Intuit Partner Platform team blog

IPP Flex Framework released under the Eclipse Public License on code.intuit.com

The Intuit Partner Platform team is proud to announce the release of our native IPP Flex Framework under the Eclipse Public License on code.intuit.com. The IPP Flex Framework project provides client libraries, tools and examples for Flex developers who are developing Native IPP applications. This includes the Kingussie framework and other components that may be built over time.

Kingussie is a library that uses the Adobe Cairngorm framework to provide a model-view-controller implementation optimized for interactions with the Intuit App Center, including several pre-coded views for common tasks all IPP developers need to do. Using this framework, nearly all of an IPP developer’s coding work will revolve around creating views (GUI) and specifying data variables in the model.

Code.intuit.com is home to a number of Open Source projects that provide client libraries and tools for IPP. Most of those projects have grown organically from developers with a common need.

We believe that it makes sense that Kingussie be developed and distributed under the same terms as those other libraries and tools. Kingussie is the best example of the ideal developer framework for IPP and as such, we want the patterns and techniques used to be studied and copied.   

Intuit developers already maintain this code base as part of their day to day jobs and that won’t change. The difference is that they will now be doing that using an open source model.

We expect that by working in the open, the Kingussie developers will have closer and more frequent interactions with IPP Application Developers. But the support model for Kingussie and the IPP native Flex Tools won’t change. Members of the Intuit Developer Relations team will continue to be the primary contacts for IPP application developers using the IPP Flex Tools.

Getting involved and how contribution works

As in all code.intuit.com projects, the source code, binaries, bug tracker and documentation is freely available. If you want to get more deeply involved, visit the project and start by asking questions in the developer discussion forum. You can find the project at:

https://code.intuit.com/sf/projects/ippflexframework

The Project Administrators (Peter Vogel, Robert Larson) have responsibility for granting access privileges in the project. This includes granting commit privileges to "contributors". The "contributors" in the project have responsibility for the code base including reviewing contributions for acceptance. At this time, the project “contributors” are all members of the existing Intuit IPP team.

Project contributors can commit changes directly, subject to peer review. All others must submit patch files which will be reviewed and integrated by the team if they are accepted. Developers must follow the standard code.intuit.com process for becoming a committer as described in:

• The code.intuit.com Terms Of Use
• Committer Guidelines

Announcing IPP v2.9

We’re excited to announce that IPP v2.9 is now live and available for IPP partners. This release is another in a series focused on extending developer tools and data services, as well as improving the shopping, buying, and user experience of end customers.

IPP v2.9 CONTENTS

• Kingussie Flex framework improvements
• New and improved developer tools
• Intuit App Center end-user enhancements
• Software updates/fixes 

1. KINGUSSIE FLEX FRAMEWORK IMPROVEMENTS

Intuit’s Kingussie framework for Adobe Flex allows developers to quickly develop and publish applications on IPP’s native development platform. Kingussie improvements for v2.9 also include greatly improved startup times. As a result of reducing server roundtrips and optimized server-side APIs, performance is now three times faster for Kingussie-based applicaitons at both initial launch and subsequent start-up.

For more information on these and other new Kingussie Flex Framework capabilities, take a look at the IPP Development Tools Release Notes.

2. NEW AND IMPROVED DEVELOPER TOOLS
The IPP V2.9 release includes the following enhancements to developer tools for IPP Federated apps:

• Expanded Azure SDK
  The expanded Azure SDK includes additional sample applications using data services and the alpha version of the Visual Studio plug in.  
• Updated .NET and Java developer toolkits
  We’ve updates toolkits to align to latest releases and enhanced for bug fixes.

For more information on these and other new IPP developer toolkit information, follow these specific links:

• IPP Developer Toolkits project on code.intuit.com
• Windows Azure SDK for IPP
• Azure Toolkit Project on code.intuit.com
• Java IPP Devkit Wiki
• .NET IPP DevKit Wiki

3. INTUIT APP CENTER END-USER ENHANCEMENTS

Recent enhancements we’ve made to Intuit App Center improve the review process for applications and notify users of upcoming changes in Internet Explorer 6 support.

