Relationship Management Panel (RMPANL)

IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel is an Outlook add-in which displays related IFS CRM/SRM information about the recipients of an email or the attendees of a calendar item and facilitates creation and update of records in IFS CRM/SRM. The purpose of this page is to provide information about installation steps for IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel. A component called RMPANL (Relationship Management Panel) is developed to provide this Outlook add-in.

Note: This component will be available from UPD4 onwards.

Outlook Calendar Sync is used to sync data between an Outlook calendar and IFS Applications. IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel is used to create and link business activities in CRM/SRM to appointments and meetings in Outlook. Updates and deletions in Outlook will be synchronized to linked Business Activities. It is possible to transfer new Business Activities to Outlook, but updates can be done only from Outlook side related to sync fields. For more information please refer the this Link.

Note: This service will be available from UPD8 onwards.

Contents

Requirements

Refer IFS Supported Platform page to check about supported platforms/versions of outlook to run IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel.
You can refer following sections which contain more information on requirements from Outlook side.

Note: Even if Microsoft document specify platform/version of Outlook as one which supports the add-in, it won’t be supported if it has not also been mentioned as supported in IFS Supported Platform page.

  1. Outlook Add-in requirements
  2. Client requirements: Windows desktop and tablet  
  3. Client requirements: Mac OS desktop
  4. Client requirements: Browser support for Office Online web clients

   

install_ rmpanl.xml

For IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel to work properly in Outlook web, it would be good to check the following before installing RMPANL component.

  1. We have added some Outlook web URLs in install_rmcom.xml located in rmpanl/server.
  2. If you use different Outlook web URL, please update the following section in this xml.

Outlook Web URL

  1. If you use IE browser, it is important to update the URL in ALLOW-FROM of X-FRAME-OPTIONS.
  2. If you use other browsers, then it is important to update the URL in frame-ancestors in Content-Security-Policy. You can specify multiple URLS separated by spaces here.

Note: If you do this change after the installation then modified xml file should be applied to the Application Server as a normal delivery.

 

Authentication

IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management panel uses Authorization code flow and it supports IFS Database, Microsoft Azure AD and ADFS identity providers used for authentication. 

Azure AD

  1. Add https:// application_server:port_no/main/ifsapplications/rmpanel/AppCommon/Auth/Callback.html as a redirect URL for Aurena app registration in Azure AD portal.
    Ex:     https://lkppdeTest888.corpnet.ifsworld.com:48080/main/ifsapplications/rmpanel/AppCommon/Auth/Callback.html

ADFS

  1. Add adfs server URL in to AppDomains section in manifest file (Ex: https://adfsdevsys.ifsworld.com).

  2. Add https://<fully_qualified_domain_name_of_the_app_server:port> /main/ifsapplications/rmpanel/AppCommon/Auth/Callback.html as a redirect URL for Aurena application in ADFS Management tool. Ex: https://lkppdeTest888.corpnet.ifsworld.com:48080/main/ifsapplications/rmpanel/AppCommon/Auth/Callback.html

  3. Add api://<INSTANCE_NAME> as a relying party identifier for web API of Aurena application in ADFS Management tool. The INSTANCE_NAME here is the instance name given for the IFS Applications instance.

    Note: If ADFS configuration has two application groups already created for web client and native client then it is needed to make them as one single application group in order to work with IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel. The difference in this case is that the Web API and the Native Client Application would be created in the same application group as the Server Application that was created for Aurena. Aside from that, the setup is the same (refer more info in Configure Active Directory Federation Service page in technical documentation).

Manifest File

An Outlook Add-in consists of two components: the XML add-in manifest, and a web page. The manifest describes how the add-in integrates across Outlook clients. Manifest file should contain your application sever URL. Please refer the following steps.

  1. Navigate to environment’s add-on page and refer IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management panel section.
  2. Download the relavant manifest file of IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management panel.
  3. Open that file and replace all occurrences of app_url with your application server URL without https prefix (Ex:cmbpde2158.corpnet.ifsworld.com:48080).
  4. Save the manifest file in the same location or different location (this file should be used when installing the add-in).

Installation

Following steps should be followed after RMPANL component is installed.
By uploading the above manifest file to Exchange or Office 365, you can start using IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel in your Outlook. To upload the manifest file to Exchange or Office 365, Please, refer the following options.

  1. Using Exchange Admin center (Admin person can push the installation to on-premise Exchange users).
  2. Using Office 365 Admin center (Admin person can push the installation to Office 365 users).
  3. Using individual way (Individual user can upload the manifest file directly without involving an admin person).

    After uploading the manifest file, you will see IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel command buttons in your Outlook. If you don’t see the panel buttons, check whether the manifest file is installed properly, and IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel is activated to use in your Outlook. If you see the command buttons, then click on IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel command button and check whether the panel loads properly. If you get errors, please check the troubleshooting section below.

    Note:Client files related to IFS Customer and Supplier Relationship Management Panel will be published in your application server automatically.

Troubleshooting

After installation is done, please check whether add-in works. In order to troubleshoot some of the add-in errors please refer this.

Limitations

Following are some of the limitations from Microsoft side regarding Outlook add-ins.

  1. Add-in will work on mail and appointments on read and compose mode. Check more info on this.
  2. In Mobile, only read mode will work.
  3. For on-Premise installation we need to use EWS. Exchange web services (EWS) will not work in mobile. EWS has been used to for operations such as fetching attachments and sending mail.