Author: Gary Sherman

Chief Technology Officer, Vice President of Products

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Customer Success Story: custom workflow using the SDK Toolkit extension in Dovetail Carrier

November 14, 2016 Recently, I talked about the new SDK Toolkit Extension in Dovetail Carrier, which allows for executing methods within the Dovetail SDK Toolkits, without writing any code.I also discussed how I was able to remove some custom scripts from our own production environment, and replaced them with this new SDK Toolkit extension.I absolutely LOVE this new capability within the system, and I’m super excited to see how our customers use this power.I received an email from one of our customers this past week detailing how they’ve been able to take advantage of this new functionality.Just wanted to pass along that we implemented a biz rule action to call into the Support SDK directly in PROD. Pretty awesome stuff! Use case here is that an external process creates cases in our system via a sproc, but they wanted some additional controls as…

Query Anything with Dovetail Agent

November 11, 2016 In this post, we’ll look at how to create new ad-hoc queries to query anything in your system, purely via configuration.For those that have been around the Clarify/Dovetail/First Choice space for a while, you might remember that we used to have an add-on product for the Clarify Client named Query Anything. So yes, this post title is a nod to that. This is a continuation of the series on queries within Dovetail Agent, so it might be useful to first review the previous posts:An overview of configuring queries in Dovetail AgentHow to override the baseline queries Out of the box, Dovetail Agent allows for ad-hoc queries on:AccountsContactsContractsEmployeesSite PartsSitesThese are all great – but its common that we want to query on other objects – other baseline Clarify objects, or even custom objects.Lets walk through an example of how to do this. Inventory QueryFor this…

Customizing baseline queries in Dovetail Agent

November 10, 2016 In my last post, I covered the Query Filter Config files, and how they’re used to define a query.Now, lets have a look at how we can override the baseline queries, customizing them for your specific implementation. Customizing a filter config doesn't mean you have to write rewrite the existing ones. You can write a config file just describing the customizations you need.We call these Filter Overrides.Using filter overrides, we can:remove a Columnremove a Facetremove a Fieldadd a Facetadd a Fieldadd a Columnadd a Join Example Filter OverrideThis is an example of a custom filter override file.We’ll override the Cases query, which is part of My Work, and adhoc queries on Work Items.<filter overrides="Cases">  <removeFacet key="priority" /> <removeColumn key="priority" /> <!-- Remove the created column. We'll…

Configurable and Customizable Queries in Dovetail Agent

November 8, 2016 I’ve talked in the past about the power of queries within Dovetail Agent and how end users can build and use them.In this post, I’ll dive a bit deeper into how queries are configured, and how they can be configured and customized. Query ConfigurationQueries within the app are driven by filter config files. This includes:Adhoc Queries available from the top-level Query menu, including:Work Items (Case/Subcase/Solution/Change Request/Part Request)Accounts, Contacts, Contracts, Employees, Site Parts, SitesCustom queriesTabs that contain filterable queries (such as the Contacts tab on the Site page) Filter Config FilesFilter Config Files are XML files that define:what tables/views are being queriedjoinswhat filters (facets) are available for the user to filter the query bywhat non-facet fields are queried for use in output datawhat output data is returned to the front-end of the application (columns)required privilege to make the entry available in the top-level…

Comparing Parent-Child Cases to Subcases

November 4, 2016 Within Dovetail Agent, we support both Subcases, and Parent-Child Cases. A common question is: What’s the difference, and when would I use one vs the other? So lets address that question here. Subcases Subcases allow for multiple employees to work in parallel on a single Case. You can “subcontract” pieces of the work to other employees. For example, we may have a Case for a New Employee. As part of that, we can create 3 subcases: Create a General subcase for setting up the employee’s network account and dispatch to the Network queue. Create an Administrative subcase for ordering business cards and assign to the office admin. Create a General subcase for creating the user’s account in the CRM system, and dispatch to a queue based on auto-destination rules. All of those 3 subcases can be worked by different…