• Improved application review interface
  

  We’ve simplified the interface for submitting applications reviews, making it easier for customers to submit a review. Customers now only need to submit five pieces of information (instead of 12) to complete an application review.    

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 customer notification
  

  Starting with this release, we’ll show a message to Internet Explorer 6 users notifying them that we’ll discontinue IE 6 support in September 2010. The message will include links to the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

4. SOFTWARE UPDATES / FIXES

For a complete list of software updates / fixes included in IPP v2.9, please review the release notes here.

Thanks,
—The Intuit Partner Platform Team

Flex to Excel or Excel to Flex, now that is the question!

Greetings,

Since my last challenge of getting Flex to create a PDF file using Flash Player 10 went so well, it was decided that I should tackle Excel files. This proved to be a challenge, since the library I decided to use doesn't play well with itself and I thought I was doing something wrong.

Being the lazy person I am, I tried the Google search again and came across a number of different ways to handle Excel files. I came across Sasa Radovanovic' Blog, where Sasa created an HTML file that could be imported into Excel. CFLEX.NET had an example for importing the DataGrid to Excel via the Clipboard. And finally, I found an example on the Adobe site that imported and exported data out. So I used the from Adobe as my example with a few tweaks here and there.

The example from Adobe used the as3xls Excel Library hosted on code.google.com. After doing some research, I found that the library has some issues with writing Excel files out. Excel can read the exported files, but the files are just not in the correct format. So to read the files back in, you have to open the file you exported in Excel, save the file in Excel (Excel was nice enough to correct the formatting errors), and then you can import the file back in using the library. Looking at some of the dates on the project, it does not look like the original author is updating the library. I did find Dan Wilson's site, where he has taken a fork from the original library and updated it to fix a few problems. You can either use the original or Dan 's version. Either version will work for the sample below.

If the Excel file is not in the correct format when you try to read it in, you will get an error like this one. "TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference."  Open the file you are trying to import in Excel, save it, and try re-importing and see if that fixes your problem.

Enjoy,

William Lorfing

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute">
    <mx:Script>
    <![CDATA[
        // Taken from http://cookbooks.adobe.com/post_Import_Export_data_in_out_of_a_Datagrid_in_Flex-17223.html
        //
        import com.as3xls.xls.Cell;
        import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
          
        import com.as3xls.xls.Sheet;
        import com.as3xls.xls.ExcelFile;
        import mx.controls.dataGridClasses.DataGridColumn;
                 
        private var fileReference:FileReference;
        private var sheet:Sheet;
             
        [Bindable]
        private var fields:Array = new Array(); 
        private var ItemDGDataProvider:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection([
            {name:"Item1",value:"21",qty:"3",cost:"12.21"},
            {name:"Item2",value:"20",qty:"4",cost:"12.22"},
            {name:"Item3",value:"22",qty:"5",cost:"12.23"},
            {name:"Item4",value:"23",qty:"2",cost:"12.24"}
            ]);
          
        [Bindable]
        private var rebateDGDataProvider:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection();
     
        private function browseAndUpload():void
        {
            fileReference = new FileReference();
            fileReference.addEventListener(Event.SELECT,fileReference_Select);
            fileReference.addEventListener(Event.CANCEL,fileReference_Cancel);
            fileReference.browse();
        }
        private function fileReference_Select(event:Event):void
        {
            fileReference.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS,fileReference_Progress);
            fileReference.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,fileReference_Complete);
            fileReference.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, onLoadError);
            fileReference.load();  
        }
        private function fileReference_Cancel(event:Event):void
        {
            fileReference = null;
        }
        private function fileReference_Progress(event:ProgressEvent):void
        {
            progressBar.visible = true;
            progressBar.includeInLayout = true;
        }
        private function onLoadError():void
        {
               /*body not implemented*/
        }
        private function fileReference_Complete(event:Event):void
        {
            var fileData:ByteArray  = fileReference.data;
            var excelFile:ExcelFile = new ExcelFile();
            var noOfRows:int;
            var noOfColumns:int;
            if(fileData!=null && fileData.length > 0){
                    excelFile.loadFromByteArray(fileData);
                    var sheet:Sheet = excelFile.sheets[0];
                    if(sheet!=null)
                       {
                        noOfRows=sheet.rows;
                        noOfColumns = sheet.cols;
                        for(var row:int = 0; row<noOfRows;row++)
                        {
                            var cellObject:Object ={};
                            for(var col:int=0;col<noOfColumns;col++)
                            {
                                var cell:Cell = new Cell();
                                var cellValue:String = new String();
                                cell = sheet.getCell(row,col);
                                if(cell!=null)
                                {
                                    cellValue =(cell.value).toString();
                                    addProperty(cellObject,col,cellValue);
                                }
                            }// inner for loop ends
                         
