Oracle RightNow – Customer Portal Migration (Version 2.0 to Version 3.0)

RightNow (RN) introduced a new customer portal framework as part of November 2012 release. This framework is called Customer Portal Framework 3 (CP 3). And a new framework is mainly launched to address some of the challenges & limitations with CP 2 (November 2009 release) and for software modernization & modularization.

 As part of this blog article, I would cover the features & benefits of CP 3. And the activities involved while migrating from CP 2 to CP 3. 

Before we proceed further, let us understand the difference between Migration & Upgrading. Migration is moving from one version of the Customer Portal framework to a newer one. Upgrading is moving from one release of Oracle RightNow CX to a newer release. Before the November 2012 release, upgrading your Oracle RightNow CX application meant you also had to migrate to the new Customer Portal at the same time, absorbing all new features whether you needed them or not. 

With CP 3, migration process is quite simplified – you migrate the features you want when it’s convenient for you.

CP 3 – Features & benefits:

1. Independent frameworks and versioning – Control when you migrate and what you migrate. Upgrading to new releases of RN will not have any impact on the existing functionalities of Customer Portal (CP).
2. Automatic updates of backward compatible changes – All new upgrades are backward compatible
3. Widget builder – Creation of custom widgets become simpler, quicker and accurate using the widget builder feature.
4. Widget changes – New structure & process is defined to create custom widgets. This would help to modularize, easy code maintenance & fasten the development process.
5. Easy migration – Migrating to new releases doesn’t have any impact  on the custom widgets.
6. New file structure – Intuitive and easy-to-navigate file structure
7. Connect PHP API – Framework Version 3 is built on the Connect PHP API and uses data objects from the Connect PHP API rather than internal APIs
8. Software modernization – Usage of YUI 3.X in CP 3 improves performance and simplifies the coding

CP 2 to CP 3 – Migration Activities:

• Adhering to new file structure
• Widget changes (major activity):  

1. Widgets created using standard widgets: re-create the widget (extending standard widget) using the widgets builder feature of CP 3. Post creation, edit the code to duplicate (implement) its CP 2 functionality.
2. Widgets developed from scratch: If the widget was developed from scratch to implement the functionality which was not available in CP, it is better to convert this widget code to work with CP 3 following CP 3 development standards. The detailed widget conversion process is defined in the migration guide referred below.

• PHP namespacing: To avoid the conflicts between CP reference implementation PHP files and customer files RightNow and Custom namespacing is introduced. RightNow namespace contains reference implementation files and the customized files are available under Custom namespace.
• Modifying display elements,

1. Using HTML5 on custom pages: CP 3 standard widgets and pages conform to HTML 5 specification. To take advantage of this, it is recommended to use HTML 5 doctype in all custom pages and templates.
2. Editing widgets that open in a separate window: As mentioned above, YUI 2.X is replaced by YUI 3.X in CP 3 framework. This change impacts display of standard widgets such as Login Dialog, Advanced Search Dialog and Product Category. So standard template needs to be edited as per the procedure mentioned in the document to correct the display.
3. Changing the width of the Email Address field: In CP 2, email fields are <input type=”text”>. In CP 3, HTML 5 input types are used for email fields, so email fields are now <input type=”email”>.
4. Editing the width of the OpenLogin dialog: The dialog that opens when your customers click one of the open login icons (for example, Facebook, Twitter, or AOL) needs to be adjusted editing OpenLogin CSS file after migrating to CP 3.
5. Modifying the SocialBookmarkLink widget: The SocialBookmarkLink in CP 3 offers Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit options, eliminating Delicious, Digg, and StumbleUpon, which were used in CP 2, and adding LinkedIn. If you want to continue using the earlier social networking sites with the widget, edit it according to the procedure mentioned in the migration guide.
6. YUI resources: If your CP 2 custom widgets includes calls to YUI modules, this code has to be modified as per YUI 3.X standard. Refer the guide for the details.
7. Adding the PasswordInput widget: To support password hardening, CP 3 includes new password input widget.

