finally{} » yatsy

Now you can create cases via Twitter

Joseph Jude — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:27:45 +0000

Traditionally, customer service was provided via phone, email or web. In the age of Twitters and Facebooks, those options seems so old age practice. Since youngsters spend so much time on the ubiquitous Twitter, they would eventually bring customer service to Twitter and other social media.

Here is how YATSY (a simple case management system for Google App Engine) is integrated with Twitter.

Isn’t that simple? Follow @yatsy; once yatsy follows back, send a direct message to yatsy to create a case. YATSY system will read this DM and create a case & will respond back.

Having Twitter Integration is a double edge sword. If you provide a fantastic customer service it will be known in the social media. On the other hand, if you do a lousy job, it will spread like a wild fire. Yet, if you monitor Twitter Streams, you’ll be able to improve your products and customer service too.

Now for the techies. How did I implement Twitter Integration? YATSY itself is written using web2py, a web-framework in Python. Twitter streams are parsed using python-twitter, a simple & efficient Python wrapper for Twitter API.

Steps Forward

Use Google App Engine Cron to initiate twitter parsing & case creation (now one need to explicitly execute the function)
Using the same Cron facility for auto-follow
Use a message queue for IN/OUT messages (if you know a good message queue implementation in Python, please leave a comment)
Integrate (case) notes with Twitter

If your hands are itching to test this, go ahead and follow yatsy & once yatsy follow you back, DM your case text.

If you are interested in checking out the code or want to do a code review, head to Google Code page

Now you can create cases via Twitter is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

Why I chose web2py for developing YATSY?

Joseph Jude — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:23:47 +0000

Non-functional features are as important as functional features in determining the success of an open-source application. Users should be able to download and try most of the functionality, without complicated installation steps. Equally important is the ease with which it can be deployed.

While striving to keep these boundary conditions for end-users, developers prefer a language (and framework) that enable them to transform their brilliant ideas into working code quickly.

With such a thought process, I searched for a framework to develop YATSY – an open source helpdesk application for small businesses. As the title says, I settled on web2py because of the following reasons:

It is on Python: If you didn’t know, Python can be learnt intuitively. In the recent years lots of Python-based frameworks have evolved improving developer’s productivity drastically. Python places minimal constraints on the developer; hence development is generally quick.

It adapts to Schema Changes: Schema changes are an inherent part of development; especially if you follow the open-source mantra of ‘release early; release often’. Web2py automatically changes db schema if it detects a change in the underlying model. You don’t need to drop and recreate schema or issue alter table commands. One less head-ache for developers.

Its a self-contained Framework: web2py is based on MVC pattern and it comes bundled with most of the components needed for web-development – authentication, authorization, form generation & validation, internationalization, admin interface, ajax (jQuery) and so on.

Its well documented: Yes it is a pity that the official manual has to be bought but Massimo, the lead developer, seems to have a justification for it. I went ahead and bought the manual and I should it is fantastic – he explains each component of the stack pretty well.

It can be installed easily: It is based on Python, but it is not a pre-requisite to run web2py. Download, Unzip, Execute are all that is needed to get started with web2py development – on any OS.

It can be hosted on AppEngine: This is a big plus for me. Google AppEngine is the only cloud hosting that I am aware of that provides a free hosting for Python based applications. So potential users of YATSY can try free GAE hosting before moving to paid hosting. Deploying web2py application to AppEngine is a one-click affair.

It can be hosted elsewhere too: Web2py provides the flexibility to host the developed application anywhere Python can be installed. This means that users are not tied to GAE. If they want to install in their own servers, it is no problem.

With web2py providing the basic blocks for non-functional requirements, I find it easy to develop YATSY. You can check out the code at Google code and try it at Google AppEngine.

Why I chose web2py for developing YATSY? is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

A First shot at web2py

Joseph Jude — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 04:54:25 +0000

An irony of being in software industry is that as I gain more experience, I go farther away from constructing software. I keep learning lots of abstract concepts, but don’t get to test them. Not to be out-dated, I write pieces of software myself to test these concepts and theories. Its like being in college continuously!

Of late, I’ve been reading a lot about cloud computing, SAAS, REST and web2.0. But I couldn’t find a way to test them. So I decided to develop an application, which I named YATSY – Yet Another Ticketing System – utilizing years of experience in customizing other helpdesk, support desk and service desk systems.

Only Google offered a free hosting (limited free hosting; with an option to upgrade) on the cloud. With its current offering Google AppEngine (GAE) supports only Python. And web2py, a python web-framework, makes it extremely easy to develop for GAE. Not only that – web2py claims to make it easy to build stand-alone applications for all the three platforms: Mac, Linux & Windows. Though web2py doesn’t have many contributed 3rd party plug-ins, I went ahead with web2py because of the above feature set.

