Callout email link that launches Perspective Mobile App

Ignition
1

Hi,

Is there a way to have a link in an email launch the Perspective App for users on their Android phone? This is technically possible, of course, using Android App links (Handling Android App Links  |  Android Developers), if the Perspective App implements it. The user would be opening a callout email on their phone, and then clicking the link to jump to a specific screen.

I couldn't get anything to work so far. Has this function been implemented?

2

Yes this is possible. system.perspective.navigate supports most common protocols like mailto: like so:

# Calling
system.perspective.navigate(url= "tel:+1999-999-9999")

# Texting (with message contents)
system.perspective.navigate(url= "sms:+1-999-999-9999?&body=My%20Message")

# Email
system.perspective.navigate(url= "mailto:someone@example.com?subject=This%20is%20the%20subject&cc=someone_else@example.com&body=This%20is%20the%20body")

We are working on getting examples on the user manual.

Hope that helps!
Jonathan C

3

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for your reply. I think you might have misunderstood my question. I'm trying to do the reverse of what you describe here. I don't want to launch an email compose window from the Perspective App, rather I want emails that I send to users to contain a url link inside that launches the Perspective App instead of opening the project in a browser on their phone. Thanks!

4

oh of course, yes we have deeplink support for the opposite as well:

perspective://$GW_ADDRESS:GW_PORT/$PROJECT_NAME/$PAGE

this will launch the perspective app targeting the project on the target gateway. the port is optional if you are using the default http[s] ports of 80 and 443.

sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm going to leave the other post for posterity.

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5

Thanks, this does appear to be what I'm looking for. Does this work on Android? I have the app installed with the project loaded in it. I tried the link above from an email on the phone and it does not work (nothing opens).

Is there an essential step I'm missing here?

In the Android app settings for Perspective, the app has permissions to "Open Supported Links", although the "Supported Web Addresses" option below it is grayed out, suggesting there are no such addresses configured. I have allowed all other permissions...

6

depending on the email client you are using it might be discarding the protocol of the URI (perspective://). you can confirm this is the case by copying the link to your clipboard and inspecting it. If it is still coming through as perspective:// there is something else at play here like Work Profiles or something)

If the protocol is besing discarded you can get around this by using an arbitrary "spring board" project (or even the same project if you use URL parameters or other techniques) on the gateway which uses an onStartup Event (or session event, whatever) with a navigation action to whatever perspective://ADDRESS:PORT/PROJECT you want. you could use the same URL parameters or something as part of this to make it more dynamic as well.

Then you could email a link to https://MY_GATEWAY/perspective/client/spingboard which will open and immediately redirect to your desired project within the app.

Unfortunately there isn't currently a better way to handle this due to the limitations of registering android App Links, but we hope to have better support in that area soon.

Hope That helps,
Jonathan C

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