Creating Application Links in External Applications

To do this, parameters are added to the application URL by appending a question mark (?) to the end and using the syntax "key=value". If you require more than one parameter, use an ampersand (&) to separate each key=value pair. There are several predefined parameter key values recognized by the application. In addition, specific parameters understood by the script may be provided. The following list highlights the predefined parameters.

• location=<navigation key> - If the exact page to launch is known, the navigation key value of that page can be part of the URL using 'location='. For example, if an approval process has sent an email to a user to approve an adjustment, the link configured in the email may include the adjustment's navigation key.
• script=<BPA script name> - In almost every use case, a script is needed to help navigate to the correct page and display the correct information. Even if a location is known and provided in the URL, if there is context data provided as a parameter, it is the responsibility of a script to move that parameter data from the URL into the page data model, so that the page can access the information and display the correct record. In cases where the target page is dynamic based on information provided by parameters, the script may be used to determine what page to launch.
• portal=true - When using the location parameter where the target page is a portal page and passing context data, use this parameter. The allows the system to know that the parameter data must be pushed into portal context.
• initNav=false - By default, if a script is provided but the location attribute is not provided, the system navigates to the user's home page prior to executing the script. If the script itself includes a step to navigate to a target page as one of its initial steps, the navigation to the home page is unnecessary and may degrade performance. This optional attribute may be included in the URL to bypass the home page.
  Note: The system still requires a page to be launched for technical reasons. A blank portal with no zones is used for this purpose. Users may see this portal (called Launching Application) briefly before the navigation initiated by the script. In addition, this is the portal that the user will remain on if there are any errors in the script or if the script does not navigate anywhere.
• minSidebar=true - This option minimizes the sidebar area as part of launching the application. (The user will be able to maximize the sidebar themselves if needed). You would use this option to potentially improve the speed at which the application is launched. Whether this is useful will depend on the use case. If the reason for launching the application is to bring the user to a specific record to view details about that record, the sidebar may be providing valuable information about the record. In this case, it may be correct to display the sidebar by default (and not include this parameter in the URL). On the other hand if the use case is that a user is already in the application and clicks a link that opens a new browser tab to show the user specific detail about a chosen record, while keeping the original page open on the first tab, the sidebar may contain the same information already visible on the original tab. In this case, minimizing the sidebar may be beneficial.
  Note: For backward compatibility, the system still supports the original parameter minDashboard=true, which has analogous functionality.

For example, the following URL illustrates launching the script CM-StopAutoPay for a given account, assuming the application URL for launching the system is http://system-server:1234/cis.jsp:

• http://system-server:1234/cis.jsp?script=CM-StopAutoPay&ACCT_​ID=1234512345&location=accountMaint

It doesn't matter in which order the parameters are provided. The system processes them in the correct order. For example, the following examples are processed by the system in the same way:

• http://system-server:1234/cis.jsp?ACCT_​ID=1234512345&script=CM-StopAutoPay&location=accountMaint
• http://system-server:1234/cis.jsp?ACCT_​ID=1234512345&location=accountMaint&script=CM-StopAutoPay

These parameters are kept in a common area accessible by any script for the duration of the session. To use these parameters on a script you may reference the corresponding %PARM-<name> global variables. In this example, after the system is launched any script may have access to the above account ID parameter value by means of the %PARM-ACCT_​ID global variable. Also note, these parameters are also loaded into temporary storage (to continue the example, there would also be a temporary storage variable called ACCT_​ID that holds the passed value).