• Other functional changes,

1. Using high-contrast mode for accessibility:  Edit the CSS files as per the instructions in the guide to make your customer portal pages viewable in high-contrast mode.
2. Disabling incident receipt emails: In CP 3, by default the customer would be sent email notifications after submitting the question. This feature can be deactivated.
3. Changing incident source for rules: If you have been using Connect PHP API in CP 2, review your incident rules to see if any of them have an IF condition of Incident.Source equals End-User Pages > Ask a Question. If they do, edit the rule to also add the condition IF Incident.Source equals End-User Pages > End-User Connect
4. Removing customer search preferences: The Connect PHP API does not store contact preferences in the database, so the use of profile_default attributes is no longer supported for CP 3
5. Changing the SmartAssistantDialog widget: Several default values are changed to simplify the code.
6. Editing the CommunitySearchResults widget: See if the display_initial_posts attribute of this widget is used in CP 2 code. This attributed is not supported in CP 3 because community posts are displayed by default when the widget loads on a page. You can remove the attribute from your widget code.
7. Login required configuration setting: CP 3 introduced a new configuration setting, CP_CONTACT_LOGIN_REQUIRED, which lets you require your customers to log in to most customer portal pages.
8. Adding label attributes: Because of the data structure of the Connect PHP API, some business objects use more generic labels than those used in CP 2. So additional attribute named label_input should be added to input widgets in CP 3.

• Customer portal changes on the agent desktop,

1. Guided assistance styling on the agent desktop: CSS edits to make the desktop styling (of guides) more consistent with what customers experience on your customer portal.
2. Replacing variables on the preview page: Variables names to be changed in the CP answers preview page that is displayed to the agents in CX console.

• Converting custom code,

1. Using Connect PHP API in custom scripts: If CP 2 site includes custom PHP scripts that call normally unavailable product API functions (that is, functions you could use only after applying for access through the whitelist process), you cannot use these functions in Framework Version 3. Instead, check for equivalent functions in the Connect for PHP API.
2. Direct SQL queries: CP3 doesn’t support this feature. Replace this with equivalent Connect PHP & ROQL.
3. Using PHP5 style constructors: Instead of using the old PHP4 style PHP constructors (where the method name that matches the class name is the constructor), you should use PHP5 style constructors
4. Custom models: Your custom models must use namespacing to indicate that they are extending RightNow models.

• Optional code cleanup: Although it’s not necessary, you might want to take the time now to clean up Framework Version 2 code now so that you won’t be required to do it at some future migration

1. Replacing business objects: naming convention changes
2. Replacing unused widgets: ChatLaunchFormOpen, MobileEmailAnswerLink, and ContactNameInput widgets of CP 2 to be replaced with equivalent replacement widgets of CP 3.

Please refer to the CP 2 to CP 3 Migration Guide from Oracle for more details.

Prashanth.

Integrate RightNow with open source Asterisk Contact Center Solution

Oracle RightNow (RN) helps deliver great customer experiences across the primary engagement points of web, social, and contact center by integrating internal business processes with external channels customers mainly use to interact with organizations.

Even after the emergence of new service channels such as social, web self-service etc, traditional Telephony or Contact Center service channel is still very popular among the Customers & Service Industry.

RN provides out of box solutions for web and social service channels in the form of Customer portal, Facebook app and Social cloud monitoring tools.

RN doesn’t provide out of box connectors to any contact center solutions. Instead it provides a development framework (referred as Multi channel toolkit in RN terms) for building these connectors.

Using this development framework we have developed a connector to integrate RN & Asterisk Contact center solution.

Asterisk is a low or no cost; world’s most widely adopted communication platform. The below screen shows some stats about Asterisk and click this link for more details on Asterisk, http://www.asterisk.org/

 

 

 

Integration Architecture:

 

Approach:

• RN specifies a Multi-Channel Toolkit framework to enable Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) to RN Applications.
• Asterisk provides Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) to facilitate Integration with external applications.
• Asterisk’s TAPI is consumed in RN’s Multi-Channel Toolkit framework to develop Integration Bridge (connector) between RN CTI Toolbar and Asterisk Telephony Server to facilitate a seamless integration.
• Since integration bridge (Connector) is developed by customizing Multi-Channel Toolkit, we don’t need a separate hosting server to host this customization. The customized framework/toolkit can be deployed directly in RightNow server.
• This solution can be a right fit for customers who have a Contact Center channel and are looking for a low cost solution working with RN.

Note: The Integration approach suggested in this article is suitable for any other contact center solution (Avaya, Cisco etc.) integration with Oracle RN.

 

ORACLE Service Cloud (RightNow) August 2013 Release – Integrate, Customize and Extension Features!!