                            rebateDGDataProvider.addItem(cellObject);
                        } //for loop ends
                    } //if sheet  
                } //if filedata
            progressBar.visible = false;
            progressBar.includeInLayout =false;
            rebateScheduleDG.includeInLayout = true;
            rebateScheduleDG.visible = true;
            fileReference = null;
        }
        private function addProperty(cellObject:Object,index:int,cellValue:String):void
        {
            if(index == 0)
                cellObject.cost = cellValue;
            else if(index == 1)
                cellObject.name = cellValue;
            else if(index == 2)
                cellObject.qty = cellValue;
            else if(index == 3)
                cellObject.value = cellValue;
        }
     
        private function exportToExcel():void
        {
            sheet = new Sheet();
            var dataProviderCollection:ArrayCollection = rebateByItemDG.dataProvider as ArrayCollection;
            var rowCount:int =  dataProviderCollection.length;
            sheet.resize(rowCount+4,10);
            sheet.setCell(0,0,"Item Name");
            sheet.setCell(0,1,"Item Cost");
            sheet.setCell(0,2,"Item Qty");
            sheet.setCell(0,3,"Item Price");
            var columns:Array = rebateByItemDG.columns; 
            var i:int = 0; 
            for each (var field:DataGridColumn in columns){ 
                fields.push(field.dataField.toString());
                sheet.setCell(0,i,field.dataField.toString()); 
                i++; 
            }
                                   
            for(var r:int=0;r<rowCount;r++)
            {
                var record:Object = dataProviderCollection.getItemAt(r);
                /*insert record starting from row no 2 else
                    headers will be overwritten*/
                insertRecordInSheet(r+2,sheet,record);
            }
            var xls:ExcelFile = new ExcelFile();
            xls.sheets.addItem(sheet);
           
            var bytes: ByteArray = xls.saveToByteArray();
            var fr:FileReference = new FileReference();
            fr.save(bytes,"SampleExport.xls");
        }
     
        private function insertRecordInSheet(row:int,sheet:Sheet, record:Object):void
        { 
            var colCount:int = rebateByItemDG.columnCount; 
            for(var c:int; c < colCount; c++) 
            { 
                var i:int = 0; 
                for each(var field:String in fields){ 
                    for each (var value:String in record){ 
                        if (record[field].toString() == value) 
                            sheet.setCell(row,i,value); 
                        } // if 
                        i++; 
                    } // for record 
                } // for fields 
            } // for colCount 
        
    ]]>
    </mx:Script>
   
        <mx:FormItem label="Do you want to import your items from Excel?" fontWeight="bold">
                <mx:Form>
                    <mx:FormItem label="Browse you excel file" fontWeight="bold">
                        <mx:Button label="Browse" click="browseAndUpload()"/>
                    <mx:HBox>
                        <mx:ProgressBar id="progressBar" includeInLayout="false" visible="false"
                            indeterminate="true"/>
                    </mx:HBox>
                    </mx:FormItem>
                    <mx:DataGrid id="rebateScheduleDG" includeInLayout="false" visible="false"
                            dataProvider="{rebateDGDataProvider}" width="100%"/>
                </mx:Form>
                            <mx:FormItem label="Export Datagrid items to Excel?" fontWeight="bold">
                <mx:Form>
                    <mx:HBox width="100%" verticalAlign="middle">
                        <mx:DataGrid id="rebateByItemDG" includeInLayout="true" visible="true"
                            dataProvider="{ItemDGDataProvider}" width="100%" editable="true"/>
                        <mx:Button label="Export To Excel" click="exportToExcel();"/>
                    </mx:HBox>
                </mx:Form>
            </mx:FormItem>