What’s New in Dovetail Agent 13 – including expanded queries, T&E tracking, and parent-child cases

November 2, 2016 We recently released Dovetail Agent version 13. Highlights include: Log Time and Expenses Parent-Child Cases Individual Contacts Adhoc Queries Querying with a specific time History improvements for small images Lets take a closer look at these. Log Time and Expenses Cases and Subcases now include Time and Expenses tabs, allowing for tracking billable and non-billable time and expenses. T&E logs are often used in Field Service organizations, but many other service and support organizations use this functionality as well. Time and Expense logging can be enabled/disabled individually on a system wide basis, and is also privilege-class controlled, allowing organizations to control who is allowed to log T&E. Time On the Time tab, we include a summary of time broken down by Billable and Non-billable categories. In addition, we include any time logged as part of the Log…

How to include a solution in a log email

September 27, 2016 Photo by @justmekirsty When working a case, we can link a solution to the case, indicating that the given solution resolves the problem at hand. Now that we’ve linked it, we often want to email that solution to the customer. Using the Canned Responses feature within Dovetail Agent, this is easy to do. I see two options for how we could email the solution to the customer: Send the customer a link to the solution, which allows them to view it online in a Selfservice/WebSupport-type app Send the customer the actual solution content Lets look at how to do both of these options. Admin Setup – Rule Properties The first thing we want to do is be sure that our Sys Admin has setup rule properties for the Linked Solution. Canned Responses uses these rule properties for resolving…

Replacing custom scripts with the SDK Toolkit extension

September 19, 2016 Recently, I talked about the new SDK Toolkit Extension in Dovetail Carrier, which allows for executing methods within the Dovetail SDK Toolkits, without writing any code. Once that was released, I was able to remove some custom scripts from our own production environment, and replaced them with this new SDK Toolkit extension. Change Status This is the business rule that we has in place: Object Type Case Rule Name/Description When a customer logs a note via SelfService, change the case status to Customer Update Start Events Log Note Cancel Event None Conditions Logger = SelfService Action Title Change Status Create Activity Log Entry? true (checked) Who to Notify no one (leave empty) Start Action 0 minutes From Event Creation Using Elapsed Time Repeat Never Message Type Command Line Message C:\Dovetail\custom\RuleManagerActions\ChgStatus\ChangeCaseStatus.bat [Object ID] 'Customer Status changed automatically due to action…

Refresh Cache actions in Dovetail Agent

September 16, 2016 Within Dovetail Agent, there are two different Refresh Cache actions Refresh Application Cache Refresh User Cache This post is a quick rundown of what they do and how they’re different. Refresh Application Cache From the Admin menu, there’s a Cache option This controls the application cache which includes schema, lists (application and user-defined), configuration items, strings, etc. When the application starts up, a bunch of information that rarely changes is cached, to improve application performance. The most common use of this is for when you change list values – both application lists (such as Case Type), and user-defined lists (such as Contact Expertise). You can edit your lists using Dovetail Admin, refresh the cache in Agent, and the updated list values will appear. Refresh User Cache On the user Profile page, there is a Refresh Cache link.…

Simplify and Reduce your Auto-Destination Rules using printf

September 13, 2016 Photo by @benchaccounting When setting up your auto-destination rules, it’s easy to end up with rule bloat, sometimes due to no fault of your own. Due to business requirements, you may end with a lot of rules, which end up making it difficult to manage all of them. For example, we may have auto-dest (routing) rules that dispatch a case to a queue based on its case type and the country of the reporting site/contact. If the contact is in the USA, and it’s a Payroll case, send it to the USA_Payroll queue. If the contact is in the USA, and it’s a Benefits case, send it to the USA_Benefits queue. If the contact is in France, and it’s a Payroll case, send it to the France_Payroll queue. If the contact is in France, and it’s a Benefits case,…

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