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Tag: rulemanager

Creating Bug-Free software

June 4, 2009 I've heard some rumblings of late about software companies claiming that they have bug-free software, while behind the scenes they are simply closing bugs that have been opened without actually fixing them. Well, this is certainly a much easier way to create bug-free software that actually having disciplined engineering practices. We can do this pretty easy by simply creating a business rule that calls a script. The business rule Object Type: Change Request Rule Name: Bug Free Rule Set: Best Practices Start Event: Create Conditions: None Action Title: Go bug free Message Type: Command Line Start Action: 0 minutes From: Event Creation Using: Elapsed Time Command Line: C:WINDOWSsystem32WINDOW~1v1.0powershell.exe C:workPowerShellScriptsGoBugFree.ps1 "[Object ID]"   The Script GoBugFree.ps1: $IdNumber = [string] $args[0]; $ClarifyApplication = [Fchoice.Foundation.Clarify.ClarifyApplication] $ClarifySession = $ClarifyApplication::Instance.CreateSession() $qualityToolkit= new-object FChoice.Toolkits.Clarify.Quality.QualityToolkit( $ClarifySession ) $bugSetup = new-object FChoice.Toolkits.Clarify.Quality.CloseCRSetup($IdNumber) $bugSetup.Status = "Will Not Fix" $bugSetup…

Can your CRM place a phone call?

April 13, 2009   When new cases come in we have many ways of having our support team notified so we can provide speedy assistance to our customers.   We get an email Twitter sends us direct messages Our campfire (chat) gets notified   Recently we needed a better way to notify on-call support agents of new cases. Our existing notification mechanisms work great during office hours but at night a spam email getting past my filters better not wake me up at 2am just because it might be a new support case. We needed something better. The simplest thing we could think of was to have our CRM make a phone call.   Phone calls are cross platform. No special smart phone client application beats a phone call. Better yet spammers don’t place calls  at 2am pitching “Enlargement”. At night I can…

SMS notifications and alerts

April 6, 2009 Notifications and escalations generated by Rulemanager are an integral component of the Clarify/Dovetail system. Traditionally, email and in-application notifications are the most common notification delivery mechanisms. Digital pagers were popular years ago, but are pretty much non-existent today.   With mobile devices (iPhones, Windows Mobile, BlackBerrys, etc.) becoming almost ubiquitous, we can look to using these devices for notification delivery. And they all share a common communication platform - SMS. SMS (Short Message Service) is commonly referred to as text messaging.   So let's look at how we can use SMS as a delivery mechanism.   A while back, I detailed how to use Twitter as a notification channel, and then use Twitter to send SMS messages.   If we don't want to be coupled to a service like Twitter (which doesn't have guaranteed delivery, SLAs, etc.), we can use a very similar process, but instead…

The "From" Address of a Log Email

March 31, 2009 When sending an email out from a case (Log Email), Rulemanager is responsible for delivering the email. Rulemanager uses a template (com_tmplte) to determine the format and details of the actual email. These templates can be configured to specify a from address. Unfortunately, this configuration does not always work as expected when using the Clarify Rulemanager. Lets take a closer look at the template itself, as well as the differences in how Clarify Rulemanager and Dovetail Rulemanager each use this template.The send_email_about_obj templateWhen sending an email out, the send_email_about_obj com_tmplte is used.This template looks like:TO: <FOCUS.recipient>, <FOCUS.cc_list>FR: <FOCUS.sender>RE: Regarding Case Number <ADDITIONAL_INFO><FOCUS.message>Notice that the com_tmplte has an "FR:" token in it, presumably so that one can set the From address.Clarify RulemanagerWhen the Clarify Rulemanager sends an email, it does not interpret the FR: token as a From token - instead,…

