Build applications

You can build applications that extend Relativity by using the Application Deployment System (ADS). ADS provides a framework for application development by helping you leverage existing functionality in Relativity, such as views, layouts, and other features. It also simplifies the packaging of custom code. You can upload this code to Relativity and associate with an application that you create through the Relativity UI. When you finish developing your application, you can easily export a RAP file for installation on other Relativity instances or in specific workspaces.

This page contains the following information:

• Use the ADS
• Write custom code for applications

See these related pages:

• Build your first application
• Create an application in Relativity
• Best practices for building applications
• Advanced functionality for the application framework
• Develop application event handlers
• Loading application resources
• Troubleshoot applications errors

Use the ADS

You can use ADS to develop applications by creating new components through the Relativity UI and by uploading custom code. You can create these components to provide a unique look and feel for your applications:

• Custom pages – add your own cascading style sheets (CSS), JavaScript, HTML, and images to these pages. See Customize the UI.
• Views – control how item lists are displayed. See Views on the Relativity Documentation site.
• Layouts – provide web-based forms for viewing and editing fields. See Layouts on the Relativity Documentation site.
• Tabs – provide links to custom pages and Relativity object pages. See Tabs on the Relativity Documentation site.

You can use these components to provide additional functionality in your application:

• Relativity Dynamic Objects (RDOs) – create your own business objects and then further define object rules to refine their behavior. See Editing Relativity Objects.
• Fields – store data about an object or store choices. See Fields on the Relativity Documentation site.
• Choices – provide list of predetermined values that users can select in a field. See Choices on the Relativity Documentation site.
• Relativity scripts – link custom SQL and other scripts to your application. See Develop scripts.
• Saved searches – link saved searches that use keyword, dtSearch, and Analytics indexes to your applications. See Saved search on the Relativity Documentation site.
• Dashboards – link custom dashboards to your application. See Dashboards on the Relativity Documentation site.

In addition, you can use the base classes provided for these components to extend Relativity:

• Agents – used to develop back end processes. See Build agents.
• Event handlers – used to customize workflows and support events associated with installing, uninstalling, creating, and deleting application components. See Customize workflows and Develop application event handlers.
• Mass Operation handlers – associated with specific object types so that you can select multiple instances and then perform a specific action on them all. See Develop Mass Operation handlers.

Writing custom code for applications

The main components of a Relativity application generally include event handlers, custom pages and agents. These components can share common code by using interfaces available in the Relativity.API NuGet package. The interfaces provided by Relativity.API Helpers expose functionality used for these operations:

• Interact with the database.
• Retrieve authentication tokens.
• Perform other operations.

In addition, your application should reference the Relativity.Kepler NuGet package which provides an abstraction layer and creates proxies to various extendable parts of the platform. From there, you can reference specialized NuGet packages that define specific API layers that Kepler services, such as Relativity.ObjectManager and Relativity.Services.Interfaces.