {
    NSLog(@"You have been through the queue");
    NSLog(@"QUEUE TOKEN: %@", queuePassedInfo.queueitToken);
}

// This callback will be called just before the webview (hosting the queue page) will be shown.
// Here you can change some relevant UI elements.
-(void) notifyQueueViewWillOpen {
    NSLog(@"Queue will open");
}

// This callback will be called when the queue used (event alias ID) is in the 'disabled' state.
// Most likely the application should still function, but the queue's 'disabled' state can be changed at any time,
// so session handling is important.
-(void)notifyQueueDisabled:(QueueDisabledInfo* _Nullable) queueDisabledInfo {
    NSLog(@"Queue is disabled");
}

// This callback will be called when the mobile application can't reach Queue-it's servers.
// Most likely because the mobile device has no internet connection.
// Here you decide if the application should function or not now that is has no queue-it protection.
-(void) notifyQueueITUnavailable:(NSString*) errorMessage {
    NSLog(@"QueueIT is currently unavailable");
}

// This callback will be called after a user clicks a close link in the layout and the WebView closes.
// The close link is "queueit://close". Whenever the user navigates to this link, the SDK intercepts the navigation
// and closes the webview.
-(void)notifyViewClosed {
    NSLog(@"The queue view was closed.")
}

// This callback will be called when the user clicks on a link to restart the session.
// The link is 'queueit://restartSession'. Whenever the user navigates to this link, the SDK intercepts the navigation,
// closes the WebView, clears the URL cache and calls this callback.
// In this callback you would normally call run/runWithToken/runWithKey in order to restart the queueing.
-(void) notifySessionRestart {
    NSLog(@"Session was restarted");
    [self initAndRunQueueIt];
}

As the App developer you must manage the state (whether user was previously queued up or not) inside the apps storage. After you have received the "notifyYourTurn callback", the app must remember this, possibly with a date / time expiration. When the user goes to the next page - you check this state, and only call QueueITEngine.run in the case where the user did not previously queue up. When the user clicks back, the same check needs to be done.

Getting the status of a waiting room

If you're using version 3.1.14 or newer, it's possible to get the state of the waiting room using the new QueueITWaitingRoomProvider with one of the following methods:

TryPass
TryPassWithEnqueueToken
TryPassWithEnqueueKey

Calling one of the above methods will trigger either the notifyProviderSuccess callback on success, or notifyProviderFailure callback on failure.

When using the notifyProviderQueueITUnavailable from the ProviderSuccessDelegate it'll provide with a QueueTryPassResult depending on the isPassThrough result:

true means that the QueueItToken is not empty, and more information is available in the QueueTryPassResult
false means that the waiting room is active. You can show the visitor the waiting room by calling show from the QueueITWaitingRoomView, by providing a queueUrl and targetUrl (Read more about it here)

Showing the queue page to visitors

If you're using version 3.1.14 or newer, the QueueITWaitingRoomView class is available.

When the waiting room is queueing visitors, each visitor has to visit it once. Using the show method you can do this, you have to provide the queueUrl, and the targetUrl which is returned by the notifyProviderSuccess from QueueITWaitingRoomProvider class, given the waiting room is active (Read more about it here)

Sample code showing the queue page:

-(void)notifyProviderSuccess:(QueueTryPassResult* _Nonnull) queuePassResult {   
   [self.waitingRoomView show:queuePassResult.queueUrl targetUrl:queuePassResult.targetUrl];
}

queueit/ios-webui-sdk