            </mx:FormItem>

</mx:Application>

Announcing IPP v2.8

The Intuit Partner Platform (IPP) team is excited to announce that IPP v2.8 is now live and available for IPP partners. This release is one in a series focused on extending developer tools and data services, as well as improving the shopping, buying, and user experience of end customers on Intuit App Center.

IPP v2.8 CONTENTS

• Production-Quality IPP Intuit Data Services Enhancements
  • New Create (and in some cases Update) access to many Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and General Ledger objects
  • Enhanced Query and Sorting filters
  • Several new QuickBooks reporting data service
• New and Improved Developer Tools / Services
  • FlashBuilder 4.0 and ANT Support
• Coming Soon: IE6.0 Deprecation
• Software Updates / Fixes

PRODUCTION-QUALITY IPP IDS ENHANCEMENTS

There are a number of new data sets, enhancements, and improvements to IPP Intuit Data Services (IDS). The following data elements and methods have been exposed via IDS as well as added to the IPP Flex framework. We previously released them in BETA quality as part of IPP v2.7. They are now in production quality as part of this release (IPP v2.8).

• Lists
  • Create Method for SalesTaxItem, Item Discount, and Item Fixed Asset
  • Create and Update method for Payment Item
• Accounts Receivable
  • Update method for Invoice, Estimate, and Sales Receipt
• Accounts Payable
  • Create method for Bill Payment Check, Bill Payment Credit Card, and Vendor Credit

Other IDS Enhancements available with IDS v2.8:

• Control over Customer Data Connectivity Options

Partners can now configure from which IDS connectivity options their application subscribers can select. Options include: Enter Data Directly, Use Sample Data, and Use My QuickBooks Desktop Data. By default, users are presented all three of these choices for any IDS-enabled IPP application.

• Reporting data services

Access QuickBooks summary report data via IDS services for the following reports:

• Profit and Loss
• Balance Summary
• Sales Summary
• Account Balances
• Customers Who Owe Me
• Income Breakdown
• Top Customers By Sales

The above reporting data services provide a summary view of data. You can also request reporting data for specified time periods or predefined subsets, such as “top 20.”

• Enhanced Query and Sorting Filters

IPP v2.8 introduces a variety of expanded sorting and filtering options. You can specify sort order, filter results by synchronize flags, and get the number of objects returned by a query for all IDS objects. Name, Accountant, and Item objects can also be filtered by the active flag.

• Additional Data Validation Rules for IDS Operations

IPP 2.8 continues to introduce new validation rules to improve IDS data quality and consistency, as well as to improve the reliability of QuickBooks desktop sync. Please review your applications to ensure that they conform to these new rules and properly handle error conditions when storing data to IDS.

• View-Only User Roles

There are new application roles that allow developers to provide read-only access to different classes of IDS objects, as well as a new Confidential Reporting role to support these new reporting data services.

• Improved Initial Sync Performances for Customers

The performance of initial synchronization has been improved by 20 percent to create a better customer experience.

See IPP IDS Release Notes for more details.

NEW AND IMPROVED DEVELOPER TOOLS / SERVICES

For partners developing Native IPP applications, IPP 2.8 includes several enhancements to the IPP Flex framework and Eclipse plug-ins to improve developer productivity and simplify application publishing through dev, test, QA, and production.

• Support for Adobe Flash Builder 4

Adobe Flash Builder 4, formerly Adobe Flex Builder, is now supported when the Flash builder project is configured to use the Flex 3.5 SDK (Flash Builder 4 backward compatibility mode).

