Working with notifications

With the Amazon WorkMail Push Notifications API, you can receive push notifications about changes in your mailbox, including new email and calendar updates. You must register the URLs (or push notification responders) to receive notifications. With this feature, developers can create responsive applications for Amazon WorkMail users, as applications are quickly notified about changes from a user's mailbox.

For more information, see Notification subscriptions, mailbox events, and EWS in Exchange.

You can subscribe to specific folders, such as Inbox or Calendar, or to all folders for mailbox change events (including New Mail, Created, and Modified).

You can use client libraries such as the EWS Java API or the Managed EWS C# API to access this feature. A complete sample application of a push responder, developed using AWS Lambda and API Gateway (using the AWS Serverless framework), is available on the AWS GitHub page. It uses the EWS Java API.

The following is a sample push subscription request:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types">
   <soap:Body>
      <m:Subscribe xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages">
         <m:PushSubscriptionRequest>
            <t:FolderIds>
               <t:DistinguishedFolderId Id="inbox" />
            </t:FolderIds>
            <t:EventTypes>
               <t:EventType>NewMailEvent</t:EventType>
               <t:EventType>CopiedEvent</t:EventType>
               <t:EventType>CreatedEvent</t:EventType>
               <t:EventType>DeletedEvent</t:EventType>
               <t:EventType>ModifiedEvent</t:EventType>
               <t:EventType>MovedEvent</t:EventType>
            </t:EventTypes>
            <t:StatusFrequency>1</t:StatusFrequency>
            <t:URL>https://YOUR_PUSH_RESPONDER_URL</t:URL>
         </m:PushSubscriptionRequest>
      </m:Subscribe>
   </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

The following is a successful subscription request result:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <Header xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
      <ServerVersionInfo xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types" MajorVersion="14" MinorVersion="2" MajorBuildNumber="390" Version="Exchange2010_SP2" MinorBuildNumber="3" />
   </Header>
   <soap:Body>
      <m:SubscribeResponse xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages" xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types">
         <m:ResponseMessages>
            <m:SubscribeResponseMessage ResponseClass="Success">
               <m:ResponseCode>NoError</m:ResponseCode>
               <m:SubscriptionId>hKJETtoAdi9PPW0tZDQ4MThmMDoVYB</m:SubscriptionId>
               <m:Watermark>AAAAAAA=</m:Watermark>
            </m:SubscribeResponseMessage>
         </m:ResponseMessages>
      </m:SubscribeResponse>
   </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Afterwards, notifications are sent to the URL specified in the subscription request. The following is a sample notification:

<soap:Envelope
    xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <soap:Header>
        <t:RequestServerVersion
            xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types"
            xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages" Version="Exchange2010_SP2">
        </t:RequestServerVersion>
    </soap:Header>
    <soap:Body>
        <m:SendNotification
            xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types"
            xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages">
            <m:ResponseMessages>
                <m:SendNotificationResponseMessage ResponseClass="Success">
                    <m:ResponseCode>NoError</m:ResponseCode>
                    <m:Notification>
                        <t:SubscriptionId>hKJETtoAdi9PPW0tZDQ4MThmMDoVYB</t:SubscriptionId>
                        <t:PreviousWatermark>ygwAAAAAAAA=</t:PreviousWatermark>
                        <t:MoreEvents>false</t:MoreEvents>
                        <t:ModifiedEvent>
                            <t:Watermark>ywwAAAAAAAA=</t:Watermark>
                            <t:TimeStamp>2018-02-02T15:15:14Z</t:TimeStamp>
                            <t:FolderId Id="AAB2L089bS1kNDgxOGYwOGE5OTQ0="></t:FolderId>
                            <t:ParentFolderId Id="AAB2L089bS1kNDgxOGYwOGE="></t:ParentFolderId>
                        </t:ModifiedEvent>
                    </m:Notification>
                </m:SendNotificationResponseMessage>
            </m:ResponseMessages>
        </m:SendNotification>
    </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

To acknowledge that the push notification responder has received the notification, it must reply with the following:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
  <s:Envelope xmlns:s= "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <s:Body>
      <SendNotificationResult xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages">
        <SubscriptionStatus>OK</SubscriptionStatus>
      </SendNotificationResult>
    </s:Body>
  </s:Envelope>

To unsubscribe from receiving push notifications, clients must send an unsubscribe response in the SubscriptionStatus field, similar to the following:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
  <s:Envelope xmlns:s= "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <s:Body>
      <SendNotificationResult xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages">
        <SubscriptionStatus>Unsubscribe</SubscriptionStatus>
      </SendNotificationResult>
    </s:Body>
  </s:Envelope>

To verify the health of your push notification responder, Amazon WorkMail sends a “heartbeat” (also called a StatusEvent). The frequency with which they are sent is determined by the StatusFrequency parameter provided in the initial subscription request. For example, if StatusFrequency equals 1, a StatusEvent is sent every 1 minute. This value can range between 1 and 1440 minutes. This StatusEvent looks like the following:

<?xml version="1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/)" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soap:Header>
    <t:RequestServerVersion xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages" Version="Exchange2010_SP2"/>
</soap:Header>
<soap:Body>
    <m:SendNotification xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages">
    <m:ResponseMessages>
        <m:SendNotificationResponseMessage ResponseClass="Success">
            <m:ResponseCode>NoError</m:ResponseCode>
            <m:Notification>
                <t:SubscriptionId>hKJETtoAdi9PPW0tZDQ4MThmMDoVYB</t:SubscriptionId>
                <t:PreviousWatermark>AAAAAAAAAAA=</t:PreviousWatermark>
                <t:MoreEvents>false</t:MoreEvents>
                <t:StatusEvent>
                    <t:Watermark>AAAAAAAAAAA=</t:Watermark>
                </t:StatusEvent>
            </m:Notification>
        </m:SendNotificationResponseMessage>
    </m:ResponseMessages>
</m:SendNotification>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

If a client push notification responder fails to respond with the same OK status as before, the notification is retried for a maximum of StatusFrequency minutes. For example, if StatusFrequency equals 5, and the first notification fails, it is retried for a maximum of 5 minutes with an exponential backoff between each retry. If the notification is not delivered after the retry time has expired, the subscription is invalidated and no new notifications are delivered. You must create a new subscription to continue to receive notifications about mailbox events. Currently, you can subscribe for a maximum of three subscriptions per mailbox.