Author: Gary Sherman

Chief Technology Officer, Vice President of Products

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Posts by Gary Sherman:

Introducing New Log Email Templates for Cases and Subcases

August 23, 2018 Traditionally, when sending an email out from within Dovetail Agent, (using the Log Email) function, the send_email_about_obj com_tmplte is used. The same email template is used for both cases and subcases. I've discussed this template in past posts: The "From" Address of a Log Email Include a URL to the case in outgoing emails Encouraging SelfService use - Include a link in outgoing emails Example send_email_about_obj template Here's an example of the template: TO: <FOCUS.recipient> CC: <FOCUS.cc_list> FR: <FOCUS.sender> RE: About Case <ADDITIONAL_INFO> : [Case Title] [Subcase Title] <FOCUS.message> Log Email API This template name is coded within the LogEmail API within the Dovetail SDK. We've recently made some enhancements to the LogEmail API to allow for different templates to be used between cases and subcases. We now support two new templates: send_email_about_case send_email_about_subcase send_email_about_case When performing a log…

Introducing Personal Slack Notifications using Dovetail Rulemanager

August 21, 2018 When employees are notified as part of a business rule action, the notification method is determined by the employee’s notification preference. We've recently added support for Slack as a personal notification preference. The default notification methods are: Email Notifier Forward to my Supervisor Tone Pager Text Pager Digital Pager None Dovetail Rulemanager also supports SMS, which will send an SMS message (text message) to an employee’s configured device, typically their mobile phone. Refer to a previous post SMS Notifications using Dovetail Rulemanager. Now, Dovetail Rulemanager also supports Slack as a notification preference. Instead of getting notified by email, a user can choose to receive notifications within Slack. What is Slack Slack is essentially a chat room and messaging platform for your whole company, commonly used to replace email as your primary method of communication and sharing. Slack Notifications Instead of getting notified by email, a user…

Automatically routing cases using Dovetail Carrier’s AutoDest Toolkit Extension

August 15, 2018 Dovetail Carrier has a number of extensions that greatly enhance your Dovetail/Clarify system. One of the more recent extensions is the AutoDest Toolkit Extension. AutoDest Toolkit Extension This extension allows for automatically assigning or dispatching workflow objects based on an auto-destination rules. Typically, these messages will originate from Dovetail Rulemanager (such as from a business rule action), although they can also originate from custom applications as well. Example Message type=CallToolkit toolkit=AutoDest method=execute ObjectType=case Operation=DISPATCH Id=12345 This example would evaluate the DISPATCH auto-destination rule for case 12345, and if a destination queue is found, the case would be dispatched to that queue. Auto-Dest Rule Here's an example of an auto-destination rule: (calltype2gbst_elm:title = "Equipment Repair") -> "Equipment Repair"; (calltype2gbst_elm:title contains "Payroll" ) -> "Payroll"; (calltype2gbst_elm:title contains "Benefits" ) -> "Benefits"; (title contains "Benefits" ) -> "Benefits"; objid > 0 -> "Support…

What’s New in Dovetail Agent 20

August 13, 2018 We recently released Dovetail Agent version 20. Here’s a run-down of the highlights. Interactions Dovetail Agent now includes Interactions functionality. An Interaction is just that - a way to capture any type of interaction you may have with a customer. In call centers, it's common to capture every call as an interaction. A customer may call into the call center to check on the status of an order, or to inquire about a billing question, etc. Each of these can be captured as an interaction in the system. Create Interaction In many service centers, a case is overkill for tracking these simple inquiries. We want to capture that we've interacted with the customer, but we don't need all of the more complex workflow that goes along with a traditional support case. But, in some instances, an interaction may…

GDPR and the Right to be Forgotten

July 24, 2018 Recently I've been having more and more conversations around GDPR, and specifically the Right to be Forgotten portion of the regulation. So if we have a customer that asks to be forgotten, how do we deal with that? And what does that mean within our Clarify/Dovetail systems? Often, the conversations dive into what data do we need to get rid of. Customer Information In our CRM / case management systems, the customer record is pretty contained. We have the contact table for the person itself, which has the person's name, phone number, email address, etc. And we have the e_addr table, for their additional phone numbers, email addresses, and web sites. There's some slight differences if we're dealing with B2C or B2B organizations. With B2C, where we might be dealing with Individual Contacts, we may also need to deal with the related…

Automatically Scheduling and Tracking Work Items

April 3, 2018 I recently heard a customer question regarding how to manage scheduled work - such as task-based initiatives that need to be done at specific times of the week, month or year. How could I setup a task based scheduling system where I could build out my list of tasks, the frequency, attach the job aide/work instructions, then have the system assign it to a specific queue when the time for the task to be done comes up. These would all be scheduled items. Once I set the frequency of the task, there would be an engine/function that would create these tasks. I would also like to be able to report on these tasks, if they were completed, etc. As I was thinking about this, I broke it down into a few items: How could we track/manage an individual piece of work? How…

What’s New in Dovetail Agent 19

March 27, 2018 We recently released Dovetail Agent version 19. Here’s a run-down of the highlights. Download Search Results Users have always been able to download the results of a query, but now they can also download the results of a search as well - in either Excel or CSV format. Download Search Results The output columns when downloading search results will be the same output columns as when a query result is downloaded, and are easily configurable using a filter.config file. So it's easy to add or remove additional columns, and that change will automatically apply to both query and search results. Search Results - Excel format Download Limits A new configuration setting (DownloadMaxRowCount) defines the maximum number of items that can be downloaded, from either a query result or a search result. This helps…

How to Quickly Test Dovetail Carrier Messages

October 24, 2017 A common workflow is to have a business rule fire, and that business rule will send Dovetail Carrier a message. For example, when a customer updates a case via SelfService, we can have a business rule fire that sends an SDK Toolkit message to Carrier, and Carrier will change the case status to "Customer Update". Complete end-to-end Testing When I'm putting this all together, and testing it out, a full integration test would be to log into SelfService, and log a note to a case. That would cause Rulemanager to fire a business rule which would send the message to Carrier, then Carrier can do its thing. So I have multiple apps in play here: Dovetail Agent, for setting up the business rule Dovetail SelfService, which is how the customer updates a case Dovetail Rulemanager, which processes the business rule…

Finding a Business Rule based on its message

September 26, 2017 If you receive a business rule notification message, but you're unsure as to exactly which business rule it came from, there's a few ways to find the originating rule. Notification Message For example, lets say that you received the following notification: Email Notification How do I find which business rule caused this notification to be sent? There's actually a few options here. 1. Dovetail Agent - Query Business Rule Actions Using Dovetail Agent, create a query for Business Rule Actions Dovetail Agent - Query Business Rule Actions And filter for Message Contains something happened This will show you a list of rules that contain that string in the message. Dovetail Agent - Query Results Clicking one of the results will take you to the Business Rule itself. [caption id="attachment_7594"…

How to Include Calculated Data in Query Results

September 19, 2017 I've blogged before about the Filter Config and Filter Overrides within Dovetail Agent. I totally dig this feature, as it makes it super easy to customize the queries within the app without having to write code. We know it's easy to show data that comes from a database column within the query results - such as a contact's name or phone number. But what if we wanted to show something that is more dynamic? i.e. something that needs to be calculated? For example, in the result set for contact queries, what if we wanted to show the number of open cases that a customer has? There's not an existing field in the database that contains this data. The number of open cases needs to be summed up. So how can we do this in a query? SQL Views to…