Tag: search

CRM access across the organization

July 6, 2016 I was recently speaking with a customer who wanted to allow his sales team to have access to data within the Dovetail / Clarify system. For example, before a sales person speaks with a customer, he probably wants to review recent cases for that customer, see the state of their contracts, what orders they’ve placed recently, etc. Normally, it’s just the support reps and logistics team that might be working with the system. But there’s no reason we can’t grant access to the information within to others in an organization. Request The request I got was to build a custom web application that allowed members of the sales team to have access to all of this data in a read-only way. Allow the sales rep to search for a customer site, and then view all sorts of information about…

Seek and ye shall find – the power of Search in Dovetail apps

June 12, 2015 A common fixture in our apps is the ubiquitous search box. It’s available in Dovetail Agent, Dovetail Mobile, Dovetail Agent Lite, and Dovetail SelfService. It’s even available for the Clarify Classic Client.The heavy lifting for search is all handled on the back end by the Dovetail Seeker application. But the front-end is what users interact with, so we’ll cover that here.(BTW - If you’re looking for information on Dovetail Seeker, check out one of these posts, or review the docs.)On the surface, it’s pretty easy to use – put in some search terms and find what you’re looking for. But there’s a lot more power available, and I wanted to touch on a few of these options.For the most part, I’ll cover search within Dovetail Agent, although much of this applies to all of our applications.What can we search for?Out…

What’s New in Dovetail Agent 4.5 : Part 2 : Search and Query

January 12, 2012 We’re continuing on with what’s New in Dovetail Agent 4.5. Part 1 is available here. Simplified Search Tips We’ve simplified the Search Tips page, making it easier for users to understand all of the robust searching capabilities that are available. Simplified Date Searching We’ve simplified searching using a date/time property. The baseline date/time range search can be a little cumbersome. For example, to search for items created in December of 2011: created:[20110101 TO 20111231] That syntax is still available for use, but we’ve expanded data/time searching for some common scenarios. Search for items created today: created:today Search for items created in the last 30 days: created:30days And that number (30) can be any number: created:7days, created:365days, etc. And, of course, you can combine this with other properties and keywords, and even save it as a favorite. Here’s my search for…

How much disk space do I need for Seeker indexes?

May 25, 2011 As we continue to roll out new instances of the Dovetail Seeker search engine to our customers, one question that frequently arises is: How much disk space do I need for the Dovetail Seeker indexes? A little background Dovetail Seeker contains two major components: indexing and searching. Before you can search for your data, you need to index it. An index is a collection of searchable data organized into documents, each having many fields of information. Every document in the index is a potential search result with each document's field potentially containing one or more searchable terms. For example, you will likely wish to search for cases. For each case in the system, the indexing application will add adocument to the index containing details about that case. The document will contain at least an id, title, and case summary. Once…

Search Webinar follow-up

February 2, 2011 Thanks to those that attended today’s webinar on Search. We had a good turnout, and some good questions from attendees. Slides The slides from today’s presentation are available on slideshare Links Dovetail Seeker Product Page : http://dovetal.es/dovetail_seeker Try it out: Just click the Search link at http://support.dovetailsoftware.com Call for Ideas Have an idea for a topic for a future session? Please share! We'd love to hear your ideas. Interested in presenting, or co-presenting a session? That would be great! You can leave a comment here, or drop me an email at gary@dovetailsoftware.com

Reminder: Search webinar this week

January 31, 2011 Just a little reminder that I will be hosting a webinar this week on use of search in Clarify / Dovetail systems. Topics Search usage Search Technologies – Traditional and Contemporary Use of search in different applications Search as part of workflow Architecture Extensibility Demonstrations When Wednesday, February 2, 2011 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (Central Time) Register Register at: https://dovetailsoftwareevents.webex.com/dovetailsoftwareevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=661099603

Complimentary Webinar – Contemporary Search for Clarify / Dovetail Systems

January 18, 2011 For years, organizations have been filling their CRM system with information. A common challenge is finding this valuable information within. In this webinar, we’ll cover traditional approaches to search (including the challenges of these approaches), and then we’ll look closely at use of a more contemporary search solution, including non-traditional ways to use search within a Clarify / Dovetail system. Topics Search usage Search Technologies – Traditional and Contemporary Use of search in different applications Search as part of workflow Architecture Extensibility Demonstrations When Wednesday, February 2, 2011 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (Central Time) Register Register at: https://dovetailsoftwareevents.webex.com/dovetailsoftwareevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=661099603 Call for Ideas Have something specific you’d like to hear or discuss in the Search webinar? Let’s hear it! Have an idea for a topic for a future session? Please share! We'd love to hear your ideas. Interested in presenting,…

Now available: Dovetail Seeker 2.0

September 30, 2010 Dovetail Seeker 2.0 Dovetail Seeker 2.0 is now available. A couple of previous blog posts gave some sneak peeks into the major enhancements. Rich Document Indexing We have added the ability to index and search the contents of rich documents such as Portable Document Format (PDF) or Microsoft Office documents. You can now index and search attachments (case attachments, solution attachments, etc.) You can also index and search files (that aren’t attachments), such as product documentation, whitepapers, etc. An example of searching attachments: An example of searching external documents: New Architecture Benefits We are now using a message oriented architecture for document indexing. This means that Dovetail Seeker is easier for us to maintain. Better yet it's performance has markedly improved. Another benefit is that you can now re-index individual dovetail or file specifications. In fact, modifying the document…

Seeker Indexer Architecture Changes

August 6, 2010 Great changes are happening with our Dovetail Seeker search product. I wanted to talk about a core change to the product. By moving our application architecture to use messaging we are seeing increased flexibility, testability and performance. Why Messaging? Based on our experience building Dovetail Carrier (pdf), our messaging oriented enterprise integration solution, we decided messaging was a great fit for Seeker’s search indexing windows service. We decomposed the indexer’s behaviors into work (message) producers and consumers. For example to keep your database in-sync with the search index we have a service which watches the database for changes to the objects Seeker is indexing. When a database item is added or updated a message is created which gets put onto a work queue. We have many message consumer threads standing by waiting for work to munch on. Our message consumers…

Dovetail Seeker Sneak Preview

July 27, 2010 Kevin Miller did a recent sneak preview of Dovetail Seeker 2.0, which we’re hard at work on here.Here’s an additional sneak preview of search capabilities from the Agent side of things.Search attachmentsSearch case attachments, solution attachments, etc.Search external documentsSearch product documentation, whitepapers, technical bulletins, etc.