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Clarify / Dovetail – in the Cloud

December 17, 2015 "The Cloud"Recently, we migrated our Clarify/Dovetail implementation to the cloud. Specifically, into Amazon’s AWS infrastructure.We setup a sandbox environment a couple months ago, and then migrated our production instance this month.As far as I know, we have the only Clarify production implementation running in the cloud.If you navigate to our support site at https://support.dovetailsoftware.com – that’s all running in AWS.We have multiple AWS servers/components in play, as well as some tools that we use, which I’ll cover in more detail here. Application ServerThe app server is Windows Server 2008 R2 DataCenter edition.No surprise, we run our Dovetail suite of applications, including:Dovetail AdminDovetail AgentDovetail MobileDovetail Agent ReportingDovetail SelfServiceBOLTBootstrapCarrierRulemanagerSeekerSchemaEditorArchiveManager (DIET)In addition, we also have some of our own customizations, including:Custom web servicesCustom Rulemanager actions (mostly Powershell scripts)Custom scheduled tasks (mostly Powershell scripts) Database ServerThe database server is Windows Server 2008 R2 DataCenter, running  Microsoft…

Improving our Slack integration

December 10, 2015 SlackLast year I posted about Integrating Clarify/Dovetail with your group chat app. That post was around the time we started using Slack for our group chat.At that time, I was using Slack’s simple webservice to post messages about cases. OriginalFor example, case dispatch notifications looked like:Simple. But not very detailed. ImprovedRather than just using Slack’s simple web service, I’m now using their Attachments, which allow for more richly formatted messages.Notice there’s now much more information available, including:Top-level message (In this case,  “Case Dispatch Notification”)Case IDContact and Site NameCase title (which links to the case in Dovetail Agent)SeverityQueueLink to the case in Dovetail Mobile And it’s easy to add whatever other relevant information in there that I would like. Business Rule ActionThe business rule that fires on case dispatch now calls the CaseMessage.bat file, like so:C:\Dovetail\RuleManagerActions\slack\casemessage.bat [Object ID] dovetail "Case Dispatch Notification"To that BAT file,…

Using Broadcasts to Share App Tips

December 8, 2015 BroadcastsOne of the features in Dovetail Agent is Broadcasts. I described them in a previous post.A broadcast is used to communicate a message to all users.Broadcasts appear in the user’s notification drawer – along with Notifier messages (such as from business rules).Notice the megaphone icon which helps identify it as a broadcast.Tip of the weekOne of the ways I’ve been using broadcasts here at Dovetail is to share application tips.I do it once a week, on Mondays, so my users get a Tip of the Week.Collection of TipsNotice the broadcast also includes a link to View Past Tips. This is a link to a solution within Agent that contains the collection of tips.So when I add a new tip, I create it as a broadcast, and update the solution with the new tip.SummaryThere you go – a tip about using…

Improving Log Emails

December 7, 2015 Even with today’s prevalence of web applications, a lot of service and support operation interactions are still done by email.With some recent updates to Dovetail Agent and Dovetail Rulemanager, these emails can step into modern times.A simple link in your outgoing emailIn a previous post on encouraging selfservice use,  I showed how to automatically include a link to the case within Selfservice in outgoing emails:Whenever we send an email out from a case using our Dovetail apps (Dovetail Agent, Dovetail Mobile), we include a footer in the email, like so:Notice the footer of that email:Check the status and update your case online at our SelfService site:http://support.company.com/cases/show/C12345HTML emails, including imagesMore recently,  I showed how users can send rich emails using Dovetail Agent 8, such as: Better togetherCombining these 2 ideas together means we can make our outgoing emails even nicer, with headers,…

What’s New in Dovetail Agent 8

November 13, 2015 This week we released Dovetail Agent version 8. Here’s a quick rundown of the major changes. Rich Text in Logs Agent now support rich text (using Markdown) on case/subcase logs (email, notes, research) and commitments. For example, creating a richly formatted Log Email:   And the received email looks like:   Convert Markdown to HTML for rendering rich text These rich text logs and images now render as expected in the Case History: And in the Preview Pane:   Rich text is also supported within Broadcasts:   within business rule notifications: and even within commitment messages:   Multiple count badges in tab headers Subcases tab on Case page - show open and total # of Subcases Part Request tab on Part Request Header page - show open and total # of Part Requests Contracts tab on Site page - show…

