Topics & Segments
Topics (for Firebase) and Segments (for OneSignal) define which users receive a notification. PushPilot treats both uniformly as Topics in the dashboard.
What are topics?
A topic is a named channel that devices can subscribe to. When PushPilot sends a notification for a campaign, it targets one or more topics. Every device subscribed to that topic receives the notification.
This is different from sending to individual device tokens, topics allow you to broadcast to groups of users without managing token lists. Firebase handles fan-out to all subscribed devices server-side.
Firebase FCM Topics
- →Devices subscribe via
subscribeToTopic() - →FCM doesn't expose a list of topics, you manage them in PushPilot
- →PushPilot sends to topics via the Admin SDK
OneSignal Segments
- →Segments are managed in the OneSignal dashboard
- →Synced into PushPilot via the Sync Segments action
- →Users are assigned to segments by OneSignal rules or tags
Creating topics in PushPilot
Go to Connections → Topics to manage your topic registry. Topics are scoped to your workspace and can optionally be linked to a specific push project.
Create a single topic
- Click New Topic.
- Enter the topic name exactly as used in your app (e.g.
premium). - Optionally select the push project it belongs to.
- Click Save.
Bulk create topics
If your app already has devices subscribed to several topics, you can register them all at once with the bulk-create option. This is especially useful when you are connecting an existing app.
POST /api/campaigns/topics/organizations/{org_id}/bulk-create/
{
"topics": [
{ "name": "all" },
{ "name": "premium" },
{ "name": "news" },
{ "name": "sports" },
{ "name": "weekly-digest" }
]
}Topic names are case-sensitive
subscribeToTopic().Assigning topics to campaigns
When creating or editing a campaign, you select one or more topics. Notifications from that campaign are delivered to all devices subscribed to the selected topics.
AI Campaign Builder: The AI will ask you which audience to target and suggest appropriate topics from your registered list.
Manual campaign: Select topics from the dropdown in the campaign creation form under Target Audience.
Topic required before activating
Deleting topics
You can delete a topic from Connections → Topics → [topic] → Delete. A topic cannot be deleted if it is assigned to an Active or Draft campaign. Deactivate or remove the topic from all campaigns first.