Improvements to Tandem/Account Syncing
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Any ideas for new features for account syncing that would make the feature more useful?
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@ChristianS9906 That takes care of one part. The UI is always a large part of any project. We also have to notify account admins when sync changes have been made so that they can review the changes. Other side effects that I haven't predicted have to be considered as well.
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@joe-appcoll-com Thanks, Joe--glad to hear this.
For (c), couldn't you just have a boolean flag for each sync in a sync recipient's account that has to be "true" for the sync to be processed? You could set it up so that it defaults to "false" for any newly set up sync and is only switched to "true" once the admin on the recipient account reviews the synced field enablement/mapping and approves it.
If you did that, it seems like it would be relatively trivial to then cause that boolean flag for a sync to switch back to false if the underlying report for that sync was overwritten, thus forcing the recipient admin to review and approve the updated sync fields.
Of course, have no idea of what goes on under the hood. Figured I'd offer the above in case it was helpful.
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@ChristianS2558 We have added engineering items for items a and b. When they are completed we will notify you here. Item c is a large project and is still under review. Thanks for the feedback
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@joe-appcoll-com Hi Joe,
I took a look at this, and while the changes are really nice, I have a few suggestions/questions:
a) The mapping seems like it really should be something that the receiving party gets to specify. Right now, it's the source of the sync that gets to specify the mapping, but the recipient of the sync is the one that would generally know where the data should go. This isn't too big a deal, but it seemed kind of odd to do it this way. It requires more communication/interaction between the account admins this way. If the recipient is given this capability instead, then the source admin doesn't really need to do anything going forward--if the recipient decides they want to shift how things are mapped, no need for the source admin to be involved. Under the present system, the source admin would need to be looped in to make such changes....
b) The mapping doesn't seem to account for the custom/user fields from the source account to be mapped to any fields on the recipient side. I see that the source side can map non-custom/user fields on the source side to custom/user fields on the recipient side, but there isn't an ability to specify how data stored in custom/user fields on the source side gets stored on the recipient side.
c) It wasn't clear to me whether or not there was any feature that prevented a new sync or sync where the underlying report had been edited from syncing until the recipient admin reviewed and approved--is that feature included now? The idea would be that no sync could be initiated without the receiving admin being given a chance to review and approve/disapprove of the proposed sync field list/mappings. This might be present, but I didn't have a good way of testing/exploring it.
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@ChristianS9906 There isn't a support document yet. Account admins on both sides of the sync can disable columns if they don't want to send/receive them. You can also choose a column in the dropdown to map it to a different column in the destination account (such as AttorneyRef -> ClientRef). If you have any more questions I'll write up a document explaining it further.
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@joe-appcoll-com Hi Joe,
This is great--is there a help file/documentation on this feature? I'd like to approach a client about implementing it, but want to learn about it first.
Best,
Christian -
@ChristianS9906 The ability to map fields and disable them on the destination side has been added. Thanks for the suggestions.
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@ChristianS2558 Thanks, Christian. We do have these features on our list and should get to them in the near future.
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@joe-appcoll-com
Yes--add:a) the ability to allow the admin for account receiving the sync to review what fields are in the sync report and, for each such field, designate which field in the receiving account's database the sync report field will be imported into (including giving the admin the ability to direct that the synced field NOT be imported into any field in the database of the receiving account). This will vastly improve the Sync feature since it will allow users to map imports between different fields, e.g., law firm uses "AttorneyRef" to store their docket number and ClientRef to store client's docket number, while client uses "ClientRef" to store law firm's docket number and "AttorneyRef" to store their own docket number. It should be possible for either party to set up a Sync of either field and have the receiving party direct that Sync to the field that stores that same data--even if they are different field names in each account.
b) disable any new or modified sync into an account until (a) has been done--this avoids potential catastrophe that may occur if a sync is set up and the underlying report for it is then modified and ends up overwriting data in the recipient's account that was not supposed to be synced.
I suggested this to AppColl directly earlier and know this is being worked on, but figured I'd float here to get feedback from others.
Cheers,
Christian
