OutSystems Forge: Find, Install, and Use the Best Components

Open a browser and go to forge.outsystems.com. Use the search bar to find what you need — search by feature name (e.g., 'PDF generation', 'chart', 'date picker', 'QR code'). **Reading quality badges on each component listing:** - **Trusted by OutSystems** (gold shield) — developed and maintained by OutSystems. Full testing, versioned with platform releases. Use by default. - **Supported by OutSystems** (blue shield) — reviewed and validated by OutSystems. Not built by OutSystems but passes a quality bar. Safe to use. - **Registered** (grey badge) — community contribution. Not reviewed by OutSystems. Check the reviews, last update date, number of installations, and the component's own documentation before using. **Compatibility filters — always check:** 1. Platform version: O11 or ODC (or both) 2. App type: Reactive Web, Mobile, Traditional Web 3. Last updated date — a component last updated 3+ years ago may not work with current platform versions 4. Number of installations — 10,000+ installations is a strong signal of reliability 5. Reviews and comments — scan for reported bugs or compatibility issues

Once you have identified a component to install, click the green **Install** button on the Forge listing page. This opens a dialog: 1. Select the target environment (for Personal Edition, only one environment is available) 2. Review the dependencies — Forge components often depend on other Forge components. These will be installed automatically. 3. Click 'Install' to confirm Forge installs the component as one or more OutSystems modules in your environment. The install process: - Downloads the module (.OML file) from Forge - Publishes it to your environment automatically - Makes it available to all developers in the environment **Alternative — install directly from Service Studio:** In Service Studio, go to the top toolbar → 'Forge' tab (or use the Forge panel in some versions) → search for the component → click 'Install'. Same result as the browser flow. **After installation:** The component module appears in your environment's application list. You do not need to open it or modify it — just reference it.

Installing a Forge component to the environment makes it available, but your application module must explicitly reference it before you can use its elements. In Service Studio, open your application module. Press **Ctrl+Q** to open Manage Dependencies. In the left column, find the installed Forge component module (search by name if the list is long). Check the checkbox next to each element you want to use: - **Actions** (Server or Client) — server or client-side functions from the component - **Blocks** — reusable UI components you can drag onto your screens - **Structures** — data types defined by the component - **Static Entities** — lookup data from the component Click **Apply**. The selected elements appear in your module tree: - Actions appear under Logic tab → your referenced elements - Blocks appear in the Toolbox when you are editing a screen (under the component's category) - Structures appear under Data tab → Structures TrueChange validates that all dependency signatures match. If the Forge component was updated with a breaking change, TrueChange will show red errors indicating signature mismatches.

1/* Example: Adding OutSystems Charts as dependency
2   1. Ctrl+Q → find 'OutSystemsCharts' module
3   2. Check: LineChart (Block), BarChart (Block), PieChart (Block)
4   3. Click Apply
5   4. Open screen in Screen Editor
6   5. Drag 'LineChart' block from Toolbox onto screen canvas
7   6. In Properties: set SourceDataPointList to your Aggregate data
8*/

With the dependency added, open a screen in the Screen Editor (Interface tab → UI Flows → your flow → double-click a screen). In the Toolbox on the left, scroll down or search for the component's blocks. They appear under the component's category heading. Drag a block (e.g., a chart block, an accordion, a file uploader) onto the screen canvas. With the block selected, the Properties panel shows the block's Input Parameters — these are how you pass data to the block. **Common pattern — binding data to a block:** 1. Drag the block onto the canvas 2. Select the block → Properties panel 3. Find the data-binding input parameter (e.g., `SourceDataPointList`, `IsOpen`, `Content`) 4. Click the expression editor icon (pencil icon) next to the parameter 5. Set the expression to reference your local variable or aggregate output **Events:** Many blocks expose events (e.g., `OnToggle`, `OnSelect`, `OnUploadComplete`). In the Properties panel under Events, set each event to a Client Action that handles the interaction.

These are the most widely used Forge components as of early 2026, organized by use case: **Charts and data visualization:** - **OutSystems Charts** (Trusted) — bar, line, pie, area, scatter charts. Reactive and Mobile. Wrapper around Highcharts. **PDF generation:** - **Ultimate PDF** (Supported) — HTML-to-PDF for Reactive Web. Required because HTMLToPDFConverter is Traditional Web only. Most popular PDF solution for Reactive. **File operations:** - **Advanced Excel** (Registered, high install count) — advanced Excel export with formatting, multiple sheets. - **ZIP** (Supported) — compress/decompress files. **Authentication:** - **IdP Connector** (Trusted) — SAML 2.0 SSO with Azure AD, Okta, and generic IdPs. O11 only. **Integrations:** - **REST API Forge components** for Stripe, SendGrid, Twilio, Slack, OpenAI, Google Maps, AWS S3. **UI utilities:** - **Signature Pad** — touch/mouse signature capture. - **Rich Text Editor** — WYSIWYG text input (TinyMCE wrapper). - **QR Code Generator** — generate QR code images. **Performance:** - **Caching API** — in-memory caching for expensive server actions.