What are Coglets?

A Coglet allows Application developers to take a piece of their Application (the Form and record list from a Tab within Coghead) and place it in their Web page or Google Gadget. Information saved in the Coglet from your webpage or Google Gadget will automatically be saved as a record in your Coghead Application. In addition, you can display filtered record lists on your Webpage using a Coglet. The two way communication between your Coglet and your Coghead Application makes Coglets a great way to grant a large number of users access to part of your application. Coglets can also be configured to allow anonymous users (or users that do not have to login using a Coghead Member ID) to save their information as a record in your Coghead Application without having to be invited to your Account.

Here are some common use-cases for a Coglet:

• Lead capture on your website: Use a Coglet to capture leads and requests on your website that automatically feed into your Lead Management or CRM application.
• Registration for events, training, etc: Coglets can be used for a variety of registration activities. Each registration record can trigger a variety of Actions in your Coghead application, such as email confirmations, alerts to an event manager, etc.
• Simple support request submission: You can capture support requests on your website, assign them and automatically trigger an alert to the assigned person.
• Support requests and tracking: Your customers or partners could use your Coglet to enter support requests and track the status of their respective requests.
• Order entry: A Coglet can be used to post a simple order form (without Embedded Collections) to your website that your customers can use to submit orders. This can be expanded to order tracking for authenticated users.

Creating a Coglet

Coghead provides a quick and easy way to generate Coglets through the Coglet Configurator. At this time the Coglet Configurator is not accessible from within the Coghead product.

1. Create the Coghead Application, Collection and View that you want to use to generate your Coglet. In this example we will use the Basic Project Manager application created in the Coghead Tutorials. If you do not have this application in your account you can download a copy of this application from the Application Gallery.
2. Next we will access the Coglet Configurator through a URL unique to our account. This configurator will list all of the Coglets for our account and allow us to deploy the Coglets to a webpage or Google gadget. Enter the following URL into a new browser window:
   
   
   
   https://www.coghead.com/coglet/Coghead-Configurator.php?account=<account name>
   
   
   
   Where <account name> represents the name of your account. So, for example, the account called 'CogletDemo' the URL would be:
   
   
   
   https://www.coghead.com/coglet/Coghead-Configurator.php?account=CogletDemo
3. When this page loads you will be prompted to Login.
   
   
4. The Coglet Manager page will be displayed. To create a new Coglet click on the New Coglet button.
   
   
5. Now we will define the Application, Collection and View that the Coglet will use. Select the appropriate values from the drop down menu and click Next.
   
   
6. Next we need to give a name to the Coglet. You can also specify the URL of an Image that you want to be associated as the Coglet's logo. When you have named your Coglet click Next.
   
   
7. The final options for generating your Coglet is determining if you want the Coglet users to be able to switch through all of the views for the collection or be limited to the view defined in Step 5. You can also determine if you want all fields to be displayed or only the fields that appear in the View assigned to the Coglet. Click on Create the Coglet.
   
   
8. The new Coglet will appear under the Coglets List.
   
   
   
   From this window you can create another Coglet by using the New Coglet button, select a style for the Coglets or Deploy the Coglet to your webpage or Google gadget. You can also Copy, Edit, or Delete the Coglet.
9. Click on the Preview button to take a look at the new Coglet. From here any records you add, modify or delete are updated within your Coghead Application.
   
   
   
   Click on the X icon at the top right of the screen to return to the Coglet Manager window.

Deploying the Coglet to a Webpage or Google Gadget

Now that we have created our first Coglet let's deploy it to our webpage!

1. Click on the Deploy button for our Coglet.
   
   
   
   This will bring up the Deploy Options window which will allow to define how the Coglet will be viewed by your users.
2. For this first example we will deploy the Coglet as raw HTML so select that radio button. You can also choose for the Coglet to be a fixed size or to display only the form of the Coglet and not the record list of the Collection. When you have selected the options you want for your Coglet click Next.
   
   
3. The Coglet Configurator will generate HTML code in an iframe which you can copy and paste into the HTML coding of your webpage. Click on the Copy to Clipboard button to copy the HTML code and then hit Done to return to the main Coglet Configurator page .
   
