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Tag: Gary Sherman

Search your Clarify/Dovetail data

July 28, 2008 Dovetail Seeker is our search engine for Clarify/Dovetail. One of the things I really like about Seeker is that its easy to take advantage of its search results from different applications. Because Seeker is a web service, its relatively easy to have applications use this search service. For example, we've added Search capabilities to Dovetail Agent and to Dovetail SelfService. We've also added Search to our external website, and Search can also be added to the Clarify Classic Client.  Many applications can use the same instance of Seeker for searching:     Request/Response Each of these applications simply make an HTTP request to Dovetail Seeker, and the results are returned in a JSON format. JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format that is easy for humans to read and write, and also easy for machines to parse and…

ITIL certification

July 17, 2008 I've been diving into ITIL in more detail lately, understanding IT best practices, and how our products and processes match up with the guidance set forth by ITIL. What is ITIL? ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) is a public framework that describes Best Practice in IT service management. It provides a framework for the governance of IT, the "service wrap", and focuses on the continual measurement and improvement of the quality of IT service delivered, from both a business and a customer perspective. Certification On occasion, people have mentioned ITIL certification, asking if our products are ITIL certified. So I started doing some exploring of ITIL certifications. The predominant company doing ITIL product certifications is PinkElephant. Their certification program is called PinkVerify. From their website: PinkVERIFY is a service Pink Elephant has provided to the IT Service Management (ITSM) community since…

App.ShowSolution in ClearBasic

July 7, 2008 I'm sure most of the ClearBasic brainiacs already know this (and I may have at one point), but the parameter to App.ShowSolution is a record of type "workaround", not a record of type "probdesc". I probably knew this at one time, but its been a long time since I've done ClearBasic coding. I'm blogging this so that I can find it again in the future, with Google's help, of course.   If you call App.ShowSolution with a probdesc record, you get this ever-so-helpful pile of joy: Cannot map specific relation (type 1 with relation -3). Uh, yeah. Thanks. No, really. That was a helpful message. I'm in awe of your ability to render something so utterly useless. Freakin' programmers.   Working code example: Sub ShowObject(objectType As String, idNumber As String)     If objectType = "solution" Then objectType = "probdesc"    …

Highlighting Priority Cases

June 30, 2008 A common customization within Clarify is to highlight priority cases in a wipBin or queue by setting their color. For example, make High Priority cases really stand out by coloring them red. Clarify Classic Client The ClearBasic Customization Guide has a couple of examples on how to do this with the Clarify Classic Client. However, the customization was commonly applied to the Queue and wipBin forms - not the console. As a reminder: to view the wipBin form, simply double-click a wipBin from the list in the left side of the console. Similarly, for the Queue form. However, since about Clarify version 4, no one typically used these forms - the new console form was what was used. However, the console form can't be customized. I did a search on this to confirm my memory, and found my own post…

DeleteById in Dovetail SDK

June 25, 2008 In the Dovetail SDK, there is a DeleteById method on the ClarifyGeneric object. This is useful when you know the objid of the record you want to delete. Perhaps the objid is posted to a web page, or you've pulled it out of a relation column from a different record. DeleteById is available via the .NET interface. It is not available on an fcGeneric object via the COM interface. How can we DeleteById in COM? Simply use the AddForUpdate method, then do the Delete. Example: var objid = 268435459; var modem = FCSession.CreateGeneric('modem'); modem.AddForUpdate(objid); modem.Delete(); modem.UpdateAll();

A handful of presentations on JavaScript and jQuery

June 24, 2008 John Resig (creator of jQuery) recently posted a bunch of his presentations online, focused on JavaScript and jQuery. Check 'em out. I'm fast becoming a huge fan of jQuery, and we're now using it a lot more within Dovetail Agent. Not only is the library itself cool - but the plethora of available plugins really make it rock.

Support by Group Chat

June 9, 2008 One of the more interesting ideas I've seen kicking around the blogosphere is support by group chat. We use Campfire here at Dovetail as a group chat application, and we love it. It allows all of us to share information, even when we may be in different cities, and working different schedules. The chat history is saved, so its easy to catch up on past conversations. Campfire also allows us to easily upload and share files and screen shots. Overall, its been a great addition to our team's communication. (On a related note - we've shown examples in the past about sending Rulemanager notifications to Campfire here and here.) I like the idea of allowing customers to jump in and join the Campfire conversation. Probably have a room specific for this purpose. Not only would it allow interactions between agents…

Subscribe by email

May 28, 2008 Those that know me are well aware that I'm a big fan of RSS feeds. But, I do realize that not everyone has yet jumped onto the RSS bandwagon. So if you'd like to subscribe to my blog by email, you now can. Simply click the Subscribe by Email link, and you'll get updates delivered right to your Inbox.   How about giving RSS a try? Confused about RSS? No worries. The folks over at Common Craft have put together a simple video explaining RSS in plain English. Check it out:   If the embedded video doesn't load, this is the direct link to the video.   Let your Feed Reader bring updates to you I use Google Reader for reading feeds. It's easy to use, web-based, and free! And when I find interesting articles in Google Reader, I share…

Austin Code Camp Recap

May 19, 2008 I spent Saturday with friends, co-workers, Twitter peeps, and assorted geeks at the third annual Austin Code Camp. I've been all three years, and I enjoyed this one the most. There was over 200 attendees, which was a great turnout. There was a lot of great sessions. It was also cool that a bunch of people made the drive in from Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston. The sessions I attended: Agile in the Enterprise Coding for Stupid Users (which was really a session on User Experience Design) Taming the Legacy Code Beast Introduction to jQuery Fishbowl talk on TDD & BDD Advanced CSS & JavaScript Of course, not only was it great to attend the sessions, but getting a chance to meet and converse with lots of cool, smart people in-between sessions and after the camp tends to be…