+5
Pending Review

Launch Backstage via URL

cps 5 years ago updated by Zac Janes 6 months ago 3

Please provide the ability to directly launch a Backstage session from a URL, as is currently possible for a console/ desktop session.

At present it is possible to open a new session via URL by appending /Join to its base URL. For example, if the URL for the computer is:

https://myscreenconnect.com/Host#Access/ALL//aa3103ac-1d11-4cec-aeb2-21dd5621f9c5

This opens the host page. But by appending /Join as follows:

https://cer.mynetgear.com/Host#Access/CER//aa3103ac-1d11-4cec-aeb2-21dd5621f9c5/Join

This launches a console/desktop session. This is extremely useful in constructing integrations to third party tools without having to get third party engineers involved or having to dip into APIs. For example, we use this capability in order to integrate Connectwise Control with Datto RMM (formerly Autotask). We have also constructed shortcut keyboard macros for directly launching sessions from a text selection of the computer name.

More often than not we prefer to launch into Backstage with these integrations. Please provide a /Backstage option similar to the existing /Join option.

Hello. Do you have the command line for the component you crated in Datto RMM?

Thanks!

It has been some time since I have looked into this as our company moved on from Datto RMM, so my recollection is a little fuzzy. Also I'm retired now, so some of this is slipping away into the ether.


That said, I created a component that would query the target computer for its computer name from the %COMPUTERNAME% environment variable. From this, I creates a screenconnect path and stuffed that into one of the Datto RMM user defined fields. That latter step is done by pushing a registry value, and the technique is documented in the Datto RMM online docs. This component was run on each computer as part of our onboarding process automation.

As for constructing the URL, just mimic the path that you see in ScreenConnect when you click on a target client. It will show something like the path (https://myscreenconnect.com/Host#Access/ALL//aa3103ac-1d11-4cec-aeb2-21dd5621f9c5), based on the grouping structure you use in your ScreenConnect. The long string at the tail end is the ScreenConnect Session ID which is unique for each target computer, but you don't need that. You substitute that with the name of the computer. 


This user defined field then is populated with the ScreenConnect link, so if you double-click it, it will open ScreenConnect focused on the target computer.

In a similar vein you can create utilities to launch ScreenConnect in various ways. For example, here is a vbs script to launch based on the clipboard contents. For example, suppose you have a ticket for the client that identifies the computer name. You can grab the name into the clipboard and then run this script. That sequence could be automated into a keyboard hotkey:


Dim wshshell
Set objHTML = CreateObject("htmlfile")
ClipboardText = objHTML.ParentWindow.ClipboardData.GetData("text")
Set wshshell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
wshshell.run """C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"" https://...." & ClipboardText ,1,False
Set wshshell = Nothing
wscript.Quit

Of course you will need to substitute the actual url path (minus the computer name) for (https://....).

Hope this helps.

Would love the feature to join backstage via a URL