One more negative about web2py is that it lacks a fine documentation. So it is little difficult for beginners. Yet discussions on their google group compensates for this lack.

With that said, web2py does make web-programming easy and hosting on GAE is even easier. Here is what I’ve been able to achieve.

You can see it hosted in Google AppEngine. The code is checked in Google Code.

Your comments are welcome.

A First shot at web2py is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

ANN & RFH: Y-A-T-S-Y 0.1

Joseph Jude — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:13:50 +0000

After few posts on functionalities that Y-A-T-S-Y will support and following on the ‘release early, release often’, philosophy, here comes a first working model of the tool.

What works? Well, not a lot; but one can create a ticket, admin can assign, and the agents can view those assigned tickets; users can view their open tickets.

(Django rocks; I started working from Friday and by noon Sunday I’ve a working version! Most of the time spent was for understanding the new-forms admin. All others were relatively easy. And there is a whole lot of plug-ins available for the features that I’m looking into.)

I’ve borrowed the layout and css from Django Admin.

Once logged in, add form is shown by default.

Once a case is added, it will take to the case list. If the logged in user is also an agent, then the assigned tickets are displayed.

There is a little bit of navigation links on the top-right.

All the models from admin screen:

Not a lot; but I’m proud of what I’ve done in the relatively short time. I am going to keep working on it until all the features are done.

~~Unfortunately I’m not able to create a windows executable~~(I was able to build the windows executable. Read at the end) So in case you want to try it out, follow these steps:

If you don’t have Django then download it and install. If you are on Windows, you can also use Instant Django.
Checkout Y-A-T-S-Y source code from google.
By default it uses sqlite db. For testing purposes this is sufficient enough. Otherwise you need to connect to whatever db that you want to connect.
Syncdb to create the database.
Login as admin (ex: http://localhost/admin)
Create a user and an agent
Create master data values
Logoff as admin and login as a user (ex: http://localhost/)
Create a case
Logoff as user
Login as an admin and assign to the agent
Logoff as admin
Login as an agent
You should see the cases assigned to the agent

If you’re wondering about ‘RFH’ on the title it stands for Request For Help . If you are generous, you can help in so many ways (I promise to acknowledge your contribution):

I’m relatively new to Python/Django. So I would be grateful if you can review the code and suggest ‘better’ ways – ‘Better’ in terms of performance and elegance.
Design a good layout scheme. I’m currently using the default Django admin layout and css. While it is great, it is not fair.
Translate into different languages (while it is too early to translate, you can read about Django i18n and plan about it).
Design a good favicon.
Test, test, test. Though I’ll do my round of testing. Testing by others will help to improve the tool in many aspects. Of course before testing, you need to understand the helpdesk functionality.
Spread the word in whatever way possible.

Note: I was able to build windows executables. You can download from Google Code. Unzip the file into a folder. Once unziped, double click on demo.exe. It will open the browser with /login. Provide agent/agent (username = password = agent). You should be able to create a case and see the list of cases too. For admin login, go to /admin. Provide admin/admin. Play around.

Announcing Y-A-T-S-Y
An overview of Helpdesk functionality
Y-A-T-S-Y 0.1 – DB and Reports

ANN & RFH: Y-A-T-S-Y 0.1 is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

Y-A-T-S-Y 0.1 – DB and Reports

Joseph Jude — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:25:08 +0000

For the first version, I want to keep the system very simple and easy (as I matter of fact, I’m a die-hard proponent of simplicity; but that is for another post).

Database

A Helpdesk system revolves around ‘Case’ (or ticket or problem). The DB design I’ve shown below supports ‘Case’ and other support data – like Priority and Category.

I haven’t included Level, SLA (which will include holidays, business hours) and so on. Those are for next version.

Reports

These are not exhaustive, but should provide a quick view of reports needed out of a Helpdesk System.

Summary Reports

Month-wise report on reported Cases
Month-wise reported Cases by Priority
Month-wise reported Cases resolved by Agent
Customer Satisfaction Score by Agent
Customer Satisfaction Score by Priority

As features are added, there will be need for other reports.

It should be possible to export these reports as pdf, xls. (By default it will be just html).

If you’ve any questions/comments, please feel free to comment.

In case you would like to follow up progress of Y-A-T-S-Y, you can follow me on Twitter.

Y-A-T-S-Y 0.1 – DB and Reports is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

finally{} » yatsy

Now you can create cases via Twitter

Related Posts:

Why I chose web2py for developing YATSY?

Related Posts:

A First shot at web2py

Related Posts:

ANN & RFH: Y-A-T-S-Y 0.1

Related Posts:

Y-A-T-S-Y 0.1 – DB and Reports

Database

Reports

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