How to create application objects

Application objects allow you to transform text or URLs found in comments or messages into structured Orders, Shipments, Itineraries, Tasks etc. that are easy to access right from a conversation in Front.

Application objects are part of Front’s “Connectors” framework (composed of both application objects and application requests) - allowing you to configure how your third-party data is used in Front. See our developer documentation for additional details.

More resources:

• Take a Front Academy course here to learn more about how Connectors work.

• Have questions? Ask them in our AMA in Front Community!

If a customer writes in to your team with a question that references a particular order, shipment, itinerary, task etc. a application object can automatically extract that text or URL and other metadata, and highlight it in your conversation. Application objects can be viewed in the following areas:

Conversation header

Application objects are attached to the header of the conversation for easy access.

When attached to the conversation header, it’s easy to open the object in your external CRM/TMS/management system, or view details directly in Front.

Messages

Application objects will be outlined in gray. Click the application object to view the preview card.

Comments

Application object preview cards will automatically display when referenced in comments.

You must be a Front company admin to create application objects.

Step 0 (create an app)

You can access your Developer settings by clicking the gear icon in the top right of Front, then selecting the Developers tab from the left sidebar.

Once in Developers settings, click the Create app button. You’ll be asked to provide a name for your app and a short description. If you'd like to set an icon to be used for your application objects, simply add an icon to the app you initially created by going to the Basic information tab of the app.

Once you’ve created your app, click the Features tab and then click See all connectors under the “Connectors” card. You’ll be navigated to a page that lists all the application objects for this app. Click Configure application object to create a new one.

Step 1

First, you will be asked to provide a name and a short description for your object.

Step 2

Next, you will have to configure the pattern to identify your object. You can choose between matching against a text pattern or a URL pattern.

• If you want to match against text like “#1234” or “AB-1234”, select Transform text into an application object.

• If you want to match against URLs like “https://example.com/orders/123”, select Transform URLs into application objects.

To determine the proper format, consider the types of patterns you expect to see, and which parts of those patterns are static or dynamic (i.e. can change across instances of those patterns).

For URL patterns, we require it to contain the domain (e.g.: example.com) as well as the protocol (e.g: https://).

A few examples:

Make sure your pattern format is defined as strictly as possible to prevent unwanted matches. Examples:

• If you know that a portion of your text pattern will always be digits, use the Digits variable instead of the Letters or digits variable.

• If you know that a portion of your text pattern will always have a defined length (for example, exactly three digits), make sure you define the variable as such. You can click on a variable to set its length.

Step 3 (optional)

If you want to populate your object using third-party data you can configure the request to fetch it. You can read more about it in the article Create application objects with third-party data.

Otherwise, click Next.

Step 4

In this step, you can choose how generated application objects will be previewed in the inbox view. By default, each object includes a target URL, title, and description (optional). You can expand the application object preview with important information by clicking on Add output to add custom fields.

• Any variables you defined when setting up your text pattern or URL pattern will be available to populate the value of the object’s properties.

• Additionally, you can populate these fields with third-party data by creating dynamic variables (Scale plan or above). See this article to learn more. If you’d like access, please contact your account manager.

To determine the proper target URL, you should open an example of content you are looking to extract using an application object, and determine how you can generate that URL using the text pattern from Step 2.

For example, let’s imagine you want to extract order IDs that look like “ORD-123”, and they live in your CRM at a URL like this: https://example.com/orders/ORD-123

In this case, in Step 2 you would have defined a text pattern like this: “ORD-[DIGITS]”. To generate the proper URL, you would use the “DIGITS1” variable generated by Step 2 in the Target URL field. This will ensure that whatever number is extracted for the particular order is also used for the URL for that application object.

The Target URL field will be used when a user selects the Open option in the dropdown of a particular application object, or when clicking on an application object preview in a comment.

In the example application object below:

• Title: ORD-12345

• Description: Details for ORD-12345

• Custom fields:

  • Customer: Jamie Saturn

  • Company: Acme

  • Priority: High

Step 5

Finally, test your configuration to confirm that the preview works as you expect it to. If everything looks good, click Save.

