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Author: Gary Sherman

Chief Technology Officer, Vice President of Products

Gary Sherman
Gary Sherman
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Using the web APIs in Dovetail Bootstrap

March 21, 2012 Kevin recently blogged about Dovetail Bootstrap, a free, sample application which helps Dovetail SDK developers get up and going and creating web applications quickly.   The code for Dovetail Bootstrap is open and available on GitHub. Feel free to watch, fork and improve the code.   One of the capabilities demonstrated in Dovetail Bootstrap is a web API – specifically the Create Case API. I wanted to do a quick walkthrough of calling this API.   Wikipedia has this to say about Web API: A web API (Application Programming Interface) is typically a defined set of HTTP request messages along with a definition of the structure of response messages, typically expressed in JSON or XML. While "web API" is sometimes considered a synonym for web service, the Web 2.0 applications typically have moved away from SOAP-based web services towards more direct REST-style communications.   The example we’re showing here fits into this definition nicely. Simple, direct, REST-style interfaces. Usage  …

Clarify Technical Consultants

March 19, 2012 For any of you Clarify peeps out there looking for a gig, I was contacted by some folks looking for Clarify developers for a 6 month position in New Jersey. Sounds like you need to be onsite in NJ. Could turn into a longer gig if things work out.   You must know the Classic Clarify Toolset: Classic Client, ClearBasic, UI Editor, etc.   Knowledge in any of the following is a bonus: Sql Unix shell scripting, Perl UDB/DB2 MQ Series XML, XHTML, HTML Tuxedo C / C++ Java, J2EE   If you’re interested, contact me, and I’ll connect you with the right people.   Also, if this position isn’t right for you, but you’re interested in some Clarify consulting work now or in the future, reach out to me anyway. I tend to get a bunch of requests for Clarify developers, and…

Business Rule: Only notify certain queue members

March 8, 2012 This week I was posed an interesting scenario from a customer. They have certain users who need access to every queue. But, they don’t want those users to be notified when a case is dispatched to that queue. For example, lets say that the Maintenance queue has 4 members: Fred, Annie, Gary, and Steve. Fred and Annie are regular users. But Gary and Steve are part of the Network Operations Center (NOC). The NOC has access to every queue, as they need to be able to peek inside each queue to see what’s there, read the case titles, etc. But, since the NOC belongs to every queue, they get a lot of business rule notifications – one for every case that gets dispatched to a queue. But they don’t need to get all of those notifications. So how do we…

Business Rule: Only notify certain queue members

This week I was posed an interesting scenario from a customer. They have certain users who need access to every queue. But, they don’t want those users to be notified when a case is dispatched to that queue.   For example, lets say that the Maintenance queue has 4 members: Fred, Annie, Gary, and Steve.   Fred and Annie are regular users.   But Gary and Steve are part of the Network Operations Center (NOC). The NOC has access to every queue, as they need to be able to peek inside each queue to see what’s there, read the case titles, etc.   But, since the NOC belongs to every queue, they get a lot of business rule notifications – one for every case that gets dispatched to a queue. But they don’t need to get all of those notifications.   So…

The Undo UI Pattern – even in Clarify using ClearBasic

February 23, 2012 A common UI pattern you see today is the Undo pattern.   The Undo pattern, as described by Patternry:   People tend to make mistakes when interacting with applications. Making one mistake can throw away hours of work. Therefore users should be have an option to easily undo their actions and get their work back.   What problem does the pattern solve? Whenever there is an opportunity to lose work, the program should allow undo actions. The more costly it is to lose data, the more important it is to provide undo. Never use a warning when you mean undo.   This pattern is inspired by Aza Raskin’s article “Never Use a Warning When you Mean Undo”. Undo in Clarify   We see this pattern a lot in contemporary applications, but there’s no reason you can’t also implement this pattern in legacy…

Dovetail Mobile on tablets

January 17, 2012 The question has come up a few times: can I use Dovetail on a tablet?  Well, Dovetail Mobile supports mobile devices, and a tablet is a mobile device, so it should work, right? Yes, indeed it does. Our Dovetail Mobile app works great on tablets.   And for and for those Clarify customers who want to access their Clarify system via smartphones and tablets, Dovetail Mobile is a great choice for this. We’ve certainly seen more and more organizations allowing employees to use their own devices, so having apps that are compatible with a user’s device is important. Web apps are a great choice for this.   I’ve captured a few screenshots using a few different devices (iPad, Kindle Fire, and a Motorola Xoom), so you can see that Dovetail is compatible with a variety of tablets.     iPad   Kindle Fire  …

What’s new in Dovetail Mobile / Dovetail Agent Lite version 2.1

January 13, 2012 Dovetail Mobile 2.1 was recently released, so I wanted to to highlight a few of the things that are new in this release.   BTW – did you know you can subscribe to our Dovetail product release RSS feed? This allows you to stay up to date about new releases.   Unified Mobile and Agent Lite   Dovetail Mobile now provides users with 3 view modes: Classic Mobile, Modern Mobile, and Desktop.   Desktop: for laptops and desktops. Sometimes referred to as Dovetail Agent Lite. Modern Mobile: For modern mobile devices like iPhone and Android Classic Mobile: Minimalist version for older smart phones   In previous versions, you would pick either Desktop mode or Mobile mode when setting up the application. If you wanted to run Mobile and Agent Lite (Desktop mode) you would need two instances of the application.   Now,…

What’s New in Dovetail Agent 4.5 : Part 3

January 12, 2012 We’re continuing on with highlighting some of what’s New in Dovetail Agent 4.5. Part 1. Part 2. Multiple phone numbers and email addresses for contacts I’ve posted in the past about multiple email addresses for a contact, and how we have existing schema for this within Clarify, but we needed the UI to support this. Dovetail Agent now provides this UI. Contacts can now have unlimited phone numbers and email addresses. There is a new Phone/Email tab used to manage the phone numbers and email addresses for a contact. In addition, all of the additions/changes/deletes of these email and phone numbers are tracked in the activity log: Link Solutions to Closed Cases A common workflow we see here is: 1. A case is opened for a customer 2. We work with the customer to figure out a resolution to the…

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

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…

What’s New in Dovetail Agent 4.5 : Part 1 : Console

Dovetail Agent 4.5 was recently released, so I figured it was a good time to highlight a few of the things that are new in this release. BTW – did you know you can subscribe to our Dovetail product release RSS feed – so you’ll always know about new releases? Console Improvements We’ve improved the user interaction quite a bit in the main console pages. Right-click operations replaced by Actions button. Previously, you could right-click on an item in the console to perform workflow and log operations. This is how it used to look: Right-clicking in web-apps is not really expected. So we’ve replaced it with a more common and expected Actions button located at the top of the page. If there’s only one item selected, the menu will show all of the actions available for that item type: If…