Introduction
Linking directly to a form or process embedded in the Staff or Customer Portal can be of great advantage. It promotes self-service, and will prompt non-authenticated users to sign up or log in. This can be done from the CMS or within an email integration. Users are also able to create a shortened URL, which makes the URL simpler to view and share.
Direct Links in Customer Portal
To create a direct link, the form must be published and in the Services List.
Please note that any spaces or special characters will need to be replaced with an underscore (_). For example, if you have a form that displays as 'Abandoned Vehicle', in the Customer Portal, the short URL would be: https://mysite-self.achieveservice.com/service/Abandoned_Vehicle
Key points to note about the Short URL is that:
Passing tokens
Passing tokens through a URL is a security risk. It should only be used for a one-time token and only if all traffic is over https. It is recommended that you use other methods of authentication that will hide the token from the end user and from the browser bar.
If you wish to pass a token in the URL, you need a default value of {querystring:Tokenname} for the relevant token you wish to pass (more information on querystring). Whatever you set as the value in that token is what will populate. It is usually best to use the dataname, for the sake of simplicity. E.g., yourselfsite.com/service/your_form_name?Tokenname=ABC
Direct Links in Staff Portal
It is also possible to use short URLs for Staff Portal sites. (Note: Does not work for hidden categories)
(e.g., a short URL could be: https://mysite-dash.achieveservice.com/service/Abandoned_Vehicle )
Authenticating a user in Staff Portal
Where a user is required to be logged in to Staff Portal to complete the form, then the following formats can be used to force login via FAM (Federal Authentication Module) (FAM is in the process of being replaced with Azure External Identities. The below information will be updated as the replacement proceeds.):
- {dash_url}/authapi/auth?provider=fam&uri={form_short_url}
- E.g., https://mysite-dash.achieveservice.com/authapi/auth?provider=fam&uri=https://mysite-dash.achieveservice.com/service/Abandoned_Vehicle
- Note: the authentication provider (provider=fam in the link above) can be adjusted as required based on actual authentication used eg fam/ssauthint. It should be using the exact name of the login provider, eg intauth, Office_Login, etc.
...Or for emails using the PublicTaskURL
- {dash_url}/authapi/auth?provider=fam&uri={PublicTaskURL_encoded}
- E.g., https://mysite-dash.achieveservice.com/authapi/auth?provider=fam&uri={PublicTaskURL_encoded}
Note:
When using querystring parameters in short URLs, the URL will need to be encoded after the uri= portion of the URL.
For example, take the base URL:
https://yoursite-dash.achieveservice.com/authapi/auth?provider=fam&uri=https://yoursite-dash.achieveservice.com/service/Process_Name?text1=textishere&text2=moretext
Everything after the uri= will need to be encoded:
https://yoursite-dash.achieveservice.com/authapi/auth?provider=fam&uri=https%3A%2F%2Fyoursite-dash.achieveservice.com%2Fservice%2FProcess_Name%3Ftext1%3Dtextishere%26text2%3Dmoretext
If the URL is not encoded, only the first parameter will be passed through to the form.
MyServices
Short URLs for MyServices are of a different format. Short URLs for Processes/Services are created using the following format:
https://[Your Self Site URL]/Forms/[MyService Name]
Please see further information on installing/using Myservices
Forms Hidden from Services
There are occasions when a form is only to be completed from a direct URL (e.g. when the URL is shared in a mass email), and the form itself must be hidden from the Services lists/groups. This can be achieved by hiding the relevant form category
NOTE: If the form is hidden, then a direct authentication link will not work.
Linking directly to other pages
The principle of linking directly to another page and forcing authentication can be extended to almost any content (e.g., to link to common dashboard).
https://dashurl/authapi/auth?provider=fam&hostname=dashurl&uri=dashurl/CommonDashboard
E.g., https://mysite-dash.achieveservice.com/authapi/auth?provider=fam&hostname=https://mysite-dash.achieveservice.com&uri=https://mysite-dash.achieveservice.com/CommonDashboard
