Send product data directly from the online platform ITscope.com to your own application

Share in ITscope

The basis for connecting an individual application is the ‘Share’ function on the ITscope platform.

Register an Application in Windows

In Windows this works with the help of an own URL protocol. Microsoft provides an MSDN entry for this.

Predefined protocols are http:// or xls:// or ftp://.

You can create your own URL protocol for your application in the Windows registry, i.e. every time the browser finds a URL with your protocol, the stored application is started.

Let’s consider an example application named erp.exe. The URL protocol will be erp:// for this example. In this case, the Windows Registry entry would be

  Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\erp] 
  "URLProtocol"="" 
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\erp\shell] 
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\erp\shell\open] 
  [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\erp\shell\open\command] 
  @="C:\\Program Files\\wawi.exe %1"

Explanation:

Lines 2 and 3 notify the operating system that there is a URL protocol named ‘erp’, meaning calls from the browser are possible via erp://. Lines 4 to 7 instruct the operating system which application to run when the log is called. %1 means that the application is passed an argument. This argument can be the ITscope Product-ID or the EAN number and is defined in the ITscope.com portal.

Configure the application on ITscope.com

The configuration can be done on any product page, by using the ‘Share’ button.

Required steps:

1. Click the ‘Share’ button
2. Select the configuration menu (the cog icon)
3. Give the application a name
4. Enter the URL protocol and desired parameters (destination URL, available parameters: <id>, <ean>, <name>, <shortinfo>, <manufacturer_pid>, <manufacturer_name>). For example, erp://<ean> will pass the EAN (4960999617015) of the product to your application
5. Click on the tile, this will open a new tab or window with the following call: erp://4960999617015

The operating system will start the erp.exe application and will hand over ‘4960999617015’ as the argument. This information can then be processed further in your application. For example, an ITscope product API retrieval can be initiated in order to obtain data for adding a product to your application.