With IPP v2.8, developers who want to use Adobe Flash Builder 4 must update their Eclipse environment to use JVM 1.6. If you are running older installations of Flex Builder, you must download JVM 1.6 and configure Flex Builder to use it. If you are running Mac OS Leopard, you must upgrade to Snow Leopard (because the Leopard JVM 1.6 doesn’t support 32 bit mode, which Eclipse requires).

• Ant support

You can now build and deploy native IPP applications from the command line via Ant, enabling continuous integration and nightly builds.

See IPP Developer Tools Release Notes for more details.

COMING SOON: IE6.0 DEPRECATION

With the next release of IPP (v2.9, scheduled for late June), we will be deprecating IE6.0. “Deprecating” means that IPP will no longer test IE6.0 for compatibility with the platform and tools, and also that we won’t require your applications to support IE6.0.

SOFTWARE UPDATES / FIXES

For a complete list of software updates / fixes included in IPP v2.8, see  IPP 2.8 Release Notes.

--

If you have any questions about this release, please head over the IPP Developer Forum.

Thanks!

The Intuit Partner Platform team.

How to get Flex to produce a PDF file using Flash Player 10

Hi. My name is William Lorfing and I a Development Support Engineer for the Intuit Developer Network.

I have been with Intuit for over a year now and one of the questions that comes up from time to time is to show an example of how to get a Flex app to produce a PDF file.

My thoughts were, "that shouldn't be too hard!". Now where do I find that code on Google? Ok, it was a little harder than I thought. I am new to Flex, so I had to work through getting the environment set up and figuring out how to load the external libraries. Another problem was that if you were using Flash Player 9, you couldn't create the PDF on the client, but had to use the server to do this. With Flash Player 10, they allowed you to write files locally, so this was the way I went.

Well, Google was helpful and took me to Holly Schinsky's Devgirl's Weblog where she created a Flex script for creating a PDF file for Adobe's Tour de Flex. So, this is where I will begin my journey.

I started by creating a new Flex Project and importing the Open Source AlivePDF library from http://code.google.com. (This might not have been the correct way to do it, but it worked for me.) I tried using the RC version, but for some reason it didn't work, so I ended up downloading the latest SVN version and that worked.

I wanted to start simple, so I created a basic UI with a multi-line text box and a save button. The save button then called a couple of functions from the AlivePDF library to create the PDF pages and then a call to the FileReference save method and poof you have a PDF file.

Building a PDF file using the AlivePDF library, is much like designing a graphical interface. You put your text fields and graphics at certain positions on the page and the library takes care of the rest. I am not good at UI's so I stuck with the basic and just put the text from the Flex text box into the PDF.

Here is what the I came up with.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" >

    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[

        import flash.display.*;
        import flash.events.*;
        import flash.net.*;
        import flash.text.*;
       
        import org.alivepdf.pdf.PDF;
        import org.alivepdf.layout.Orientation;
        import org.alivepdf.layout.Size;
        import org.alivepdf.layout.Unit;
        import org.alivepdf.saving.Method;
       
        import flash.utils.ByteArray;

        protected var frPDF:PDF;

        private function onSave(e:Event):void
        {
            frPDF = new PDF(Orientation.PORTRAIT, Unit.MM, Size.LETTER);
            frPDF.addPage();
            frPDF.addMultiCell(200,5,desc.text);
            var bytes:ByteArray = frPDF.save(Method.LOCAL);
            var f:FileReference = new FileReference();
            f.save(bytes,"sample.pdf");
             
        }
        ]]>

    </mx:Script>   

    <mx:Label top="10" left="10" text="Enter text, then press Save to PDF." />   
    <mx:HBox width="100%" height="100%" top="40" left="10" >
   
        <mx:Canvas top="10" left="10" width="300" height="100%">
            <mx:Label text="Description:" y="2"/>
            <mx:TextArea id="desc" y="18" height="133" width="205"/>   
        </mx:Canvas>
    </mx:HBox>
   
    <mx:HBox top="205" left="50">
        <mx:Button horizontalCenter="0" click="onSave(event)" label="Save to PDF" id="savePDFBtn"/>
    </mx:HBox>
   
</mx:Application>

There are a lot of different methods in the AlivePDF library, so have fun and play around with some of them.