ORACLE Service Cloud (RightNow) August 2013 Release has some interesting & significant feature additions in the areas of Integration, Customization and Extension. And the key features are listed in this blog.

Integration – Major new features: 

• Agent desktop OPA integration: Oracle Policy Automation (OPA) helps to build dynamic, interactive questionnaires based on business requirements and complex policy documents using its natural-language capabilities. Now we can map data items in OPA onto the RightNow Service data model using data mapping and configuration exercise without having to write any custom development code for integration. Based on my recent experience working on OPA & RightNow integration, the rules for integration can be easily defined by a non-technical user through Data Object Mapping.

  In the earlier releases, OPA integration was made available to Customer Portal for use by customers in self-service mode. From the current release, the integration is extended to the Agents to enable them to provide customers with a consistent, cross-channel experience while navigating policies and determining eligibility for programs and services.

• ATG Commerce Service Center(CSC) integration: Rich & extensive service management functionalities of RightNow can be integrated with CSC to provide comprehensive end to end Service Management solution to the e-com customers.

• CCOM and ROQL: The Configuration and MessageBase primary objects have been added to Connect Common Object Model (CCOM) and RightNow Object Query Language (ROQL) to provide read-only access to configuration and message bases in Oracle RightNow CX.

• Connect Web Services & Knowledge Foundation API: No interesting enhancements to this area of integration except adding new version fields in the WSDL & copyright element update in the WSDL document.

Customization & Extension features:

• Techmail enhancements: This feature can be a real value add for organizations handling large volume of email transactions. The performance, reliability, responsiveness and scalability aspects of emailing module would be improved significantly. And “Incoming Email Filter Details report” can be used to identify & understand the root cause of mail rejections and act on to avoid filtering/rejections of emails which are meaningful to the business.

• Oracle-managed Service mailboxes: The process of setting up incoming Service mailboxes no longer requires customer intervention. Instead, Oracle can now create an Oracle-managed Service mailbox for you, making your mailbox setup easy.

• Referencing/Displaying external images in reports: Uploading of images from external locations to RightNow can be avoided. Instead we can directly “refer” to the required images from the external locations avoiding duplication.

• New Widgets Addition:
  • SmartAssistant for the basic page set: Customer Portal Framework Version 3.1.2 includes the BasicSmartAssistant widget for the basic page set, used when mobile devices and browsers do not support JavaScript. By default, the widget appears on the Email Us page to offer potential answers to your customers’ questions before they submit an incident.
  • In addition to the new BasicSmartAssistant widget, three other new widgets are included in this version of the Customer Portal: SurveyLink, ProactiveSurveyLink, and syndicated ProactiveSurveyLink.

• New SmartAssistant autotuner:The SmartAssistant autotuner reviews the effectiveness of your current configuration and automatically makes adjustments and suggestions to improve results.

• Survey reminders: For broadcast and transactional surveys, you can add up to four automatic reminder messages to create a sense of urgency for customers to complete surveys within a time frame you specify.

Please visit the following link for more details, 

http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/docs/august2013/pdfs/august2013_release_notes.pdf

Microsoft Skype and Oracle Cloud CRM – Be where your customers are!!

This blog article provides insights about Skype IM, its business benefits & on how to Integrate “ORACLE Cloud CRM” Products with Skype.

Introduction:

Skype started in Europe in 2003, got acquired after 3 years by eBay and currently owned by Microsoft (bought in 2011) in a decade long run since its launch.

Using Skype one can call, see, text & share with others – wherever they are.

Being one of the most popular IM tool, Skype is available on computer, mobile, tablet, TV and even on home phone. Latest stats suggests around 300 million around the globe use Skype to stay in touch with those who are most important in their lives, from friends, to family, to business connections. One in three international voice calls is now made using Skype. Few more stats,

To get started with Skype all we need is – Skype installed device with microphone and speaker/headset, a web cam and an internet connection.

Skype (Microsoft) has been investing in technology improvements, these changes are expected to significantly improve the reliability & performance of Skype to provide users with the best experience possible, across devices and platforms.

When you download & create Skype account, the free and paid services are, 

Skype in business world:

Skype, the low-or-no-cost voice-over-Internet service was first launched for individuals and is now popular with businesses too.

If access to information is democratized by Google, then Idea of communications is democratized by Skype.  If Amazon’s cloud services made it easy for start-ups to get in business, then Skype helped tiny start-ups go global adopting Skype as communication platform.

