Authentication

In order to use the features of the Calls SDK in your apps, user authentication with the Sendbird server must be initiated through the SendBirdCall.Authenticate() method. To receive calls when an app is in the background or closed, a user’s device registration token must be registered to the server. A device registration token can be registered by passing it as an argument to a parameter in the Authenticate() method when authenticating a user.

As shown below, the SendbirdCall instance must be initialized when a client app is launched. After installing the Calls SDK, initialize the SendbirdCall instance using your Application ID, which you can retrieve by signing into Sendbird Dashboard.

If the instance is initialized with a different APP_ID, all existing call-related data in a client app will be cleared and the SendBirdCall instance will be initialized again with the new APP_ID.

// Initialize the SendbirdCall instance to use APIs in your app.
SendbirdCall.Init(APP_ID);

In order to use the interfaces and methods provided in the SendBirdCall instance, a user must be connected to the Sendbird server through authentication. Without authentication, calling the methods of the Calls SDK will not work in a user’s client app. This means that if a user performs actions such as accepting an incoming call before authentication, the user will receive errors from the Sendbird server.

You can either authenticate a user by calling the Authenticate() method or with their user ID, which is found on Sendbird Dashboard to connect to the Sendbird server .

 // The USER_ID below should be unique to your Sendbird application.
SbAuthenticateParams authenticateParams = new SbAuthenticateParams(USER_ID);
SendbirdCall.Authenticate(authenticateParams, (user, error) =>
{
    if( error == null ){/* The user has been authenticated successfully and is connected to the Sendbird server. */}
});

Through our Chat Platform API, you can create a user using an access token. You can also issue an access token for an existing user.

You can also use a session token instead of an access token to authenticate a user. Session tokens are a more secure option because they expire after a certain period whereas access tokens don't. See Chat Platform API guides for further explanation about the difference between access token and session token, how to issue a session token, and how to revoke all session tokens.

By using the SendBirdCall.Deauthenticate() method, you can deauthenticate a user from the Sendbird server. It will clear all current direct calls, session keys, and user information from a user’s client app. This can also be considered as logging out from the server.