Launching Fat Clients Using Aurea CRM

Aurea CRM allows you to launch third party application on the user’s machine using the CRM.launcher.

Aurea CRM uses the CRM.launcher to launch any third party fat client application from the command shell and also pass parameter values to the application. The fat client application should be registered with Aurea CRM designer and also installed locally on the client machine.

Configuring a Fat client application in the CRM.Designer

Feature is implemented using action templates. You have to create a button and define the action using the action template DesktopAppLauncher. For more information on creating and configuring buttons, see Buttons.

To configure a fat client launcher in the CRM.Designer, perform the following steps:

  1. Click Buttons on the CRM.Designer Start page.

    The Buttons page displays.

  2. Create a new button and open the button for editing.

    The screenshot below, shows the New Activity button properties page.

    Provide all the required information for the fields. For more information on working with buttons, see the chapter Buttons. The button is configured as part of the marketing activity CRM process and is displayed on the marketing activity search page.
  3. Click in the Action field. The Action for Button <Name> page displays.

  4. Select the Action Template radio button.
  5. From the dropdown list, select the required fat client action template from the following:
    • DesktopAppLauncher—allows you to configure a fat client application available on the users’s system to be launched.
    • WebAppLauncher—allows you to configure a web application URL. This is opened in the user’s default browser.
  6. Configure the action template selected.
    • If you select DesktopAppLauncher action template, the Action for Button <Name> page is populated as shown below.

      Enter the following input arguments for the desktop fat client:
      • Application path—specify the path to the application on the desktop.
      • CommandLineArgs—specify the parameters and their values that can be passed to the application on the command shell.
    • If you select WebAppLauncher action template, the Action for Button <Name> page is populated as shown below.

      Enter the following input arguments for the web application fat client:

      • URL—specify the URL to the web application.
    Note: You can specify the following variables in the commandline arguments or the URL values for the fat client action templates. Their actual values is substituted at runtime when the launcher is opening the web url or launching the desktop application. See below for more information.
  7. Click Apply. The action template is saved.
  8. Click Save. The button configuration is saved.

The following variables can be used in the action template definitions of a button:

  • {crm.repId}—provides the id value of the Rep.
  • {crm.repName}—provides the name of the Rep.
  • {crm.userName}—provides the name of the current user logged into Aurea CRM.Web.
  • {crm.isSuperUser}—sets to true, if the current user is a super user, else sets to false.
  • {crm.orgGroupId}—provides the groupid of the user,
  • {crm.tenantName}—provides the tenant Name.
  • {crm.tenantNo}—provides the tenant Number.
  • {crm.stationNumber}—provides the station number of the current user.
  • {crm.vertical}—provides the vertical type of the current Aurea CRM installation.
  • {crm.applicationName}—provides the name of the application being launched.
  • {crm.isOfflineClient}—sets to true if the current user is logged into an offline client, else sets to false.

Some examples of commandline values for the DesktopAppLauncher are provided in table below:

ApplicationPath

CommandLineArgs

C:\Program Files\Wireshark\wireshark

-i Ethernet -k

7z

a -t7z C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\7ztest\files.7z C:\Users\Administrator\Downloads\7ztest\*.docx

C:\Program Files\Wireshark\wireshark

-o uat:user_dlts:User 0 (DLT=147),http,0,,0,

%TESTAPPPATH%/testapp.exe

{crm.stationNumber} {crm.userName}

Some examples of URLs for the WebAppLauncher action template are provided below:

  • http://www.google.com?q=aurea crm
  • http://localhost/displaycrmattributes?stationnumber={stationNumber}
    Note: Notice the use of the stationNumber variable in the URL.

The following screenshots show the base template of the DesktopAppLauncher action template.

The following screenshot shows the base template of the WebAppLauncher action template.