Synopsis
The API is fantastic but in most cases API users do not want to replicate WHD functionality. API users are looking for fairly light touch integration and want to refer external application users back to WHD for actual workflow.
EX: A customer service agent is using a CRM tool. There is a custom screen in this tool that retrieves a given clients tickets. For a given ticket they may want to interact with it, change settings etc. Rather then replicating all of that functionality in the CRM they would prefer to click a link that loads WHD to the appropriate record.
Current State
Currently tickets, probably accidentally as a byproduct of the dev process, have canonical URLs
Ex: /helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk.woa/wa/TicketActions/view?ticket=55937
No other object type has a similar canonical URL for external reference.
Request
Add canonical URLs for objects (starting with the Client object). This will create a much easier integration for API users since they will not be forced to replicate workflow in their CRM.
Rationale
API users want data, we are not interested in replicating WHD workflow in our apps. Thats why we bought WHD. Without canonical object URLs its very difficult to create a seamless customer service experience for internal reps without recreating workflow. Canonical URLs are an elegant and simple way to solve this problem and fairly standard in a world of RESTful services.
While this seems minor it takes up to 1-2m per customer interaction to move from CRM to the WHD tool, search, locate and retrieve. That adds up to a lot of context switching. We recently implemented direct ticket links from our CRM to WHD and our CS agents have been through the moon happy and excited. It has seriously changed their lives. While the time savings seems small we have found that it dramatically reduces cognitive load and increases customer rep happiness.
