I have been working on a few projects lately. I have been using Custom Objects because they are mini-databases that I can use to help with service requests, but I noticed a few issues that make me hesitant to continue using them. Let’s look at a scenario together.
Scenario #1: Informing customers of a specific product about upcoming downtime
In this scenario (which happened IRL) - I have a product that is critical to the Law Enforcement community. I need to inform that community that the product will not be available for approximately 30 minutes. Cool. Here’s the rub though - not all of my customers use said product. So, I don’t want to send it to all my customers in my FreshService instance. I want to send it to a subset of users.
I currently have a custom object with a list of customers who are on the new application. However, when I create an announcement, there’s no way to add users from a Custom Object. This brings me to request #1.
Request #1 : Allow access to Custom Objects from Announcements
My Custom Object has a property called “AssociatedAgency” which is a lookup field. You can see that my datasource in this instance is “Departments”, but I’m running in MSP mode - so “Departments” really equals “Companies”. This custom object contains a list of companies that are on the new software. In my announcement, if I could say use the AssociatedAgency field and send a notice to every member who is part of the AssociatedAgency, that would fulfill my request.
But alas, it’s not meant to be. So then, I had a brilliant idea. I would create a contact group with that same list of companies. Anybody in the company would get the announcement because that already exists within the Announcements module….but that lead me to request #2.
Request #2 : Create Workflow Events for Custom Objects
Think about this. I know need to update two different lists any time a new customer comes on board. if I don’t do that - the two will not be in sync. Here’s my thought, what if there were events that existed for Custom Objects.
When a row is created
When a row is read
When a row is updated
When a row is deleted
Think about it for a minute. Think about the new power.
A new row is added - Add the company to a requester group via workflow automator (if it existed) or via the API
When a row is updated - Modify a contact group or some other part of FreshService - lessening the number of manual steps. The more manual steps there are - the more room for mistakes exists.
When a row is deleted - Imagine if a customer stopped using the software. I remove them from one list, but not another. The customer still ends up in the Contact Group because there is no syncing between the two. So, the customer is getting informed about maintenance for a product they don’t even use.
These are the kinds of things I think about when I think about maturing a product. We use these products every day and there are little nuanced things like this that could make FS so much better. I can’t be alone in having these requirements. I’m trying to make FreshService our central hub for all things - but doing so requires some additional maturity of the product to make it function better and reduce the need for additional changes.