How to notify additional people when a commitment expires

February 26, 2009 I was talking to a customer today, and they asked me about how to notify additional people when a commitment expires. For example, if a support agent makes a commitment to call the customer back at 4:00, but the agent goes home, we want to notify others within the department, so that someone else can call back the customer. When the commitment expires, Rulemanager uses a template to notify the commitment owner that the commitment has been missed. One way to accomplish this task is by customizing this commitment template. Baseline Commitment Template The baseline commitment template can be found with the following SQL: select * from table_com_tmplte where title = 'Commitment' You can also extract it using Dovetail ArchiveManager (or dataex) using a directives file that looks like: NO_EXPORT OBJECT ALL; EXPORT OBJECT com_tmplte   UNIQUE_FIELD=title   WHERE "title…

hMailServer: a free email server that’s great for demos and testing

December 3, 2008 When doing testing or demos, I often need to send and receive email. For example, Dovetail EmailAgent requires a mail server for receiving incoming mail. Dovetail Rulemanager needs a mail server for sending outgoing notifications by email, as well as for sending outgoing email.   When I'm in the office, I could use our corporate mail server (although I don't like to use production systems for testing). If I have internet access, I can use GMail, or another free hosted SMTP/POP3 server. But when I'm on the road, its not uncommon to end up in a conference room somewhere without internet access. So I prefer to have everything I need loaded on my laptop - and this includes a mail server. hMailServer   hMailServer is a free email server that's great for demos and testing. I've been using it for teh last 6 months or…

Email Agent 1.5 Heads Up

September 19, 2008 This post is for my readers who are Dovetail Email Agent customers. We are getting ready to release Email Agent 1.5 which contains some breaking changes that Gary Sherman has already posted about. I wanted to give our customers a heads up of what has changed to facilitate upgrade planning. Below is a draft of the “What’s New” from Version 1.5 this may change so remember to check your local listings for more details. Breaking Changes Email Agent now logs "Email In" events to a case rather than logging a note. This change will mainly affect customers using our Rule Manager product having business rules that are setup to fire on "Log Notes" events, in particular those that are meant to capture "Log Notes" events created by Email Agent. Affected business rules should be changed to include a start event…

Notify the case owner when someone else logs a note to their case

May 7, 2008 In a previous post, we learned how to use a variable on either side of a business rule condition. Now, we'll create a business rule that uses this type of condition.User StoryWe'll start with a story:As a case owner, I want to be notified when someone else logs a note to my case, so that I can be kept informed of any activity on my cases.The business ruleHere's the business rule which satisfies the user story.Object Type: Case Rule Name/Description: Notify the owner when someone else logs a note to their case Start Events: Log Note Cancel Events: None Conditions: Logger != [Current Owner] Action Title: Notify  Owner Who to Notify: [Current Owner] Start Action: 0 minutes From: Event Creation Using: Elapsed Time Repeat : Never Message:RE: A note was logged to [Object Type] [Object ID] by [Logger]A note was…

Using variables on both sides of a business rule condition

Most people know that you can use a variable on the left side of a business rule condition, such as:Case Type = New EmployeeThe left side of the condition, "Case Type", is actually a business rule property that gets evaluated at runtime.The right side of the condition, "New Employee", is a string constant.Here's what it looks like in DovetailAdmin:and similarly in the Clarify Classic Client:Using variables on both sidesWe can also use a business property on the right side of the condition as well. Simply type in the exact business rule property, and surround it in square brackets.For example:Logger != [Current Owner]Here's what it looks like in DovetailAdmin: and similarly in the Clarify Classic Client:Next up - an example of a rule that uses this type of condition....

Having Rulemanager send SMS notifications via Twitter

May 5, 2008 Kevin had an earlier post discussing how Rulemanager could fire a script that would notify all queue members via Twitter when a case is dispatched to a queue. The script took the queue name as an input, queried the database for the queue members, and then sent a direct Twitter message to each queue member.I liked what he did, and wanted to see if we could take it a step further, and make it more in line with Rulemanager notifications.Making Twitter a first class Notification methodRuleManager already knows how to resolve queue members into individual users, and it knows how to resolve a notification preference of each user, depending on whether the user is on or off work hours, and also based on the urgency of the message.Years ago, many people carried digital pagers, which allowed text messages to be…