Skype is a good tool for High-tech technical support services, demonstrations & global meetings.

In cases where customers are having issues using a product, service reps could initiate a Skype call (i.e. Video conference & Screen share) with customers to see what the problem or issue is. This helps the service reps to quickly determine the root cause and show the customer how to solve the problem then and there. This also allows companies to have a kind of “face time” with the customers.

For more business use cases – “10 Cool Ways Companies Use Skype”.

Skype with “ORACLE Cloud CRM” Products:

Skype URIs are the preferred mechanism for integrating with the Skype client, and are supported on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows (8, 7, Vista, XP), and Mac OS X.

Skype URIs enable developers to create innovative mobile, web, and desktop apps that initiate Skype calls and chats, enabling users to reach target group in a convenient yet familiar way.

The below listed Skype features are integrated with “ORACLE Cloud CRM” products using Skype URIs,

Skype Features Integrated with CRM:

1. Click to Audio Call /Audio Call – Conference
2. Click to Video Call /Video Call – Conference
3. Click to Chat/Multi-Chat
4. Group Video Call (GVC)

ORACLE Cloud CRM products:

1. ORACLE Sales (Fusion) Cloud
2. ORALCE Service (RightNow) Cloud
3. ORACLE CRM On Demand

In their pursuit to provide better customer experience companies are identifying suitable channels where thier customers ‘hang-out’ and building processes around them. Skype with “Oracle Cloud CRM” enables businesses to be more customer driven and deliver defined customer experience at the same time reducing transactional costs making the combo the preferred solution 🙂

Special thanks to my good friend & colleague Mohammed Chand Ahmed for his contribution to this article.

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Note: The other means to integrate Skype is to use Desktop API’s and these API’s were launched nearly 10 years ago. Microsoft has decided to decommission these API’s by the end of 2013 to improve the overall Skype Experience. Also, URIs based Integration approach is  much easier & simpler compared to desktop API’s for integration.

Information sources on decommissioning API’s: Skype Developer, Skype to retire Desktop API support by end of 2013 & Skype says it will kill its Desktop API by end of 2013

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Fusion CRM Sales Cloud CTI Toolbar – Empowering CX & UX

This is the age of a customer where the expectations are to be able to serve customers anywhere and anytime. Companies are using multiple channels to engage customers. And Contact centers serve a major role in customer relations for a company. The call center CRM applications enable companies to improve customer service and gain efficiency.

With this article, I would like to share my experience while integrating Fusion CRM Sales Cloud with Asterisk contact center solution.

Asterisk is the world’s most widely adopted open source communications platform.

The following are the Integration requirements of the project,

1. Click to dial from Fusion CRM
2. Predictive or Auto dialing
3. Inbound Screen pop based on customer phone number

CTI Toolbar Introduction,

CTI toolbar is one of the finest & very useful features of Fusion CRM Sales Cloud. To integrate Fusion CRM with Telephony systems, fusion provides CTI toolbar framework.

CTI Toolbar framework is open and extensible to integrate with any Telephony systems by writing our own connectors.

Oracle also provides a prebuilt connector for ORACLE CCA Telephony system. Customers who are already using ORACLE CCA or willing to buy CCA Contact center solution can largely benefit from this existing connector.

Telephony Operations supported by the Toolbar,

1. Login/Logout
2. Ready/Not Ready
3. Answer Call/Screen Pop
4. Click to dial
5. Hold/Retrieve
6. Transfer
7. Consult, Conference
8. Hang up

Key features,

• CTI toolbar is embedded within Fusion CRM Application. Call center users don’t have to switch between the applications (Telephony & CRM) to carry out their regular activities which results in improved productivity & usability.

• Provision to configure look up (Inbound screen pop) on any of the Fusion CRM object. This can be done using configuration and no coding is needed here.

• Record look up using multiple IVR attributes is supported – ANI (Phone Number), DNIS, Customer Id, Contact Id, Relationship Id.

• Configure Object look up sequencing for inbound screen pop.

• For Screen pop, send simple JSON request (with parameters) to toolbar without executing any WS operations. Record Identification & screen pop is taken care automatically by Fusion.

• Click to dial link will be enabled by default on all phone number fields across objects

• Call wrap up notes can be captured as Interaction (linking to the customer) using inbuilt Customer Interaction feature

Integration approach,

Oracle specifies a set of APIs to enable Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) to the Oracle Fusion CRM Applications. This consists of a JavaScript API.  And Asterisk Telephony provides Java Telephony Application Programming Interface (JTAPI) to facilitate Telephony Integration with external applications.

