Kaizen #157: Flyouts in Client Script

Kaizen #157: Flyouts in Client Script




Hello everyone! 

Welcome back to another exciting edition of our Kaizen series, where we explore fresh insights and innovative ideas to help you discover more and expand your knowledge!In this post, we'll walk through how to display Flyouts in Client Script and break down the key differences between Flyouts and pop-ups in Client Script, including when to use each one.

In this Kaizen post, 

1. What are Flyouts in Client Script?
2. Flyout- ZDKs and functions in Client Script
3. Use Case
4. Solution
        4.a. Create a Widget for EMI Calculator.
        4.b. Create a Client Script to render the Widget as Flyout.
5. Difference between flyout and popup in Client Script
6. Summary
7. Related links

1. What are Flyouts in Client Script?

Flyouts are floating User Interface that can be moved around and controlled using Client Script. Widgets can be used to render a flyout. The flyout can run independently, and any Client Script can communicate with it. 

2. Flyout- ZDKs and functions in Client Script :

  • createFlyout(name, config) - Creates a flyout. You can specify the heading, dimensions, and animation type using the config parameter.
  • getFlyout(name) - To Fetch the details of a flyout.
  • open(config, data) - Opens the created flyout.
  • notify(data, options) - Notifies and waits for data in a flyout. The options can be wait: true (Client Script execution will wait for a response from the widget) or wait: false - (Client Script execution will not wait for a response from the widget)
  • close() - Closes the active flyout.

Click here for more details about the ZDKs and functions related to flyouts.

3. Use Case :

Sales Advisors in a Finance Consulting Company regularly rely on an EMI calculator to help customers with loan queries. To improve their efficiency and eliminate the need to switch between different windows, the admin manager intends to integrate the calculator directly into CRM. The EMI calculator should appear on the Create Page of the Loans module and remain active until the user closes it.

4. Solution: 

To achieve this in Zoho CRM, we can use Widgets to create an EMI calculator and render them using flyouts in client script whenever the create Page of Loan page loads.

4.a. Create a Widget for EMI Calculator
Install Zoho CLI, and follow the steps given in this document to create the Widget app folder. Then update the html, javascript, and css code as per your requirement.

index.html
  1. <!DOCTYPE html>
  2. <html lang="en">
  3.   <head>
  4.     <meta charset="UTF-8" />
  5.     <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
  6.     <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
  7.     <title>Document</title>
  8.     <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
  9.   </head>
  10.   <body>
  11.     <div class="loan-calculator">
  12.       <div class="top">
  13.         <h2>EMI Calculator</h2>
  14.         <form action="#">
  15.           <div class="group">
  16.             <div class="title">Amount</div>
  17.             <input type="range" min="1000" value="30000" max="50000" step="500" class="loan-amount" id="loanAmount" />
  18.             <div class="slider-label">$<span id="loanAmountValue"></span></div>
  19.           </div>
  20.           <div class="group">
  21.             <div class="title">Interest Rate</div>
  22.             <input type="range" min="5" value="6" max="100" step="1" class="interest-rate" id="interesRate" />
  23.             <div class="slider-label"><span id="interesRateValue"></span></div>
  24.           </div>
  25.           <div class="group">
  26.             <div class="title">Tenure (in months)</div>
  27.             <input type="range" min="6" max="100" step="1" value="12" class="loan-tenure" id="tenureMonth" />
  28.             <div class="slider-label"><span id="tenureMonthValue"></span></div>
  29.           </div>
  30.         </form>
  31.       </div>
  32.       <div class="result">
  33.         <div class="left">
  34.           <div class="loan-emi">
  35.             <h3>Loan EMI</h3>
  36.             <div class="value">123</div>
  37.           </div>
  38.           <div class="total-interest">
  39.             <h3>Total Interest Payable</h3>
  40.             <div class="value">1234</div>
  41.           </div>
  42.           <div class="total-amount">
  43.             <h3>Total Amount</h3>
  44.             <div class="value">12345</div>
  45.         <div class="right">
  46.           <canvas id="myChart" width="400" height="400"></canvas>
  47.         </div>
  48.       </div>
  49.     </div>
  50.     <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/chart.js@3.6.2/dist/chart.min.js"></script>
  51.     <script src="https://live.zwidgets.com/js-sdk/1.2/ZohoEmbededAppSDK.min.js"></script>
  52.     <script src="main.js"></script>
  53.   </body>
  54. </html>
  • Click here to view the complete code.
  • Once you have added the code, upload the zip file by following the below steps.
  • Go to Setup > Developer Space > Widgets.
  • Click Create New Widget and Fill in the details.

The Hosting should be "Zoho" and mention the html page of the app folder that you uploaded.

Note: 
The widget should be of "button" type in order to render through a Client Script.

4.b. Create a Client Script to render the Widget as Flyout

Configure a Client Script for Create Page(Standard) Loans module, that triggers during onLoad event as shown below. Click Next. Click here to know how to configure a Client Script.



Enter the following script and click Save.
  1. ZDK.Client.createFlyout('EMIFlyout', {
  2.     header: 'EMI Calculator',
  3.     animation_type: 1,
  4.     height: '400px',
  5.     width: '450px',
  6.     close_on_exit: false
  7. });

  9. ZDK.Client.getFlyout('EMIlyout').open(
  10.     { api_name: 'EMI_CALCULATOR_WIDGET', type: 'widget' },
  11.     { data: loanDetails }
  12. );

In the above script, createFlyout() will create a new flyout with header.
Below is the syntax and parameter detail.



Now Open the flyout and render the Widget in the flyout using open() method and specify the api_name of the widget.



Here is how the Client Script renders the flyout.



5. Difference between flyout and popup in Client Script

Flyout
Pop up
A flyout can be moved around the page.

A pop-up cannot be moved anywhere on the page.


It can run independently in a separate thread. The user can interact with the background interface without closing the flyout.

The user cannot interact with the background without closing the flyout.

Use flyouts, when you need to exchange data to and fro between a Widget and Client Script. You can use ZDK.Client.sendResponse() to pass data from a widget rendered as a flyout to the Client Script.


Use popup, when you need to interrupt the screen to gather input from the user or display a message before proceeding. Use $Client.close() to pass data to the Client Script, which will also close the popup.



In the scenario discussed in this post, if you want to make it mandatory for the user to read or interact with the EMI Calculator before entering any value in the create Page(Standard), then you can use pop-up instead of Flyout. Both pop up and flyout can be used to display widgets, and their dimensions can be altered.
Refer to this post to know how to render widgets as pop up using Client Script.

6. Summary
  • In this post, we have seen,
  • Flyouts in Zoho CRM.
  • ZDKs and methods to render a Flyout(Widget) using Client Script.
  • When to use a Flyout and when to use a pop up.