Tag: PowerShell

Using task sets beyond task manager

April 22, 2015 Task Manager Task Manager is an optional Clarify module that allows subcases and action items to be automatically created when a task set is selected from a case. Task Manager and the Clarify Classic Client Within the Clarify Classic Client, this process is started by clicking the Jobs button on a case, and then selecting a Task Set to be executed. The Clarify Client then evaluates the task set and creates the subcases and action items as needed. Task Manager and Dovetail Agent Within Dovetail Agent, this process is started by choosing the Workflow - Run Task Set menu item on a case, and then selecting a Task Set to be executed. User's must have the Task Manager privilege in order to see this menu item. Dovetail Agent itself does not evaluate the task set and create subcases. Instead, Dovetail…

Watching cases in Dovetail – 2014 edition

August 4, 2014 A couple of years ago I posted about watching cases in Clarify / Dovetail. The idea is still a good one, and I’ve recently combined the idea of watching a case with the new tagging functionality that’s available in Dovetail Agent 5. Overview It’s not uncommon that we want to keep up with what’s going on with certain cases – specifically cases that are being worked by others. For example, a high priority case for a new customer may have been recently created, and even though its being worked by someone else, I still want to keep abreast of what’s happening with it. Or perhaps the customer I’m going to visit next week has a case open that I want to stay in the loop on. Or I want to follow how one of my guys is dealing with a…

How To: Close a case when all of its subcases are closed

August 5, 2013 I got a question today about how to close a case when all of its subcases are closed. You could certainly add code to your application (such as the Clarify Client or Dovetail Agent), but to me, this sounds like more workflow automation, and we can do that with business rules. Plus, if you use multiple client applications (lets say the Clarify Client and Dovetail Mobile) – you don’t want to have to customize each of those apps. To accomplish this task, we’ll create a business rule that fires when a subcase is closed. If all of its sibling subcases are also closed, then we can close the case. First wrinkle: How do we know when all of a subcase’s siblings are also closed? One way to do it is to look at all of…

Watching cases in Clarify / Dovetail

July 9, 2012 I’ve had a couple of recent business trips to Europe and back, so the long flights gave me some time to tinker with a few ideas. This is my latest experiment: watching cases. It’s not uncommon that we want to keep up with what's going on with certain cases – specifically cases that are being worked by others. For example, a high priority case for a new customer may have been recently created, and even though its being worked by someone else, I still want to keep abreast of what’s happening with it. Or perhaps the customer I’m going to visit next week has a case open that I want to stay in the loop on. Or I want to follow how one of my guys is dealing with a difficult customer. The concept is that we can “watch” a…

Calling Oracle Stored procedures using Powershell

May 15, 2012 I’ve been doing some Powershell work lately, and needed to call an Oracle stored procedure with input and output arguments. I didn’t see a good example that mimicked what I was doing, so once I figured it out, I figured it was a good idea to share it. Stored Procedure First, I created a simple stored procedure with both an input and output parameter. Powershell script Then I created a Powershell script to call the stored proc. Overall, the logic of the script is pretty straightforward. Create an Oracle connection and an Oracle Command Set the Command type to be Stored Procedure Add an input parameter, and set its type and value Add an output parameter, and set its type Open the connection Execute the stored procedure Close the connection Read the value of the output parameter Output I…

Automated Deployment for Clarify Example

January 11, 2012 Last year I posted about automated deployments for Clarify. From that post: Doing automatic deployments of Clarify changes is pretty straightforward. If I was starting off, I would use a contemporary build script tool such as nant or rake, and simply have it call out to your schema editing tool (Dovetail SchemaEditor, or ddcomp) to perform schema changes, use an import tool (such as Dovetail ArchiveManager, or dataex) for importing forms, and then compile your Clearbasic code using CBEX, or just import it as a DAT file using Dovetail ArchiveManager. File copying, registering components, configuring web servers, and setting permissions are all common tasks that are available in these build tools as well. Should you also need to do additional stuff in your database, some code that uses the Dovetail SDK can be useful. You could tie this…

Case Aging, including “pauses”

October 7, 2011 Over the years of working with Clarify, I’ve seen a request come up a few times for calculating case aging, including “pauses”. It’s easy to calculate a total case age. For open cases, it’s the difference between now and the time the case was opened. For closed cases, it’s the difference between case open time and case close time. But what about the workflows where a case can be paused? For example, the customer may go on vacation, or any other myriad of reasons where we want to pause the clock on the case. The common approach to this from an application standpoint is to have a new case Status value of Paused (or something similar), so that we simply change the status to Paused to pause the case, and then change it to something else to…

Auto-closing a case workflow

January 6, 2011 A colleague asked me recently about an email he had received from the support department of one of our vendors. It looked something like: Hello, Anne Teak, A few days ago, our support staff has replied your inquiry at: http://www.some.vendor.com/helpdesk/view-thread.aspx?thread=735746 Since then, we have not received any response back from you, and would like to know if you consider this issue to be closed. If you have any further questions, please use the link above to post them. This issue will be automatically closed out in a few days if you choose not to respond. To access this discussion thread, navigate to the following link: http://www.some.vendor.com/helpdesk/view-thread.aspx?thread=735746 Sincerely yours, Some.Vendor Team The gist of the process is that if a customer hasn’t responded after a certain period of time, then we…

Initial Response

August 26, 2010 When working cases in Clarify / Dovetail, an option available to agents is Initial Response. Initial Response allows an agent to mark that the initial response to a customer has occurred. True to its name, an Initial Response can only occur once in the history of a case. This Initial Response operation can be performed on either the Log Phone call or Log Email forms. Initial Response button in the User Interfaces Phone Log form in the Clarify Classic Client: Email Log form in the Clarify Classic Client: Phone Log form in DovetailAgent: Email Log form in DovetailAgent: Activity Log When the Initial Response action occurs, it is logged to the case activity log: Time Bomb When the Initial Response action occurs, a time bomb is created. Once we…

Clarify / Dovetail Activity Streams

June 18, 2010 Ever since I heard about activity streams, I’ve been thinking about an activity stream out of our Clarify / Dovetail Customer Service system. I saw Chris Messina present about activity streams at SXSW 2010, and got even more jazzed.What are activity streams? From the activitystrea.ms wiki: ActivityStreams is a convenient and consistent way to syndicate social activities around the web.OK, how about a little more detail, perhaps with some context?I’m going to quote right from the Socialcast website here, as I think they do a good job of explaining this.Inside of every company, there can be hundreds or even thousands of sources of data. Information is generated by people (through emails and social network messages) and by systems (CRM and ERP systems, and inventory tracking, for example). Where the information flows and how it is used is strictly defined by…