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Plug-ins

What are plug-ins?

The ORTEC Relevance Plug-in system is designed to allow our customers and third parties to extend Relevance Apps with customer-specific functions or integrations.

Plug-ins can be configured in the dashboard and can make use of user profile information already available in the platform (e.g. single sign on). What information is passed to a plug-in is configured in the dashboard.

Examples of (existing) plug-ins:

  • ORTEC Workforce Scheduling Roster plug-in
  • Matchwinner, a soccer World Cup game
  • Lunch Menu plug-in
  • Roombooking plug-in
  • Hour-entry plug-in
  • Safety / Facility reporting plug-in

In essence, a plug-in is a mini-website that offers a certain (useful) function to users.

How does it work?

Our (native and web) apps contain hooks that can be configured to launch a plug-in. By configuring a plug-in in the dashboard, an endpoint is dynamically created that can be pointed to the plug-in URL.

Hooks

Our apps support these launch points:

  • a specific button or icon
  • a channel tile
  • an announcement

Profile information

User profile information that is required in the plug-in is configured in the dashboard. This information is encrypted by the platform backend and gets sent to the plug-in as a url parameter called "token". It contains a json web token (JWT) with the configured profile information. The token is encrypted using a unique certificate per plugin and has a (configurable) limited validity.

Plugins in webapps

Our webapps support these plugin rendering options:

  • show plugin in full view iframe within the current tab.
  • open plugin page in a new tab

Important note: Various browsers impose limitations on the use of third-party cookies in iframes either by default (e.g. safari) or optionally (e.g. chrome). One of the following approaches can be followed in this case:

  • the webapp is configured to launch the plugin in a new tab in case a specific browser is identified (e.g. safari)
  • have a plugin that does not rely on cookies
  • the plugin is deployed on the same domain as the webapp

For more info on cookies in iframes:

  • https://web.dev/samesite-cookies-explained
  • https://web.dev/samesite-cookie-recipes