Based on the Asterisk JTAPI framework & Fusion CRM CTI API’s, we have developed 2 custom connectors (highlighted in Green in the below architecture diagram) to achieve this integration, Java Script connector & Telephony connector. 

Solution in Action – sample screen shots,

CTI Toolbar:

Incoming Call – Screen Pop:

Click to dial:

I hope this article helps you to better understand CTI toolbar framework, features and its capabilities.

I would also like to thank my colleagues, Mohammed Chand Ahmed & Sharan Kumar Desai for their valuable contributions to this blog article.

 

Getting Started with ORACLE Service Cloud (Right Now) Customization, Extension & Integration.

As many of us know, ORACLE’s Fusion CRM Strategy is to position home grown Fusion CRM as Sales Cloud, and recent acquisitions – Right Now & Eloqua as Service & Marketing Cloud offerings respectively. ORACLE is currently developing automated integration bridges to facilitate out of box seamless data transfer/communication between these three clouds.

This article provides an introduction to Right Now (RN) Service Cloud Customization, Extension & Integration provisions. And would be useful for beginners.

RN Service Cloud is a leading customer service software that helps organizations deliver exceptional customer experiences across the web, social networks and contact centers. RN Supports multiple Service channels to provide unified, personalized experience through all customer touch points.

The Customize, Extend & Integrate provisions are provided to the following Service Channels (Modules),

1. Customer Portal – both Desktop & Mobile Versions
2. Agent Desktop
3. Multi-channel toolkit (Telephony Integration)
4. Chat Interface
5. Customize, Extend and Build your own Custom Solutions & Integration Apps (Web/Batch) to meet the customer’s unique business requirements.
6. Facebook App

Above mentioned Modules are built-on & supported by the following most popular Technologies/Programming Languages.

1. J2EE
2. Microsoft Technologies (MSFT/Dot Net)
3. PHP
4. Presentation/Web Layer Technologies (Such as HTML, AJAX, JSON, JQUERY, Java Script, YUI,..)
5. SQL

Hence, RN projects with a need to Customize, Extend & Integrate all Service Channels to meet customer’s business goals require all segments of programmers (Java/.Net/PHP/Web/DB) to play a significant role for successful execution !!!.

Organizations so far focusing only on specific technologies will have to invest on grooming talents on all these technologies.

RN also provides good opportunity to developers with specific skills to learn new technologies. Developers who are keen to continue working on their area of expertise can still  do so & focus on a RN Integration modules which supports their technology strength.

The below table lists the Customizable & Extensible RN Modules; API’s supported by RN for Customization & Extension; Technologies to be used.  

 

#	RN Modules	Customization/Integration API	Technology to be used	Comments
1	Customer Portal, available in both Desktop & Mobile versions	Connect for PHP	PHP, AJAX, JSON, JQUERY, Java Script, YUI, HTML, SQL.
2	Agent Desktop	The Connect Desktop Add-In Framework (.NET) The Connect Desktop Integration (JavaScript) API	Dot Net, JS, Visual Studio, SQL.
3	Telephony Integration	The Multi-Channel Toolkit	Dot Net, JS, Visual Studio.
4	Chat Interface	The Chat Consumer Interface API The Chat Third Party Queue Integration APIs	J2EE or Dot Net.
5	Custom Extensions & Integrations (Web/Batch)	Connect Web Services For SOAP The Connect Knowledge Foundation API	J2EE or Dot Net, SQL.
6	Facebook Integration App	NA	NA	Limited Configuration of existing functionality is supported. Customization/Code changes to the app is not supported

 

I hope this information helps & provides you with better insights on your area of focus w.r.t Right Now Customization, Extension & Integration provisions based on your technology expertise & strength.

Few more useful Resources related to Customize, Extend & Integrate aspects of RN are listed below,

For Technical Documentation & Code Samples refer to the below URL,

https://cx.rightnow.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5169

Discussion Forum link,

http://communities.rightnow.com/groups/eedd6685ae/summary

Share your Ideas & Enhancements requests using the below link, 

http://communities.rightnow.com/resources/255b24b92b/summary

Happy Learning! 

Prashanth N Reddy

Technical Manager, CRMIT Solutions.