Back in version 3 some months back, we saw the introduction of deep linking to re-load authentication details into Nintex Mobile Launch Nintex Mobile from a hyperlink and pre-populate authentication fields. Well, the team has added more functionality based on feedback from customers and partners.

This month with the release of Nintex Mobile version 3.6,Nintex Mobile Apps - Release Notes you can not only pre-load the authentication details, but now navigate directly to a form within the mobile client. So lets check it out:

The following PARAMETERS can be used along with “form” as ACTION to navigate user to particular form

Notes: 

• All parameters are optional and lower case by default. 
• If ACTION i.e. form is not specified in URI the parameters will be ignored.
• Id has preference over name, if the id matches, name will be ignored.
• returnURL also appends a parameter at the end of URL e.g. action=success if user submits form or action=cancel if user does not submit form.

So let’s put this into context:

Painting the picture, I have 600 delivery drivers. None of the drivers have AD / SharePoint accounts. So I onboard them into a list list in Sharepoint.

From here I can have a workflow that sends off an email to instruct the driver to download the Nintex Mobile app from the store.. Being BYOD, they can head off to the relevant store.

The first email I want to send has the download info, plus a deep link to add the authentication and server details..

Now that they have received this email, and they have gone through and setup everything, we can get them working.. As part of this process the office staff created a QR code with the drivers license number as the value. The driver can then stick this to their dash / put it in their wallet etc.. The reason for this is, that it is their unique identifier. As the drivers don't have AD / SharePoint accounts and are all using a generic account, all forms will require a QR code / License number to submit details through.

On the workflow side, well it gets the license number and is able to do a lookup of the Driver Access list to validate the number and pull the name of the driver for notification and task purposes...

To get the drivers off on the right foot. The office staff can send out an email to the drivers or it could be a task that links directly through to relevant forms deep linking them as so they open in the Nintex Mobile App. After a few times, the drivers won't require these prompts as they'll know which forms to use for the different situations.

So let's look at some examples:

1. Navigating to particular form with Id nintexmobile://form?id=321dfaf8-e45e-49e6-9bef-b5b73c4daa51
   • This will launch the app, ask user to logon if not logged in previously, and will navigate user to particular form.
2. Navigating to particular form name and returnUrl nintexmobile://form?name=DeepLink&returnUrl=http://alstrucking.com
   • This will launch the app, ask user to logon if not logged in previously, and will navigate user to particular form. Once user is done with it, it will take it to return URL.
3. Pre-populating logon information, if not already logged in, then navigate to particular form nintexmobile://form?authtype=sharepoint&username=alstrucker&url=http%3a%2f%2falstrucking.com&name=Maintenace%20Check&category=Drivers
   • This will launch the app, if the user is not logged in, pre-populate the logon information and then will navigate user to particular form.

Why ?

What have we just done ? well we have just created a solution for a relatively small trucking company that allows data to be sent in from all their delivery drivers, either online or offline on either iPhones, Android or Windows Phone no matter where they are. The data can be used to provide better auditing of driver movements, equipment maintenance, audit data for state and national regulations etc. It is also saving time, no longer need to worry about taking their paperwork into the office or scan / faxing it through.

This could have been done without the deep linking, the point being that it is making a slick solution even slicker. The drivers don't need to input server names, user names etc, just the initial password. Then from there the deep linking can guide them to the relevant form to fill in. Without the driver having to navigate around to the relevant form.

Enjoy

For parameter descriptions and link examples, see Building Nintex Mobile links in the help.

Community Manager edit: For a related tutorial, please see: Tutorial: Nintex Mobile deep linking for auto-submitting scanned codes