Why “Happy Employees” Leads to a Successful Software Vendor Relationship

September 28, 2015 As I was pondered a topic one of my colleagues, Rayanne Thorn, wrote about, Understanding Employee Engagement, it got me thinking deeper about a vendor’s employees, and whether prospects should consider how engaged or happy employees are at a software vendor they are considering as part of their decision-making process. I think they should and let me take you through my reasoning.Evaluating VendorsWhen a customer is evaluating vendors, at the top of their list is usually the vendor’s ability to meet their technological needs. If they can’t meet that, all of the other considerations are mute. After that, close behind are: 1) price; 2) the vendor’s ability to deliver on what they commit to; and 3) the vendor’s customer support. At the end of the day, I consider #2 and #3 to be the most important considerations prospects should consider.…

Customer Service and Enterprise Software

September 11, 2015 Customer Service in Your Selection of Software VendorsI was reading Naomi Bloom’s blog post, “In Enterprise Software and Luxury Accommodations, Details Matter and No Disappointment Accepted” and it got me thinking.  While Naomi is referencing HR software, her points apply to all Enterprise Software and she makes a really good comparison, yet I will add another element, Customer Service. Things will happen, whether at the luxury accommodations or with your Enterprise Software. The key question becomes what does the establishment/vendor do when there is a problem? That will probably be what you remember more than the actual problem.Addressing Enterprise SoftwareIt is inevitable that there will be problems during implementation. Any software vendor who tells you they never have problems is lying to you. Expectation differences, communication gaps, the customer environment is slightly (or vastly) different than the vendor was told/expected…

What’s New in Dovetail Agent 7

August 19, 2015 This week we released Dovetail Agent version 7. Here’s a quick rundown of the major changes.   Part Requests Logistics customers will be happy to know that we’ve brought Part Request functionality into our latest Dovetail Agent platform. This includes: Create and Edit Part Request Headers and Part Request Details Part Request Workflow operations: Accept,Assign,Dispatch,Forward,Reject,Yank,Close,Reopen Part Request Actions: Create New Part Request, Replicate Part Request Part Requests are available in My Work, Queries, Recent Items, and Search Part Request Header Part Request Detail   Batch Actions – Change Status and Log Notes Change Status and Log Note are now available as batch actions, making it easy to log a note or change the status of many cases or subcases at one time.     Range select On the query results grid (such as My Work), users can shift-click to select…

Considering SaaS to Replace Your Legacy Amdocs/Clarify Deployment?

SaaS to replace legacy Amdocs Clarify
August 11, 2015 On-Prem to SaaS Over the last 15 years or so as legacy Amdocs/Clarify deployments gradually began to be replaced by other on premise CRM providers such as SAP and Siebel (two we used to see often), companies somewhat knew what they were getting into. They had experience implementing a fairly similar CRM at least once by that point. They knew it was going to be a relatively timely, resource intensive and costly upfront expense to rip and replace. However, as SaaS and various other hosted CRM offerings came along, the enticement of a less costly upfront expenditure, combined with more out-of-the-box configurability from the user and admin standpoint showed promised. Whether it’s an on premise or SaaS solution being considered for rip-and-replace to legacy Clarify deployment, they both have serious challenges that require extremely careful forethought to help ensure success…

DIET: DELETE + INSERT instead of UPDATE

June 30, 2015 When we have to insert, update, or delete data, DIET (Dovetail ArchiveManager) is often the tool of choice. Updating an object Typically, when we want to update some data, we just need to define its uniqueness properly. For example, if I wanted to update a business rule property name,  I could define its uniqueness as a combination of its object type + name. For example: OBJECT TYPE="prop_name", NAME="commitment case id" UNIQUE_FIELD=obj_type, prop_name FIELDS obj_type=30; /* object type 30 = commit_log */ prop_name="Case ID"; path_name="case_commit2case:id_number"; subtype=0; val_type=0; max_len=255; END_FIELDS END_OBJECT NAME="commitment case id" If I used DIET to import this file, and this prop_name  record didn’t exist in the database, then it would do an INSERT, which would create this prop_name record. If I used DIET to import this file, and this prop_name record did exist in the database, then it…