Tag: fcClient

Some notes on using Oracle 11 Database Instant Client

September 16, 2009 I recently upgraded my day-to-day environment to Windows 7 (64-bit) using MSSQL 2008. This week I needed to do some Oracle work, so I needed to get DovetailAgent working with an Oracle 9 (technically 9.2.0.1.0) database, so I needed Oracle client software. The latest Oracle client version is 11, so I decided to give that a try. The actual Oracle database runs on a VM, so I just needed an Oracle client. Here are a few notes about getting this working. Install Oracle Instant Client Install the Oracle 11 Instant Client for your platform. I installed mine into C:\oracle\product\11.1.0\client_1 I went to edit the tnsnames.ora file, and quickly realized that there wasn’t one. A little googling led me to a helpful blog post at DBAToolZ. Environment Variables Following the instructions from that blog post, I created a new system environment…

Improving case history

January 12, 2009 The case history within Clarify has always been a bit of a sore spot with users for a long time. It was good - in that it made it easy to quickly review the details of the case. But, it did have its issues: Its just one giant text blob. You have no control over the formatting. Its in chronological order. Sometimes this is OK, but typically you scroll to the bottom to read the most recent activity. You don't have control over the timestamp format (DD/MM/YY vs. MM/DD/YY, as an example). The timezone of the timestamp isn't clear. It isn't easy to hide/remove certain entries. Its limited to 32K. If the case history his its 32K limit, users would see this message: THIS FIELD HAS EXCEEDED THE MAXIMUM LIMIT. THE ABOVE ENTRY MAY HAVE BEEN TRUNCATED. PLEASE REFER TO…

Commenting on Solutions

September 29, 2008 One of the things I've wanted to do for a long time is have the ability to add comments on objects within the Clarify/Dovetail system. As a specific example, I've wanted to be able to add comments to a solution. For those not versed in Clarify/Dovetail speak, a Solution is essentially a KnowledgeBase (KB) article. By allowing comments, I (and others) can (hopefully) enhance the information that is within the Solution. For example, consider a KB article that is available on the web, such as a Microsoft KB article, or a Dovetail KB article. Now, lets say that I use the information in that article, but I run into a bit of a snag, discover another tip or workaround, or perhaps I've even found something wrong in that article. What can I do? I'd like to be able to leave…

Customizing Seeker: Indexing and Searching Custom Objects

August 15, 2008 In previous posts, we've covered the basics of Seeker, along with searching custom attributes of an object (such as case.x_notes).Continuing on, lets look at how to index and search custom objects.In our environment, we keep track of the software license keys that we send to our customers, and we do this in our Dovetail system.This is an entirely custom object, so this will make a great example.The License Key TableUsing BOLT, we can quickly see what this table looks like:We need to know the database table information so we can modify the documentSpecifications.xml file. Modify the documentSpecifications.xml fileSeek.exe is the application that performs the actual indexing. The documentSpecifications.xml is the configuration file that seek.exe uses so that it knows what to index.The documentSpecifications.xml file consists of many dovetailDocumentSpecifications. For example, there is a specification for case, one for subcase, one for…

A handful of presentations on JavaScript and jQuery

June 24, 2008 John Resig (creator of jQuery) recently posted a bunch of his presentations online, focused on JavaScript and jQuery. Check 'em out. I'm fast becoming a huge fan of jQuery, and we're now using it a lot more within Dovetail Agent. Not only is the library itself cool - but the plethora of available plugins really make it rock.

Pretty Dates in JavaScript

May 5, 2008 A common way of expressing dates nowadays is to represent them as an approximate age.For example, rather than saying something happened at 5/5/2008 4:21:01 PM, we can say it happened one minute ago.I wanted to use this in DovetailAgent to show the age of the Search indexes. A little Googling brought me to John Resig's implementation of prettyDate() in JavaScript.I tried it out, it was OK.Looking through the comments on John's post, I saw that Dean Landolt posted an updated function that I liked better.I tried it, but it still had a few issues.Finally, Zach Letterman commented that he updated Dean's script, and posted a newer version.Success! Exactly what I was looking for.Now when I see my search results, I can also see how current my search data is, in an easy to consume format, without having to do any…

Hierarchical drop-downs in Dovetail Agent

December 10, 2007 Many customers use hierarchical (multi-level) drop-down lists in their Clarify/Dovetail implementations. So, when one level of a select list changes, the down-level lists change as well. Clarify allows up 5 levels for a list. As an example, in baseline Clarify, there's a list titled CR_DESC that is a three level list for CPU, Operating System, and Memory. When I change the CPU from PC to Sun, the operating system and memory lists need to change as well. Default values show: Changing the CPU to "SUN" changes the O/S and Memory lists: In a client/server app, this is pretty easy to do, as the onchange event of one list can simply update the down-level lists, either by making a call back to the server, or by accessing data that has been cached on the client machine. In a web application, this…

Automatic Subcase Creation

November 14, 2007 While working with a customer this week, they asked about automatic subcase creation, similar to Clarify's Task Manager module. For example, if a new case of type "New Employee" is created, then I want to automatically create 3 subcases: One subcase for setting up network accounts, dispatched to the network queue One subcase for ordering office furniture, dispatched to the furniture queue One subcase for ordering a new computer, dispatched to the hardware queue This is easily accomplished with a business rule and a simple script. The script A simple PowerShell script (my favorite new scripting environment) which takes 1 input parameter (a case id number), and then calls the CreateSubcase API that is part of the Dovetail SDK to create subcases and dispatch them to the appropriate queue. $connectionString = "Data Source=moorea;Initial Catalog=dovetail;uid=gary;pwd=not4youris"; $databaseType =…

Quick auto-login to Dovetail Agent (fcClient)

October 29, 2007 In a call center, most agents tend to stay logged into their CRM application all day long, as it is their primary use application. However there are also many other users who simply log in occasionally, do what they need to do, then log back out again. Personally, I fall into the later category. I log in and out of our Dovetail system all day long. Even more so, I log in and out of my development instance all day long. Which means every time I log in, I have to re-enter my password. Actually, I have to open IE, click my bookmark for my development Dovetail Agent site, enter my password, and click the Login button. Since I do this all day long, I wanted an easier way to do this. One Click Access Dovetail Agent (formerly fcClient) needs…

ASP.NET MVC framework

October 8, 2007 This was an unbelieveably exciting session at the ALT.NET conference. Scott Guthrie demo-ed an upcoming ASP.NET MVC framework. It rocked! The principles: Separation of concerns, unit testing, red/green TDD, maintainable Extensible and pluggable Enable clean urls and HTML Integrate nicely within ASP.NET + .NET core code, support static + dynamic languages Everything is based on an interface, including IHttpRequest and IHttpResponse, which makes them mockable. Jeffrey has a good overview here. I am not an ASP.NET developer. I am a Classic ASP developer. I have watched my co-workers develop ASP.NET (using webforms) and found it overwhelming and confusing. I have been recently watching Ruby on Rails developers, and I have been jealous. Templating that makes sense, clean separation of controller and views, explicit and clean HTML, and testability. At first look, it looks like Microsoft has encapsulated those same principles…