Thanks,

William

Welcome Flex 4 (And for IPP Native Developers...Now What?)

Hello!!  My name is Anjali Kucheria and I’ve recently become a Developer Relations Engineer at the Intuit Partner Platform (IPP) team.  I’ve been a Flex Developer for some time now, specifically focused on the user-interface, styling and skinning aspects of development. I’m super enthused about my new role.  I’m also very excited about the launch of Adobe's new Flex SDK. I’m sure Flex developers will rejoice in  the enhancements in this new release!

Recently, Adobe released its much-awaited  version of the Flex Framework (Flex 4). Developed under the code name ''Gumbo", Adobe has enhanced the framework in several ways (Note: The Flex 4 development environment will be known henceforth as Adobe Flash Builder (previously known as Adobe Flex Builder):

•    Bridging the gap between designers and developers.  Adobe has built a new, comprehensive UI framework known as Spark.  Spark lies on top of the existing MX architecture, allowing the MX components to easily integrate with the new Spark components.  Spark also carries with it a new approach to skinning.  At a high-level, the new framework provides a clear delineation between the “look” of a component and the wiring behind a component.  For more information see  brief overview of the Spark architecture and component set".

•    Did you find yourself constantly struggling with the idea of States in Flex 3? Have no fear, With Flex 4, Adobe promises to unravel some of the complexities surrounding this often confusing, but also useful concept.  No longer will you need to use the <mx:SetProperty> for changes to button properties; Flex 4 denotes states simply by a dot notation   within the original component. For a more detailed explanation see: Flex 3 vs Flex 4 State Management.

•    Flex 4 allows you to connect to data services seamlessly.  For those who’ve done this with prior Flex releases, you will be pleasantly surprised with the new simplicity and intuitiveness.  The provided wizard interface eliminates common errors and misunderstandings and allows you to simply enter the required URLs.  To learn more, see Flex 4 & Data Wizards Make Life Easy.

•    Flex 4 allows for far more flexibility with layouts than in previous versions. Flex 4 introduces   layout objects which separates the layout logic from the component itself,  allowing far more design ingenuity. 

•    Flex 4 simplifies 2 way binding greatly.  All that a developer needs to do is add the ‘@’ character to the property that is to be bound.  For example to bind the text property of one Text areato another,  it can be done like this:

<mx:TextArea id=”textArea1”/>

<mx:TextArea id=”textArea2” text=’@{testArea1.text}’ />

What does this mean to IPP "Native" Developers?

We’ve developed a two-phased approach to transition our developers to the Flex 4 SDK and Adobe Flash Builder 4. What you can expect in the coming months:

•    We will be supporting Adobe Flash Builder 4(FB4) with the IPP SDK tools.  Initially, we will support FB4 with the Flex 3 SDK only.  If you choose to upgrade to FB4, you will automatically be upgraded to JVM 1.6.  For those who develop on a Mac and choose to upgrade to FB4, please be sure you run, or upgrade to, Snow Leopard.  Your application will not be backwards compatible.   Our recommended install is during this phase is Eclipse (Ganyanede 3.4/Galileo 3.5) with Flex 3.4 SDK and the Flash Builder 4 plugin.

•    Subsequently, we will support the Flex 4 SDK.  Once this upgrade occurs, your application can fully utilize the Fx and Spark component architecture (along with the existing Mx components) along with the state, layout and other Flex 4 SDK enhancements.

More details about IPP’s integration and support of the new Flex tools and SDK will be furnished upon the IPP tools 2.7 release.

In the meantime, we invite you to comment, ask questions/concerns you may have with regards to the Flex 4 and we will provide the necessary guidance. Also, please visit the forums IPP developer forums which is a great resource to post your questions as well as see other developers concerns and questions and the solutions. 

thanks!

Anjali.

