Integrating a connector into the Accolades interface

27 May 2020

To integrate Accolades and an external CRM application, usually, you have to create a small software, called a "connector".

The connector has to receive data from the Accolades server (using the External CRM API), then process the data, send and receive data from the external CRM etc.

If the connector uses web technologies (JavaScript) to run, Accolades can integrate the connector straight into the agent interface, inside an iframe.

Creating the connector

The connector can be created using one or more files. The following extensions can be used: htm, html, js, css. The css extension is allowed, but it is useless for the moment, as the iframe is not displayed (but this option will be implemented in the future).

It is not allowed to have folders inside the connector structure. All the files will be stored into a single root folder.

The connector MUST have a file called index.html. This file will be loaded inside the agent interface. Any other file can be accessed from within the index.html file.

Loading and enabling the connector

To be available for use, the connector has to be sent to the Accolades server, so it can be later served to the agents. The loading process is performed within the account info page, using the API tab (access the editing interface from the page menu). When a connector is uploaded to the server, the previous files are deleted. The server does not keep backups.

If the connector has only one file, the administrator can upload it as it is. If a connector with multiple files is used, then those files have to be archived (using the zip format) prior to upload. Although the zip format allows for folders to be used, Accolades will ignore those folders and extract all the content into the root folder.

Warning! During the extraction process, Accolades will only process the files having the extensions: htm, html, js, css. Any other extension will be ignored (you can not use php files, for example).

Also, from the API tab, the administrator has to configure the account to use the uploaded connector, by setting up the "External CRM API Connector" option with the "Custom connector" value.

Running the connector

If an account has a custom external connector enabled, then the process for loading up the call center agent interface will follow the next steps:

the agent selects from the page menu the Agent option;
the page with the agent interface starts to load;
after the loading is completed, the page will initiate a live connection with the Accolades server, to run specific Accolades features;
after the connection has been initiated successfully, the iframe will load the index.html file from the connector.

When loaded, the index.html script will receive some parameters, using the GET method. This parameters can be processed, using javascript, to extract the required data. The following parameters are available:

serverFqdn: the FQDN (name) of the server providing the API (ex: client.voipit.ro);
serverPort: the port used for the connection (ex: 14327);
agentId: the id (External CRM) of the agent.