Deep Linking support for Connections Mobile

Understand how the HCL Connections™ Mobile app handles deep linking features that direct to content hosted in HCL Connections™ Social Cloud.

When a Connections Mobile user on an Apple iOS or an Android device clicks on an HCL Connections™ Social Cloud link from within an email or other application, the Connections Social Cloud content automatically opens in the Connections Mobile app instead of the mobile browser. Supported resources include your company's Wikis, Communities, Profiles, Activities, and more. This feature requires the latest Connections Mobile 6.1.1 app from the Apple app store or from the Google Play store.

This capability is only possible with the Connections Mobile app when it connects to the HCL Connections™ Social Cloud servers. The underlying technology that is used for this feature is known as Universal Links (for Apple iOS devices) and App Links (for Android devices). These technologies require that the host name of the server is embedded within the Mobile Server application itself, and do not allow for dynamic, programmatic customization.

This capability includes the display of an Apple app store banner for the Connections Mobile app whenever a user uses the Safari browser on an Apple iOS device and navigates to the Connections Social Cloud site. An action is available from the banner to either download the Connections Mobile app from the Apple app store or open the same Connections Cloud page using the Connections Mobile app. If a mobile user clicks a link in an email or another application and the Connections Mobile app is not installed, this banner will now be displayed in Safari so that users can download and install the Mobile Server application.

Most links to HCL Connections™ Social Cloud pages will work within the Connections Mobile app; however, not all links are possible. There might be unique views or filters that were applied to web-based content but were not implemented in the Connections Mobile app. In these cases, the Connections Mobile app starts and navigates to the Connections app, as close to the content as possible. The user will sees a message indicating "We couldn't open that link. It's unavailable on mobile devices."

The following content is not supported on the Connections Mobile app, so the user receives an error stating "The exact location can only be opened on a computer."
  • Content in a trash view
  • Search results

General restrictions

  • Connections Mobile cannot start properly if your company's email system uses URL Protection or other forms of link "wrapping" on links that use the Connections Cloud host names (apps.na.collabserv.com, apps.ce.collabserv.com, and apps.ap.collabserv.com). For example, if you receive a Connections Cloud notification email in which the links inside the mail body point to some URL Protection host such as https://antivirus.example.com/encoded_connections_url instead of to the actual Connections Cloud host, your company email system is rewriting the Connections Cloud links. Contact your email administrators to see if they can white-list the Connections Cloud URLs to ensure that Deep Linking works properly.
  • Email notification preferences are not supported by the Connections Mobile app. Any links to `/news` (which would result in an option to update the user's notification preferences) are redirected to the browser instead of to the Connections Mobile app.