Direct URL

With Service Assist you can create forms that can be distributed to users who are not onboarded in the Service Assist platform by creating URLs pointing to external applications and forms.

The Direct URL functionality allows you to:

  • Interact with external users without onboarding them to the platform.
  • Limit the number of times a form can be accessed and how long it is accessible for, for example, a form can only be submitted once and will expire after a set number of days.

Use cases

Specifically configured users are sent tiles by the digital workers. The digital workers then generate the access tokens and URLs to send to the third-party application.

External

  • Gathering structured data from customers or suppliers.
  • Getting digital signatures from customers or suppliers.
  • Providing formatted data to customers or suppliers.
  • Getting data from outsource providers.

Internal

  • Approval workflows, for example when management don't want to maintain an account.

  • Getting information ad-hoc from internal teams.

Embedded

  • Embedding a Service Assist form in an existing workflow system, for example, ServiceNow. For more details, see Embedding Service Assist into ServiceNow.

  • Embedding a Service Assist form in a CRM, for example, Salesforce. For more details, see Embedding Service Assist into Salesforce.

  • Embedding Service Assist in a public website.

Direct URL configuration

Config.json file

The Direct URL settings can be configured in the config.json file as follows:

Copy 
{
"transient": {
"user_id": 4,
"duration": 6,
"secret": "password"
}
}

Where:

  • User_id is the id of the user used for access tokens .
  • Duration is the validity period of the access token in days.
  • Secret is the passphrase used to encrypt / decrypt by the API.

Access Tokens VBO

Access tokens are used to associate Direct URLs with a particular form and can be re-used or created for single use purposes only. You can also set a validity period for access tokens, and once an access token expires, it is deleted from the database and can no longer be used.

The Access Tokens VBO exposes actions used to generate, get and delete Direct URL(s), as well as to navigate to a given Direct URL in a user's default browser.

Configuration workflow

Step 1. Target Direct URL user

The Direct URL targets a user defined in the API that is set up to securely display forms to external users. The user that should be used is [email protected] user (id 4).

Step 2. Create the form

Create a tile and a form. This is sent to the Direct URL user.

The target user will not the tile but it still needs to be created to maintain object integrity in Service Assist.

Step 3. Generate access tokens

Specify how many tokens (access instances) are required and generate the Direct URL.

Step 4. Send Direct URL to the target user

Once the Direct URL has been created, it can be sent to the target user via email or other messaging service.

Embedding Direct URLs in external applications

You can update the settings in the config.json file to allow external websites and applications to display Service Assist content via Direct URLs.

  1. Locate the config.json file in /var/local/[your API server]/config/.

  2. In the config.json file, find the “headers” section.

    Copy 
    {
      "headers": {
        "xframe": "SAMEORIGIN",
        "csp": {
          "frame-ancestors": "https://website-where-you-want-to-embed-tp-form.com https://my-tp-website.com"
        }
      }
    }

  3. Replace the URL in “frame-ancestors:” with the URL of the websites where you would like to embed Direct URL forms.

  4. Save your changes.

  5. Restart the API docker to apply the changes.