Unily revolutionizes integrations with Hendrix Connect

A big part of fulfilling Hendrix’s true potential comes in the form of our November release. With the user experience engine in place, we now want you to be able to display information and content from your entire digital landscape in one portal. With that in mind, let me introduce Hendrix Connect. This improvement to our user experience engine takes us one step closer to reaching the aspirational goal of a truly connected digital workplace. The widgets you build and use in Unily can now reach further and do more than ever before. 

Understanding Hendrix Connect

Hendrix Connect is our framework for supporting connections and integrations with external third party business tools. This will enable you to retrieve information, display content and carry out transactions through Unily widgets. In simple terms, Unily knows who the current user is and carries a security token related to your Azure Active Directory that confirms this identity. Hendrix Connect allows widgets to make web API based requests for information, and at the point of making the request, Unily passes that security token into the other system to confirm the user’s identity and access. As long as this system is using Azure Active Directory for authentication and you have setup an appropriate API in Unily, information and requests can move back and forth securely and remain relevant to the current user.

Post this first release of Hendrix Connect, we will be expanding this feature to cover a number of additional authentication models for your integrations. In the first quarter of next year we will be supporting the OAuth 2 Authorisation Code pattern which will support integrations with applications such as SAP Concur, Salesforce, Jira, Egnyte, Google, Dropbox, Slack, Vimeo, DocuSign, Pinterest and more. We will be covering additional OAuth 2 patterns thereafter to build out the capabilities of Hendrix Connect further. If you are planning for future integrations into your digital workplace and you are not sure where to start, then simply get in touch with us and we can investigate the best way forwards together.

Uses cases

Right now, you can start using Hendrix connect with any third-party tool that and that has web APIs that support Azure AD Authentication. As a simple starting point this would include all of Office 365. That means we can make API based requests to any Office 365 application that has them available. Please see just a few simple scenarios below that will help you to establish the value for your digital workplace.

Example 1: Connecting modern collaboration spaces

Many of our customers are currently exploring Microsoft Teams, which is quickly becoming Microsoft’s flagship collaboration tool. These effective collaboration spaces make great hubs for projects and group activity, harnessing various Office 365 technologies. With Hendrix Connect, in no time at all every user can have their specific Teams and Channels accessible in just one click from their Unily homepage, delivering a highly relevant and productivity focused homepage experience. Equally any story, event, best practice or insight could be one click shared directly into your Teams chat, adding value to your work.

Example 2: Staying on top of your workload

Another popular tool within Office 365 for managing task driven processes or engagements is Planner. With simple views a Plan can help a user to manage their tasks relating to one piece of work at a time. Using Hendrix Connect a simple widget can be created that extends across all of a user’s Plans, or even just their most recent Plans, that aggregates tasks into a cross project and process dashboard. It has never been easier for a user to keep track of what they have to do and when in a single glance.

To find out how Hendrix Connect can enhance your digital workplace technology, contact us today.