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Develop a Sales Rep Role Center for the Tablet Client

In this example, you will learn how to create a new Role Center for the Business Central tablet client. Developing for the Business Central tablet client occurs in the AL Language development environment and is not much different from developing for one of the other Business Central clients. This example will concentrate on how to build a Role Center for a sales representative, which links to already existing page objects, but combined in a way so that it works well on the tablet.

About this example

This example illustrates the following tasks:

  • Creating a Role Center page
  • Adding existing pages to the Role Center
  • Adding actions to pages from the Role Center
  • Testing the Role Center page

Prerequisites

To complete this example, you will need:

Story

Simon is a partner developer working for CRONUS International Ltd. Nancy is a Sales Representative at Contoso Consulting. Simon has to build a new Role Center to support Nancy's job. When at work, Nancy spends some time on the road with only their tablet available on customer visits. Nancy needs easy access to KPIs on the front page to filter the customers visited. When at the customer site, Nancy creates sales quotes. Simon wants to build a Role Center that can be used on a tablet and reuse as much code and as many page objects as possible.

The following code illustrates how Simon implements the Role Center.

page 50106 "Sales Rep Role Center"
{
    PageType = RoleCenter;

    layout
    {
        // Add already existing pages to help Nancy access activities, customers, and charts to the Role Center.
        area(RoleCenter)
        {
            part("O365 Activities"; "O365 Activities")
            {
            }

            part("My Customers"; "My Customers")
            {
            }

            part("Generic Chart"; "Generic Chart")
            {
            }

            part("Trial Balance"; "Trial Balance")
            {
            }
        }
    }

    // Add actions that link to other pages, which Nancy uses in their daily work on the tablet.
    actions
    {
        area(Creation)
        {
            action("Sales Quote")
            {
                Caption = 'New';
                RunObject = Page "Sales Quote";
                Image = Quote;
                Promoted = true;
            }

            action("Customer List")
            {
                Caption = 'Customers';
                RunObject = Page "Customer List";
                Promoted = true;
                //  Sales Quote as an action item available from the action pane in the New group
                PromotedCategory = New;
            }

            action("Item List")
            {
                Caption = 'Items';
                RunObject = Page "Item List";
                Promoted = true;
                PromotedCategory = New;
            }
        }
    }
}

For more information about the specifics of Role Center structure and design, see Designing Role Centers.

Simon now wants to test the Sales Rep Role Center that was created, and uses a browser window for testing purposes. Simon enters a URL that specifically opens the page 50006 from tablet.aspx. The URL now resembles this: https://MyBCWeb:8080/BC210/tablet.aspx?page=50006. For more information, see Opening the Business Central Tablet or Phone Client from a Browser.

Next steps

Nancy now has a Role Center that gives access to most of the information needed when on the road. The next step for Simon is to refine the Sales Rep Role Center by adding more functionality, for example, the ability to retrieve more lists or making sure that Nancy can smoothly continue to work back at the office on the desktop computer.

Designing for Different Screen Sizes on Tablet and Phone
Differences and Limitations When Developing Pages for the Business Central Mobile App
Designing Role Centers
Role Center Behaviors

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