Cross-App URLs being Renamed in Web Maps

[JCGuarneri]

Bit of a head scratcher here. I'm trying to configure a custom app url to invoke activity in Cityworks Mobile. I'm configuring the URL per Cityworks' documentation, and the link works if I open it in a browser on the mobile device. However, it does nothing in Collector, Field Maps, or Explorer. After some digging, I confirmed that it was configured correctly and passing all the correct information when I set up the popup in the map in Portal, but when that map is reloaded, the url is changed. The URL I setup is:

cityworks9://createWorkActivity....

After a reload, it's changed to:

#createWorkActivity....

I suspect the link Collector, etc, see is the latter one, which would explain why it doesn't react like a link.

I have a similar link setup to connect to Survey123 in several maps, and I have not encountered this issue before. Is there some kind of setting that I'm missing on the Portal end to allow the Cityworks url to stick?

Edit: I've also discovered this is an issue in ArcGIS Online, so it's clearly not tied to my environment or to the Enterprise version.

[JCGuarneri]

I've been working with Esri tech support; no solution yet.

I have discovered that other urls in this format get renamed, such as ms-outlook://compose to open Outlook gets changed to #compose on refresh. If I enter as the "URL" random dictionary words with no # / : etc, such as "taco", the URL doesn't get changed. All the Esri ecosystem URLS are unaffected, so clearly there's some way that Portal knows those URLs are OK. I need to find a way to let Portal know that my third-party URLs are OK.

[JCGuarneri]

The official take from Esri support is that this is out of scope for support, since it's a URL to open a third party application. I'd agree if the case was that the the link failed to open the third-party app, but the issue is the link is getting modified by the Esri platform. Very disappointed.

[JCGuarneri · Accepted solution]

I've found the solution to my own problem. Using Arcade, I was able to build the custom URL that way and return it as text in a popup field. From there, I simply had to pass that value into the Hyperlink function in a custom attribute display. It returns the correct link when you click on it, in desktop and mobile, and I was successfully able to launch the Cityworks mobile app.