Announcing IPP v2.5

The IPP team is excited to announce that IPP v2.5 is now live and available for IPP partners which includes:

1. STREAMLINING THE APPLICATION SIGN-IN/SIGN-UP (SUSI) EXPERIENCE

Several improvements and additional developer configuration options have been added to the IPP Sign-up / Sign-in (SUSI) experience.

Note: All changes are upwardly-compatible unless explicitly noted. New developer-facing enhancements are optionally configurable. End-user changes to make the SUSI process clearer and easier will be immediately available for new users signing up for App Center / Workplace applications.

Enhancements include:

• Google Analytics Tracking Modifications

  Due to the large number of SUSI improvements / optimizations added in the IPP v2.5 release for third party partners listed in more detail below, the tracking codes for Google Analytics used to analyze the Sign-up / Sign-in flow have been modified.

  
  

  Note: Third party partners using IPP’s Google Analytics reporting capabilities may need to revise their Google Analytics reports to reflect the new Page and UserAction tracking codes. Review the Google Analytics Release notes for more information.

• Fast-path sign-up for new customers (Trial/Free/Beta)

  By default in v2.5, new subscribers signing up for third party applications that offer a trial plan, a free subscription, or a beta plan are no longer prompted to select a subscription plan or enter payment info. This default reduces the number of steps a user needs to complete to evaluate the application. Third party partners have the ability to override this new default behavior when publishing their application.

• All-in-one sign-up page for third party applications

  The Intuit AppCenter SUSI experience has been redesigned for new customers signing up for paid-only applications as well as for existing customers signing up for additional application subscriptions (i.e. for multiple businesses). The four steps required to subscribe to an application have been consolidated into one page and the number of clicks significantly reduced. Prior to v2.5, this SUSI experience involved five separate pages.

• Third party SUSI customization options

  IPP v2.5 allows third party app partners to customize several aspects of the Workplace SUSI process:

  • App sign-in page customization

    Partners can add a custom image to the initial SUSI screen that prompts users to sign-in using their Intuit Account or create a new Intuit account. By default, this area includes an AppCenter / Workplace marketing image.

  • App sign-up page customization

    Partners can add custom content to the left hand margin in the all-in-one app sign-up page. By default, this area includes information pulled from the partner’s AppCard.

• Reduced number of fields required for business profiles

  In v2.5, the number of Business Profile fields a user must enter during the SUSI flow has been reduced from eight to two. Users are only prompted to enter a business name and phone number; address fields are no longer required or presented in the SUSI workflow. This change reduces the number of keystrokes / clicks end users must complete to sign up for an application.

• Improved help experience for new prospects / users

  IPP v2.5 includes a new help interface for prospects / customers who have login problems or general questions about a particular application. The AppCenter FAQ page has also been revised to include links to this help interface.

Get more information about these and other new IPP SUSI capabilities here.

2. IMPROVED CUSTOMER REPORTING

Several enhancements have been added to IPP’s customer reporting services. These include:

• The Trial/Beta Usage Report and Customer Detail Report, available to partners with published applications via their IPP Partner account, now includes phone numbers as well as email addresses for all application subscriptions.

• API calls return customer data with phone numbers and email addresses.

  The IPP QBDPDevCustomerDetail and QBDPDevFreeTrialUsage APIs have been extended to return phone number data as well as email addresses. This additional data is provided to partners so they can contact customers to resolve support and subscription issues.

Note: Partners are responsible for managing customer contact preferences within their application, as well as ensuring these preferences are honored based on the partner’s application privacy policy.

Follow this link for more information on these customer reporting improvements.

3. IMPROVEMENTS TO APPLICATION LAUNCH AND RUNTIME PERFORMANCE

With the v2.5 release, we enabled browser caching of IPP QAR file contents. IPP QAR file contents (including native IPP application SWF files, images, config files, etc.) are now stored locally in the user’s Web browser cache. Additionally, the IPP service checks to see if these assets have been updated since the last time the user logged in; if any changes have been made, the new version of the asset is downloaded and cached in the user’s browser. This enhancement eliminates the need to download this content every time a user logs in to their application, resulting in significant application start-up performance improvements.

Find more information on these IPP performance enhancements here.

