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Author: Gary Sherman

Chief Technology Officer, Vice President of Products

Gary Sherman
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Business Rule Usage Reports in Dovetail Agent

September 12, 2017 A few years ago I wrote a post titled Getting the most out of your business rules. Most of the information in that post is still relevant today.  In that post, I discussed how we can analyze the data inside our database to see which rules are firing and how often. We can do this using a Business Rule Usage Report. This report tells us what business rules are firing along with how often. Perhaps even more importantly, it allows you to see the rules that are not being fired. Perhaps those rules could be removed, or made inactive, therefore simplifying business rule administration. Or maybe they should be firing, and need further investigation.These reports are now available within Dovetail Agent.  Makes sense to have this data available right alongside where you create and edit your business rules. Business Rule Usage ReportFrom the Manage…

Parent-Child Cases Extension in Dovetail Carrier

September 5, 2017 One of the available extensions within Dovetail Carrier is the Parent-Child Cases Extension, which allows for automating workflow processes involving parent and child cases. Quick Refresher on Parent and Child CasesWith parent and child cases, we can relate a group of similar problems with a root cause. The parent case identifies the root cause. A child case is a customer problem that arises due to the root cause and is linked to the parent case.For example, suppose someone knocks out a utility pole, which causes an internet outage for many customers.Each customer may call into the call center and report the outage. We can relate all of these cases to a parent case, which is where the repair is being tracked. Updates on the repair are tracked within the parent case. Only one case needs to be updated, thus removing duplicate…

New in Dovetail – Configuration Item Rule Properties

August 29, 2017 We've recently added support for Configuration Item Rule Properties in Dovetail Rulemanager and Dovetail Agent. In this post I'll cover what they are, why you'd want to use them, as well as a few examples.   First, a quick refresher on Rule Properties and Config Items. Rule Properties Business Rule Properties are used in a number of places throughout the Dovetail suite, including: Business Rule Conditions Business Rule Action Messages Canned Response Variables Email Log Templates Traditionally, a rule property would traverse a path through the schema, starting from the base object, and ending at a column. For example, the Contact First Name property for a case would use the path case_reporter2contact:first_name. However, there are instances where a static value may be desired, and this static value cannot be traversed to via a schema path. In these instances, a Configuration Item Rule Property is…

What’s New in Dovetail SelfService 3

August 22, 2017 We recently released a major update to the Dovetail SelfService app. There's SO many great new capabilities here.I would group these enhancements into 2 major categories:Dynamic Content, Pages, and Menus - making it easy to create and edit content throughout the app Knowledgebase Enhancements - making the knowledgebase much more prevalent, approachable, and functional Lets take a run through the highlights of this release.  Dynamic Home Page ContentWhen a user logs into SelfService, they're immediately taken to the Home page.In the past, if you wanted to change what was displayed on the home page, you would need to customize the HTML page content, and re-deploy the application.Now, the home page content comes from a solution. So you can easily edit the solution using Dovetail Agent, and the home page is dynamically updated. SelfService Home Page Rich ContentSelfService supports the use of…

SMS Notifications using Dovetail Rulemanager

August 15, 2017 When employees are notified as part of a business rule action, the notification method is determined by the employee's notification preference. The default notification methods are:EmailNotifierForward to my SupervisorTone PagerText PagerDigital PagerNoneDovetail Rulemanager recently added support for one additional option: SMSAn SMS notification will send an SMS message (text message) to an employee's configured device, typically their mobile phone.  SMS Notification Message Users can set their notification preferences for SMS, just like any other preference. SMS Notification PreferenceCouldn't we do this before?In the past, if you wanted to send SMS messages, we would typically use a custom replacement paging application for Rulemanager. This custom script would call into a 3rd party web service, or  use the cell provider’s email to SMS gateway. These solutions all required custom scripts, and ended up being additional processes that Rulemanager needed to…

Introducing the Webhooks Extension in Dovetail Carrier

August 8, 2017 We recently added a new extension to Dovetail Carrier - a Webhooks Extension.  What's a webhook?Webhooks are "user-defined HTTP callbacks". They are usually triggered by some event, such as pushing code to a repository or a comment being posted to a blog. When that event occurs, the source site makes an HTTP request to the URI configured for the webhook. Users can configure them to cause events on one site to invoke behavior on another. The action taken may be anything.This allows for making a web request based on an event within your Clarify/Dovetail system. A business rule can fire based on the event. Dovetail Rulemanager will evaluate the rule, and send a message to Dovetail Carrier. With the webhooks extension, that message can tell Carrier to make an HTTP request.When Carrier receives a message with a type of InvokeUrl, the…

Dovetail Agent Themes

August 1, 2017 We recently added Themes to Dovetail Agent. Users can now pick a theme that fits their personal style preference.  We currently ship with 3 themes in Agent 18 (Default, Dark, and Quiet Light), and we've recently added a new Blue theme as well (part of Agent 19). Default Theme Default Theme - My Work Default Theme - Case Page Dark Theme Dark Theme - My Work Dark Theme - Case PageQuiet Light Theme Quiet Light Theme - My Work Quiet Light Theme - Case PageBlue Theme Blue Theme - My Work Blue Theme - Case PageUser PreferencesUsers can select their personal Theme preference from the User Preferences page in Dovetail Agent.  User Preferences - Theme Selection Custom…

Collecting In-App User Feedback in Dovetail Agent

July 25, 2017 In a previous post, I covered the basics of Action Items, and how they can be used. Here, I'll illustrate how we used action items as a way of capturing user feedback within the Dovetail Agent app.   Within the page header in Dovetail Agent is a Send Feedback icon. Send Feedback Icon / Link in Dovetail Agent   Clicking that opens a Send Feedback form. Send Feedback Form   It's a very simple form - a dropdown for the subject: Suggestion, Bug, Compliment, or Question, and then a Feedback text box, where the user can type in some feedback. This feedback mechanism allows our users to easily report a bug, ask a question, or send us a compliment about something within the app. Upon submitting the form, the user gets a…

Action Items 101

July 18, 2017 Dovetail Agent has a number of Work Item types. The most common are Cases, Subcases, and Solutions.In addition, there are Change Requests, Part Requests, and Action Items.Not everyone is familiar with Action Items, so this post will cover the basic of action items - what they are, how you might use them, and how they compare to cases. Action Item BasicsAction Items are simply a task that needs to be completed.The task could be any number of things - depending on how you wish to use them.For example, an Action Item could be used:To setup a customer's online account for SelfService/WebSupportAs an Operations task, such as upgrading a serverTo track a contract renewal processetc. Action Item in Dovetail Agent You can use different action item types for different tasks, so you're not limited to a single use case for…

Free Collection of Business Rule Recipes

July 10, 2017 I've often stated that Rulemanager and Business Rules within Clarify/Dovetail are the most powerful (but often underused) components of the system.And when you combine Rulemanager with Dovetail Carrier, it gets even more powerful.To demonstrate some of this power, I've created a collection of business rule recipes that will educate and inspire you to make the most of your business rules.There's over 30 business rule examples, and they stretch across a number of areas, including:User NotificationsWorkflow AutomationCustomer NotificationsIntegrating with third-party services/appsTask ManagerCalling external apps/scriptsSLA Rules (Service Level Agreement)Bonus!There's also a Business Rule Template, which is helpful when defining new business rules.It can be provided to business users, who can fill out the template and submit it to the technical staff.Get It!This Collection of Recipes and the Business Rule Template is completely free.Simply click the button below to get free access.Access the Business…