Spurred on by a few questions on Community, I threw together a quick guide on how a Tulip app can be launched from an NFC tag or QR code. Forget bookmarking every app an operator may need, or the dashboards relevant to a specific location in your facility. No more mass emails sharing a link for the 10-zillionth time.
This technique is incredibly simple.
Tulip apps can be run in Safari, Chrome and Edge. The first step is get the link to your app. The format for these links is [your instance].tulip.co/player?app=[App Id]. The app id can be found in the URL of the app you want to share. In this example the link I need to encode in my tag is:
Generate a QR code for this url, or write it to your NFC Tag. I have found this QR code generator to work well, and the this app on Iphone to be quite good free options. These tags can be affixed anywhere that makes sense for your users!
When this tag is scanned, the user will be prompted to open the url in their default browser. Click on this prompt.
The first time you use the web player you will need to login and create a station, but subsequent logins wont require any registration.
Huge shoutout to those who were curious if this was possible. Keep the cutting-edge ideas coming!
Pete
(instance).tulip.co/player?app=(app_identifier) doesn’t seem to navigate to the desired app, it only opens the player on the previously opened app or refreshes the player while staying on the currently running app. Does this only work if the app is constrained in the station grouping? Or is there something I may be missing here?
Just updated my original post. There was a small error in the photo I included which would create what you are seeing. To get the unique Id to be encoded in your QR code, open the editor and pull the unique Id between processes and versions:
On the apps list and apps overview pages in the three dot menu includes a new option of Copy Player link, which allows users to copy a link that will open an app in the Tulip Player if installed. Previously this was not available. This will follow the permissions defined by the station, and allows for quicker access to apps from other systems.
We recognized that having this feature would make several use cases, including this one, much easier for many of you. Thanks to all that contributed to this discussion and bringing this to our attention.
Hi @lpascoe, this is not possible with the most recent update for the player link. The link will open the correct app and version on the App Start Screen by default.
Would you be able to share more about what you are trying to achieve with the link opening to a specific step?
I have a work order app that sends email notifications during the process. Users are able to subscribe to receiving updates based on various options (Program/Job Type). These options are set by users in a step of the app that is setup as a settings page. It makes the most sense for us to keep this settings page organized within the app rather than a standalone app as other app specific information can be modified in this page.
The though was that the email would have a link navigating directly to the settings page to allow the user to update their notification settings as desired.
@lpascoe I see now, thanks for explaining your use case more. I’ve logged this request in our system and will see what we can do in a future release. Please feel free to share more use cases for linking of apps/steps as you come across them — I know there are already a number of people who use app links for routing/transitioning between apps.
