What are Components?

Bigin toppings are made of basic building blocks called components, which allows you to quickly create custom user interfaces (UI), workflows, properties, and functions. The Bigin Developer Console comes with a stock of pre-built software components, including custom buttons, fields, widgets and related lists. You can simply add and configure these components for your topping to create a custom functionality.

Once you create a new topping draft in Bigin Developer Center and complete initial setup, you must add the components to your blank topping and then configure it. You can construct the topping from the developer console, where you can find the components on the left pane of the console.

The left pane of the developer console contains the following components:

  1. The Components section contains the customization components such as fields, links, buttons, widgets, and related lists that allow you to add to the topping as needed.
  2. The Custom Properties section is used to create custom variables that allow you to easily make system-wide changes and customizations.
  3. The Settings Widget section is used to set up an interface for performing the recent configurations during the installation of toppings.
  4. The Automate section contains the components that help to accomplish recurring tasks. This section is categorized into the following depending on the type of automation.
    • The Workflow component is used to create a set of actions and execute them when a certain specified condition is met.
    • The Schedules component is used to schedule a custom action and execute it on a recurring basis.
    • The Functions component is used to perform a specific set of operations, which are independent from modules and can be triggered inside any of the workflows.
    • The Signals component is used to create customized real-time notifications and raise them as signals on important customer interactions.
    • The Custom Actions component is used to create tailored actions using workflow widgets and deluge functions in addition to the default actions.
  5. The Install Actions section allows you to create an installation script to run a basic function while installing, updating or uninstalling a topping.
  6. The Templates section allows you to create customized document types such as emails and newsletters for a steady flow of business and to improve customer outreach.
  7. The Connections component allows you to establish authentication with other Zoho or third-party services that helps to perform integration and access data stored on those services.
  8. The Connected Apps component allows you to create an integration between Bigin and external widget applications.

Types of components

The components are classified into four main types depending on the purpose of its working and behavior via topping. For example, some of the components are directly added to the user interface, invoke actions, change properties, establish links between records, and automate recurring tasks.

When you create a topping, based on your requirement, use any of the following types of components: