Bullhorn’s OpenWindow API

An Inside look into Bullhorn’s Internal APIs

2 min readJun 17, 2016

Introduction

Thank you to everyone that came to Engage 2016 and visited us in the Bullhorn Connect room. This was our first year with a developer track and we hope you found it informative and useful.

Abstract

Internally at Bullhorn we have to open new pages within the CRM from different contexts of the application or externally from emails or from other products offerings. This API is publicly accessible and can be used by our partners as well.

Use Cases

The API lives under one endpoint, all you need to do you open a new browser window to the following urls. If Bullhorn is running in another tab then the window will close and the page will open within the current Bullhorn context. If Bullhorn is not running the user will be prompted to login before being brought to the page.

https://www.bullhornstaffing.com/BullhornStaffing/OpenWindow.cfm

Every OpenWindow calls has a few required params:

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ParamsDescriptionentityDefine the Entity type for the page you want to openviewThe tab, section, or view to open, eg. Add, Edit, Notes

Opening Add Forms

Candidate:         /OpenWindow.cfm?entity=Candidate&view=Add
ClientContact:     /OpenWindow.cfm?entity=ClientContact&view=Add
ClientCorporation: /OpenWindow.cfm?entity=ClientCorporation&view=Add
JobOrder:          /OpenWindow.cfm?entity=JobOrder&view=Add
Placement:         /OpenWindow.cfm?entity=Placement&view=Add
Opportunity:       /OpenWindow.cfm?entity=Opportunity&view=Add
Lead:              /OpenWindow.cfm?entity=Lead&view=Add

If you want to add a note to any of the top level entities you can use the AddNote view:

/OpenWindow.cfm?entity=Candidate&view=AddNote

Or alternatively you can use the Note entity and pass all of the references yourself:

/OpenWindow.cfm
    ?entity=Note
    &view=Add
    &action=Phone Call
    &comments=Really interesting message
    &personReferenceID=123       // About
    &otherPersonReferenceIDs=1   // Candidate, Lead, Contact 
    &jobOrderReferenceID=1       // Job references
    &opportunityID=456           // Opportunity references
    &placementReferenceID=1      // Placement references

Overview Pages

The same concept can be applied for the overview pages using the Overview view parameter, just make sure you remember to include an id parameter as well:

/OpenWindow.cfm?entity=Candidate&id=12345&view=Overview

If you want to open a the activity tab on the overview you can use the Activity view parameter. Additionally you can use the expandedSection parameter to have a specific section open:

/OpenWindow.cfm?entity=Candidate&id=12345&view=Activity&expandedSection=Interviews

The Edit tab can be opened with specific Edit view parameters:

/OpenWindow.cfm?entity=Candidate&id=12345&view=Edit

Disclaimer

The OpenWindow API has been changed frequently over the years as new entities and sections of the application get added or updated. The API is stable and no foreseeable changes are planned. This Article does not include all of the features in the OpenWindow API or any of the nuances that might exist just the most common use cases. If you have any question or need to open a window that is not listed please ask them in our Gitter channel.