   
4. Once you have pasted the HTML code into the body of your webpage you can begin to use your Coglet.
   
   
   
   When you access your webpage you will be prompted to log into the Coglet, once you login the full Coglet will appear. You can create new records by using the New button or save changes to existing records by using the Save button. To switch views click on the link of the view name located at the top left of the record list, in the screenshot below the view name is called Tasks View. This will allow you to select the view you want from a drop down menu.
   
   
   
   You can change the style for the Coglet by clicking on the icon located at the top right of your Coglet. When you click on this icon it will bring up a menu where you can select from several pre-created style sheets.
   
   

We can also create a new Google gadget from our Coglet.

1. This time select the as a Google gadget radio button. Once again decide if you want the Coglet to be a fixed size and if you only want to display the form of the Collection. When ready hit the Next button.
   
   
2. Once again the Coglet Configurator will generate code that you can copy using the Copy to Clipboard button. Once you copy the code click the Done button to return to the main Coglet Configurator page.
   
   
3. From your iGoogle page click on the Add feed or gadget button and paste the Coglet URL in the window that appears. Click Add to add the Coglet to your Google page, when prompted click Ok to make the gadget available for your page.
   
   
4. When you return to your iGoogle page the Coglet will now appear as one of the gadgets on your page. You can create new records by using the New button or save changes to existing records by using the Save button. To switch views click on the link of the view name located at the top left of the record list, in the screenshot below the view name is called Tasks View. This will allow you to select the view you want from a drop down menu.
   
   
   
   You can change the style for the Coglet by clicking on the icon located at the top right of your Coglet. When you click on this icon it will bring up a menu where you can select from several pre-created style sheets.
   
   

Entering Grid data using a Coglet

This portion of the Coglet Guide will teach you the process of entering data in a Local Grid within a Coglet

1. For this example we will use the Preview button to bring up our Coglet from a User perspective.
   
   
2. To edit or create new rows in a grid click on a row of the grid. This will take you to a new window that will allow you to modify the grid.
3. Click on the New button to add new rows to the grid. When you have entered data for a row click on Save to save the row to the grid.
   
   
4. When you finish adding rows to your grid click on the Bread-Crumb button located at the top left of the grid's record list. This will bring up a set of links that will allow you to return to the Coglet. Click on the name of the Coglet (which should be the 1. value) to return to the main Coglet page.
   
   
5. The grid values will not be saved until you save the record on the main Coglet page. To save the changes to the grid click on the Save button on the main Coglet page to save the record in the Coglet.

Changing the style of Coglets in the Configurator

You can also change the default style of all of the Coglets in the Configurator. From the main Coglet configurator page click on the icon at the top right corner of the page. This will display a drop down menu where you can select the default style of all of the Coglets for your account from a list of pre-created style sheets.

Viewing a list of Coglets for your Account

You can also check on the list of your Coglets for an account from within Coghead.

1. From the home page click on the Manage button for your account and from the menu that appears select Integration.
   
   
2. Click on the Coglets tab of the Systems Integration application. This tab will list all of the Coglets you have created for the account.
   
   

Coglet Known Issues

Coglets are still a beta feature which will undergo several improvements and updates during their beta life-cycle. Here are a list of known issues and limitations of Coglets 2.0:

• The following Form widgets are not supported in a Coglet:
  
  Attachments & Images
  
  Calculated fields
  
  Rich Text formatting from Text Areas or Label widgets
• Required fields are not validated in a Coglet
• Conditional style of widgets is not supported
• Custom Actions are not supported (only Save/Delete/New/Cancel are supported)
• Anonymous Users are not yet supported in this version of Coglets
• Styles selected in the Coglet Configurator will apply to ALL Coglets for the account
• Coglets will always reference the latest version of the application (the active prototype)
• The Preview feature will not work for form-only Coglets yet
• No versioning feature for Coglets (changes made to the Form definition will be picked up automatically, you will not have multiple versions of a single Coglet)