Custom Actions

1

This is experimental feature. I do not have complete understanding whether this is the correct way to approach the integration with 3rd-party services but it could be.

In the latest version (21.9.15), under Settings tab, there is new section called Custom Actions.

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This allows to inject javascript code into various View screens. What could javascript do?

  • When invoice is issued, it could post the invoice data to tax authority
  • Figures from report transformations could be also electronically posted to tax authorities
  • It could pull banking data from external source and automatically create payment and receipt transactions. Some vendors call this bank feeds.
  • It could automatically pull and create exchange rates
  • It could send SMS message to recipient through some gateway

I’m sure there are a lot more use-cases.

Custom actions is a way how Manager could integrate with the outside world without hard-coding these integrations into the program and at the same time making these integrations work across all editions the same way.

When you create custom action, you define the name, placement and the script. For example, we can create custom action for sales invoices like this.

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When viewing sales invoice, you will see button Do something in bottom-left corner

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Clicking the button will trigger the script.

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For security reasons, when on server/cloud edition, only administrators can define custom actions but any user with access to the screen can trigger them.

I do not expect individual businesses to be authoring custom actions. For example, country-specific integrations will be done once for everybody and part of Localizations.json project on GitHub.

This feature is not doing anything useful on its own. It’s just a building block to faciliate new features which cannot be hard-coded into the program for practical reasons.

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2

I’m really excited about that.

Can’t wait to see some documentation.

Thanks Lubos.

3

I hope there is a section in the forum where users can share their integration use cases and how they did it. It will be helpful for many users with no coding experience.

I don know why this forum doesn’t allow sharing or asking for coding post especially when it is related to using Manager.

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4

Yep
For community code development, community coding discussions are essential.
Without it everyone will just keep their hard earned solutions to themselves.

The issue is not scaring of the non coding user base who just want to know how to use Manager is it is.

The solution imo is a sub forum, not prominent for non coding users.

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5

Thanks @Lubos, I would also recommend to make it optional through Customize, i.e. do not make it standard part of settings. This is a potential huge security risk as with all apps that allow injections of code.

6

Would this be why completion of the customer portal has been delayed? At the moment, client’s can’t really do anything on the portal such as download an invoice etc.

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Oh by the way…I was also hoping Customer Portal would be more improved especially the way customers could use it

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I was thinking about this. Stuff like Report Transformations and Custom Actions should be more tucked away. I consider it “internal plumbing” which I do not expect for end-users to use directly.

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9

Super excited about this feature!

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Hi Lubos, great addition, I am looking forward to see it being implemented.

I would pursue Bank Feeds integration once this is considered a stable feature.

Please may I request that you consider an option to display the buttons not only on transactional view forms but also on menu forms, e.g. Bank and Cash Accounts. In the Bank Feeds scenario, it would not make sense to refresh banking transactions on a Payment or Receipt.

It may also be useful to have these action buttons centrally available, for example next to the History and Backup buttons.

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This is great news!

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Has this feature been removed?

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This experimental feature is not available. you respond two years later after the last message. It pertained as explained by @Lubos an experimental feature in Manager v21.9.15. We are thousands of versions later (today v23.6.21.845) and features come and go. This one did not survive,

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Thanks for the info… a simple NO would have been good enough. Im new to this program and have purchased the cloud version unlike most. Normally when adding new features, they’re not just removed… they are improved. I feel that is not the case here, and just to note I have yet to find anywhere in the forum were it states this feature has been removed.

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You mean a simple YES. However that is not how this forum works, you can not even answer only Yes. I should have answered follow the forum rules FAQ - Manager Forum more specifically:

  • Search before you post. Chances are good you are not the first person with a similar question. If you cannot find what you need in the Guides, thousands of topics with tens of thousands of postings make it likely the answer to your question is already here on the Forum. Before starting a new topic, tap into our huge, crowdsourced knowledge base.

Because as at per post Custom Actions - #4 by lubos the name was changed to Extensions. When you search the Forum on extensions or look at Settings then you would have noticed that this has moved to obsolete features.

This is an assumption, but it does not matter because there is no discrimation between Paid (Server Edition (like myself) & Cloud Edition (like yourself) and free Desktop Edition users as far as support is concerned and that is applaudable. Likewise support and advise in this forum comes from such variety of users and is aimed at making the software better, hence the numerous releases.

As a new user I would not advise to respond to any old topic such as this to avoid lengthy replies like this. I also would advise that you recognize that except for @Lubos we volunteer our knowledge and time to help each other on this forum and replies as “…a simple NO would have been good enough…” are not very encouraging to do so.

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