Once an application object has been created for an application, a rule is required to define when and where this application’s objects will be generated. An application object can be generated from references found in messages, comments, or a dynamic variable.

Step 1

To create an application object rule, follow How to create a rule from scratch.

Step 2

Enter your preferred rule configuration for creating your application’s objects. Similar to other rules, you can define the triggers (when), conditions (if) and actions (then) of your rule. See this article to learn more.

A common configuration is to trigger the rule whenever inbound messages are received or a comment is added to a conversation.

If the conversation is in the inboxes that the application object should apply to, you may specify the creation of one or multiple application objects to apply. Use the dropdowns for the Add app objects rule action to define this behavior.

• Which application object(s) to add (defaults to all objects)

• Where to look for references matching the pattern defined by the application object.

  • Select Message to find references in the latest message's subject or body

  • Select Comment in the latest comment's body

  • Select Reference to use a specific value (e.g. The value of a dynamic variable)

Step 3

Click Create rule to complete the rule configuration. A new rule will populate in the relevant rule list.

An application object rule can be adjusted or deactivated at any time. However, a rule is required for an application’s application objects to appear in conversations.

Many messages will include multiple IDs of interest that you may need to copy and paste one by one. You can easily view and multi-select application objects within a message to copy and paste much more efficiently.

Hover over a application object to quickly copy it, or select multiple application objects using Cmd+click on Mac or Ctrl+click on Windows to copy them.

When an application object is first attached to a conversation, the data displayed is fresh and current. However, as time goes by, the data in the application object becomes stale. A timestamp on the application objects captures the last time the data was updated.

To refresh an application object, click the Refresh button.

For example, the following image shows an application object that was last refreshed one month ago. Clicking the Refresh button would update the last updated time to just now.

In addition to using the refresh button, application objects update when their triggers recur, such as when a new comment or message contains the URL or matching pattern for the application object, or when a workflow such as a rule or macro accesses an application object while it executes.

You can use the Create link API endpoint to refresh application objects. Refer to the API reference documentation for details.

This method allows you to create a web application or service that listens for changes to the data in the external system and then immediately pushes a change to the affected application objects (based on their reference) so that you don’t have to rely on a rule triggering or ask teammates to manually type comments to refresh application objects. Consult with your technical or developer contacts for help implementing application object refreshes through the API.

Once application objects are generated on a conversation, you can use the application object fields to automatically populate variables in message templates for your replies. See this article to learn more.

No, they only operate on new comments or new messages created after the application object rule is configured.

Yes. By default, the Identify text pattern in messages and comments option is selected during the setup process. This allows matching text patterns or URL patterns in subjects or bodies of messages to be extracted.

If you delete an application object, any objects created by it in the past will not be automatically deleted, but no new objects will be extracted or previewed.

You can add up to 50 custom fields per application object.

Up to 30 application objects can be attached to a conversation. Once the limit is reached, additional application objects cannot be attached to the conversation.

It's most likely you're using a static target URL in the Define outputs step (Step 4) of the application object setup flow. Your target URL should leverage a dynamic variable to create a unique URL.

• Front uses the target URL to create a unique internal reference for the application object. If you don't have a unique target URL, then you're referencing the same application object each time, and just updating the name.

• The target URL's purpose is to provide an in-app permalink for teammates to access specific objects in your external app. The link should align with both the API and user-facing views. A dynamic element is required for it to function properly.

• If a truly unique URL to the external app isn't available, consider appending a unique, non-functional argument to the query string of your target URL.

For example, if a target URL was https://this-is-a-target.com/all-active-orders you can edit and append a query string to make it unique. That could look like: https://this-is-a-target.com/all-active-orders?foo={Custom Field}.

Yes. While building your application object, you’ll find a Save as draft button that allows you to save your progress and return later.

Application objects are available on the latest Growth plan or above. See additional details about pricing of certain application object features below:

*Customers on the Scale plan or above can further enhance their application objects. For example, an order found in a message could be enriched with the status of that order pulled from a CRM or TMS, all without writing any code. See this article to learn more.