Building extensions #8: Improve and enhance user experience with modal boxes

Building extensions #8: Improve and enhance user experience with modal boxes


Modal box - What is it and where can you use it?

A modal box is a user interface pop-up window or dialog box that appears over the currently active UI screen. When prompted, the modal box deactivates all other page content until the user closes it. The modal box feature is commonly used to display information based on user input or to engage the user in some activity, such as an attachment picker, where they can proceed only after selecting an attachment.

Support offered in Zoho Projects for modal boxes

Zoho Projects provides support for modal boxes through extension development, which includes methods for opening and closing modal boxes, passing and receiving data to and from modal boxes, and so on. You can view the various methods offered by Zoho Projects to use modal boxes in this document.

In this post, we'll go over an example scenario for using a modal box in depth.

Scenario

A Zoho Desk ticket agent handles issue/feature request tickets in Zoho Projects to work on development-related requests. When the development in Zoho Projects is completed, the Desk agent provides a solution to the customer. In this case, it would be beneficial for the Desk agent to have all open Desk tickets associated with them displayed in a single, dedicated tab within Zoho Projects.

Goal

Improve, enhance, and simplify an agent's work in Zoho Projects by:
➤ Showcasing all open Desk tickets within a single tab.
➤ Providing them with ticket-specific details, allowing them to view ticket details and prioritize the Zoho Projects task associated with that ticket accordingly.
Solution

To accomplish this goal, use the modal box feature as part of the widgets concept discussed earlier. A Project tab widget labeled "Desk open tickets" can be created to display all open Desk tickets associated with an agent. When a specific ticket is selected, the agent can access all relevant information about the ticket, such as its status, priority, and so on. This will allow them to prioritize and work on the appropriate task in Zoho Projects that is associated with that ticket.
Now, let's go ahead and see the components that would be required to achieve this use case solution as part of an extension.

Required components
  • In order to establish a secure integration between Zoho Projects and Zoho Desk for a seamless data transfer, a connection between Zoho Projects and Zoho Desk has to be established.
  • An extension configuration process includes:
  • Creating an extension.
  • Configuring the plugin manifest.
  • Setting up the widget code.
  1. Display all open Zoho Desk tickets associated with an agent in a tab called "Desk open tickets."
  2. Incorporate the modal box feature to display ticket-specific details while the agent chooses a ticket from the list of open desk tickets.
We have already explored the steps to establish a connection, create an extension, and configure the plugin-manifest.json file as part of our earlier posts. You can refer to those resources for detailed guidance. In this case, we have already completed most of these steps (screenshots below).

Connection
We have created a connection to establish a secure integration between Zoho Projects and Zoho Desk.
                                                                  
Extension configuration
Extension creation: We have created a new extension for Zoho Projects.
                                                                  
Plugin-manifest.json configuration: Once the extension was created, we configured the plugin-manifest.json file to include the created connection and a widget.
For our extension use case, the plugin-manifest.json file is configured as shown in the below screenshot.
                                                                  

Setting up the widget code
Now that we've set up the other components, let's move on to writing our widget code and incorporating the modal box feature.

Displaying open tickets in "Desk open Tickets" tab code snippet - index.html (find attachment in post)
  • Certain mandatory parameters must be passed to the Zoho Projects Request Method, such as the third-party URL, data object, and connection. The details for the mentioned parameters in our use case are as follows:
➤ Data object - The data that must be constructed in order to invoke the third-party URL.
➤ Connection - The name of the secure connection link created and configured in the plugin-mainfest.json file, as described in the previous section.
  • A dropdown list displaying all open and associated desk tickets is created using the Zoho Desk API response.
  • The dropdown list value selected by the end-user (i.e. the chosen ticket) is then fetched and stored in a variable called "selected ticket ID."
  • Upon clicking Get Ticket Details, a modal box instance is created and opened using the modal.create and instance methods. The selected ticket ID value is emitted using the emit method with the keyword "stored-files" when the modal box is opened.
If you require further details on how the Zoho Projects Request method works, you can refer to our earlier post which explains the working and the required parameters for invoking this method in detail.

Modal box to display the details of the chosen ticket - file.html (find attachment in post)
  • In the code snippet, the value emitted using the emit method for the keyword "stored-files" is received by the on method in the modal box UI. Using the received value, a hit is made to the Zoho Desk Get tickets API using the Zoho Projects Request Method again.
  • From the ticket-specific details returned as the response of the Zoho Desk Get tickets API, the necessary details are fetched and then displayed to the agent for their reference. These details help them check on the status and prioritize the relevant Zoho Projects task related to that ticket.
Now, that we have completed the setup and have all the extension components ready, let's go ahead and see the output.

Sample output:
  • Enter the Zoho Projects portal and select a project.
                                                                  
  • Select the Desk open tickets option under the Projects tab. The dropdown menu appears, displaying a list of associated open tickets. Choose the ticket for which you want more details and click on Get Ticket Details.
                                                                  
  • The selected ticket details are displayed in the modal box.
                                                                  

In this example, we have used the modal box feature to display some information based on user input. Similarly, a modal box can also be used to engage the user in performing some activity, like an attachment picker, wherein they can proceed further only after choosing an attachment. We hope you found this information useful. Keep following this space for more insights!

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