TMC(TM) labs review: KnowledgeSync 2000

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Jul 2002

Via NetMeeting, we interacted with a Vineyardsoft representative and reviewed an Event in which a report was generated if more than 20 people sign up for a particular CRM Training course in a particular month (in a sample database). Similar to appending a report to an Alert e-mail, KnowledgeSync can also attach files to include with corresponding reports. Additionally, report distribution can also be achieved in a variety of ways. A report can be attached to an e-mail message, faxed, or, to reduce network traffic, can be Web cast or posted to an FTP site and e-mail and pager notification can be generated to both alert employees the report is complete and also convey its whereabouts.

E-mail

In addition to employing APIs to interface with Microsoft, Lotus Notes and other e-mail solutions for the purpose of alerting company employees, KnowledgeSync 2000 is also very capable of processing and responding to incoming e-mail based on content. Using the E-mail Response System is similar to defining queries to identify conditions in database stores, only using the electronic mail medium instead. Funneling the contents of an e-mail (directed by the addressing) into a KnowledgeSync e-mail database, the e-mail data is then separated into database fields. Although basic fields are standard, such as inbox account, inbox address, etc., administrators also have the ability to create their own, site-specific fields within the KnowledgeSync e-mail message database.

Using filters and sub-filters, an administrator can employ KnowledgeSync 2000 to check for e-mail from specific clients, or specific conditions within the body of a memo. Consider this example (also demonstrated to us via NetMeeting) of a real-world implementation to further illustrate E-mail Response System capabilities: In addition to sending a canned response to the sender, a tech support manager wants to be alerted each time a support inquiry is submitted via e-mail to the general support@company. com mailbox. After specifying the application to use (E-mail Response) and naming the query, we were finished completing the Alert portion of the Event. Since the query is designed to look at all the mail sent to that e-mail address, there's no need to add additional trigger parameters. If certain statistics were required, we then had the option to append a report after "X" amount of email support requests were received. The report could contain information such as who handled the support calls or turnaround time; or automatically generate a report of past support calls for that particular client - perhaps identifying and allowing the support team to prioritize responses to high-cost, low-revenue clients. Also, we could have opted for pager notification, fax transmittal or the automatic posting of support@company.com mail to a Web page; or we could have added an incoming message to the appropriate area in a customer contact database. This would make the account manager aware, for example, that a client is experiencing some difficulty.