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Tag: Gary Sherman

Clarify on an iPhone

January 31, 2008 AppSwing looks to have created their own front end for Clarify, geared for iPhone users. The functionality is limited, but it looks interesting. Although with my fat fingers, I would have a hard time typing in case notes on the iPhone "keyboard". They have a video that shows it in action. Slick.

Nothin But .Net is coming to Austin

January 30, 2008 JP is bringing his famous Nothin But .NET boot camp here to Austin in April. I've been reading JP's blog for a while, and got to meet him briefly at the ALT.NET conference in Austin last year, and he's always impressed me with his pragmatic and level-headed approach. For those of you in Austin, this sounds like a great opportunity to advance your skills.

My vote for worst web site: the Microsoft Partner Program

January 21, 2008 It's that time of year again - time to renew our Microsoft Partner Certification. I hate this process. I especially hate their website - it very well may be the worst design in usability I've ever encountered.Unsupported browserTo start, they only want you to use Internet Explorer. Opening it in Firefox yields this lovely message: You are using an unsupported Internet browser. Please use the most recent non-beta version of Internet Explorer to access this page. If you continue you will likely experience performance issues. Please download this supported version or proceed to the PMC page you requested."Please use the most recent non-beta version of Internet Explorer" So, that implies that the Partner Program doesn't think that beta versions of IE are stable. Nice.OK, so I click the download link (just because I'm curious), and where does it take me?That's right…

An RSS feed for Dovetail Recent Knowledgebase Articles, courtesy of Dapper and Yahoo Pipes

December 19, 2007 We publish our knowledgebase articles online: http://www.dovetailsoftware.com/resources/knowledgeBase.aspx. We use the Dovetail SDK to query the solutions in our Clarify/Dovetail database and build the HTML pages.In addition, we have a page that lists the latest 20 articles: http://support.dovetailsoftware.com/selfservice/solutions/recentThis is nice, but it means that one would have to visit the web page to see any new articles.I would like to be notified when new articles are added. Between email spam and Microsoft Outlook, my faith in (and enjoyment of) email is dwindling on a daily basis. But my love of RSS feeds and Google Reader continues to grow. So, how can I get new KB articles pushed to me by RSS?One way would be to go back to our dev team and have them add an RSS feed for that page. Could be done. Not too hard. But that would take…

Auto-Destination Rules have nothing to do with RuleManager

December 11, 2007 A very common misconception is that RuleManager is responsible for evaluating Auto-Destination rules. Perhaps it's because both contain the word "rule". Not sure. Let's all say it together: Auto-Destination Rules have nothing to do with RuleManager. Nicely done. OK, now, let's explore auto-destination rules in more detail.What's an Auto-Destination Rule?An auto-destination rule is a mechanism for assisting in the routing of a workflow object  (such as a case) to the correct place.From the Clarify documentation:If your organization is large and uses many queues, auto-destination helps reduce the time a user spends searching for the right queue.Example (in plain English):When dispatching a case with a case type of New Employee, then the case should be routed to the New Employee queue.Example (in Clarify Syntax):OBJECT TYPE="rule", NAME="rule1" UNIQUE_FIELD = "title,operation"     FIELDS         title = "Case";         operation = "DISPATCH";         rule_text…

IE7Pro allows Internet Explorer to be tweaked, customized, and scripted

December 10, 2007 I recently StumbledUpon IE7Pro, which is an add-on for Internet Explorer. Although my primary browser is Firefox, I use IE for our web applications, including Dovetail Agent.IE7Pro adds a whole bunch of useful enhancements. There are two that are quick wins that I love: Spell Check, and Move the IE menu bar.Spell CheckI still find it amazing that IE doesn't have spell check built-in. In the past, I've used ieSpell. I've now turned off ieSpell and use the spell checking within IE7Pro. It works as spell check does in Firefox, in that it adds a red line under any misspellings. Simply right-click on the word to access the suggestions. Put the Menu Bar back where it belongsThis is just one of those minor annoyances.IE7 out of the box puts the menu bar below the address bar: Using IE7Pro, I can put the…

Hierarchical drop-downs in Dovetail Agent

Many customers use hierarchical (multi-level) drop-down lists in their Clarify/Dovetail implementations. So, when one level of a select list changes, the down-level lists change as well. Clarify allows up 5 levels for a list. As an example, in baseline Clarify, there's a list titled CR_DESC that is a three level list for CPU, Operating System, and Memory. When I change the CPU from PC to Sun, the operating system and memory lists need to change as well. Default values show: Changing the CPU to "SUN" changes the O/S and Memory lists: In a client/server app, this is pretty easy to do, as the onchange event of one list can simply update the down-level lists, either by making a call back to the server, or by accessing data that has been cached on the client machine. In a web application, this…

New office, new phone number

November 30, 2007 We (Dovetail Software) moved offices this week. Of course we're still in Austin. We actually only moved a few miles from our old office. It's a much nicer space. The views are beautiful, and our agile development team rooms are much nicer than our old one. Once we get things unpacked and setup, I'll post some pics. We also changed phone systems. Our new main number is 512-610-5400. My new direct dial line is 512-610-5466.