4. ADDITIONAL APIS

We’ve added several new APIs to IPP v2.5, including interfaces to ensure app users have appropriate data access permissions levels.

A new API and standard IPP user-manager access point allows you to reset the base level permissions for an application to ensure all users have the appropriate data access permissions based on their role. This capability was added to address cases when (a) a customer admin inadvertently removed a permission, or (b) an app upgrade has changed role mapping or added new roles and permissions need to be refreshed.

For additional details regarding new APIs included in IPP v2.5, please review the documents located here.

5. SOFTWARE UPDATES / FIXES

For a complete list of software updates / fixes included in IPP v2.5,

please review the release notes here.

Thanks,

—The Intuit Partner Platform Team

IPP - Alterity's Story: From the Desktop to SaaS

It’s always exciting when a new app goes live on the Intuit Workplace App Center, and especially so when it is has been developed by a long-standing member of the Intuit Developer Network.

Brian Sweat of Alterity had good conversation (full recording as an mp3 here) with Redmonk’s Michael Coté to talk about the new Easy Analytics for Inventory, and why - as a 10-year-long member of IDN developing "traditional" desktop applications - Alterity is adopting IPP and the SaaS delivery model for the next generation of its products that integrate with customers' QuickBooks data.

Show Notes:

• Brian tells us about Alterity and their new offering, Easy Analytics for Inventory.
• I ask Brian to tell us how they started getting interested in using IPP and what the process was like getting up and running.
• We talk about the use of Flex and how the IPP platform integrates with the UI layer.
• Brian tells us about the ability to more closely track what users are actually using and doing (or not using) in a cloud-based application.
• While customers don’t seem to be overly concerned with cloud vs. desktop deployment – at this early point – Brain says the support and even install time on cloud seems much smaller than for traditional deployment options.
• This leads to a discussion about the other effects a PaaS, like IPP, has on a company’s structure: namely not having to worry so much about billing and other back-office concerns. And then there’s all the marketing Intuit does for them in the App Center.

The full recording as an mp3 here.

Got IPP Code Samples?

Where have all our code samples been?

Up until now we weren't keeping all of our code samples in one place. (What were we thinking?) Well, we finally added a code sample section on the IPP Dev Center website.

Our new code samples page has Flex, Intuit Data Service, and Federated app code samples, plus links to code projects on code.intuit.com that we think you will be interested in. 

Do you have some Samples you would like to share with your fellow IPP developers? Post on the forums or comment on this thread and we will take a look at them, and if worthy we may just add them to the Sample Code page...with full credit of course!

So what are you waiting for? Go get some sample code!

happy coding
-Jarred

Meet IPP at Boston Flex User Group, 5/12, 7pm at Adobe, Newton, MA

I'll be presenting at the Boston Flex User Group's next event, to be held on the evening of Tues, May 12th at Adobe Systems' Newton office (275 Grove St, Newton, MA) at 7 pm. Please feel free to come at 6:30pm or so and hang out before the talk. Pizza and drinks will be provided by Universal Mind. There will be a bunch of the IPP peeps there...we look forward to meeting with you!

Please RSVP at http://bostonfug.eventbrite.com/ if you're planning to attend.

Here's what I'll be talking about, along with a demo of the IPP stack with the IPP plugin for Flex Builder.

Today, millions of Small Businesses are adopting the SaaS model. These businesses need their data to connect, synchronize and interoperate across the multiple back-office and front-office applications and services they use to run their business. How will this work? How can the cloud help Small Businesses get more out of their data and leverage the functionality of the cloud? What are the opportunities for ISVs and SaaS providers and Flex developers to connect and program against the Small Business data cloud? This presentation will describe how Intuit’s PaaS offering: the Intuit Partner Platform, is enabling a brand new class of cloud connected services, SaaS and RIA offerings for Small Businesses, and how Intuit partners with ISVs and SaaS providers to solve real problems for millions of Small Businesses. In this session we’ll also be demonstrating how Flex developers can use their skills to take advantage of this huge opportunity.

--
Alex Barnett.
Dev Relations, IDN and IPP