I want to.....

ingeniousity · Joined: 07 Jun 2008 Posts: 3

Hi,

This app looks like just the thing I'm looking for, or rather it's just the thing my friend is looking for and I could probably use it too. I will try the demo version if the response is "generally speaking, yes" to see what we can do with Thyme, but it's probably quicker to ask a few questions first rather than spend a lot of time fiddling with it, give it up, and then find out next year that we did something wrong.

First off, we're in Taiwan. I gather there is currently no Traditional Chinese translation available, but we can arrange that if Thyme can support it. We need both the front and back end to be available in Chinese and English, so if that won't be possible then read no further. Do you have non-ascii character support?

Next, my friend runs a virtual office service, which means that his staff answer phone calls on behalf of hundreds of small business people and send emails or SMSs to them from his existing system. At the moment it's a basic call-answering service, but it needs to expand into secretary/assistant territory.

ie someone calls to request a consultation, and currently the operator simply passes the message. In future we would like it if the operator becomes a secretary who will consult his diary and make the appointment there and then. The appointment is then added to the clients' diary. Alternatively, we could be making outbound sales calls on behalf of the client, and scheduling sales appointments into diaries for multiple reps.

At the moment there doesn't seem to be a simple solution available. Incoming calls could be taken by any operator, so it gets too complex to have individual diaries for each client. One login per operator per client, it gets unmanageable very quickly.

It looks like Thyme could handle this. We could maintain one site (probably Joomla), and give each client and each operator their own login. It would simply be a matter of setting permissions from there, am I right? How does the Mozilla calendar app fit into the picture? Would we need to use that too, or just the base installation?

Now here's the tough bit: How can you make the up-to-date diary available to someone who doesn't have a physical office? It needs a mobile template. Or, in a perfect world there would be some app to push diary changes to the mobile device itself. I guess that won't happen, so we're looking for a next-best solution.

Taipei has more or less universal WiFi coverage, as well as GSM/G3, so I guess we just need an acceptable interface. I've just started looking at mobile templates for Joomla, but I read something about Thyme appearing in a wrapper. How does that work?

Is there any way to let people on the go know what changes have been made to their diary by the folks at mission control? That's really the key issue. Taiwanese people generally assume that Microsoft is the only game in town, btw.

Thanks

Also, just for discussion....

Wishlist item #1: As a marketing tool we would also like to offer a free service to enable non-clients to also maintain their diaries on this system, so that their existing secretaries, colleagues, etc could view or add entries. Is that doable?

Wishlist item #2: We can find a way to make this system talk to the call-centre database so that there would be a "this client's diary" button on the interface used during calls. I'm guessing this is do-able for a price? Does the regular license include the source-code and freedom to hack?

wishlist item#3: Integration with the Community Builder and/or SOBI components of Joomla. (Or is that there already?) If so then we can look at building a much more powerful customer communication centre using Joomla, and provide all sorts of funky services to our customers.

wishlist item #4: And now I'm probably going right off the deep end! Thinking far ahead, we've just started looking at apps like Joomla Bill (http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,4735/Itemid,35/) to see if there is anything that can be integrated with a calendar. Maybe you would care to consider this idealised vision in your next revision or upgrade:

Imagine someone calls wanting to get their toilet fixed, or to take an English class. Doesn't matter what it is, they are calling a provider, via a virtual office, to buy someone's time. So as well as the existing fields, there is also a space for "customer" which may result in a new customer entry being created or an addition being made to an existing customer entry.

So the provider (my friend's client) now has a booking in his diary courtesy of the existing Thyme system, he knows about it because we've found a way to get that information onto his mobile, he's maybe looked at the attached file or URL for more info, and sooner or later he's going to be looking for payment. It may be payment in advance before the Virtual PA will approve the booking, or it may be invoiced at the end of the month, or whatever his terms of service dictate.

However he wants it, the one thing he doesn't want to do is to spend time on admin. He wants each one of his customers to be automatically billed as and when appropriate. So he needs the Bill application, or something similar, to talk to the calendar application. If this can be done than all the admin just goes away. He will spend his time going from client to client (or sitting at home trying to think of ways to market his services) but he isn't going to be bothered with calculating invoices, sending them out, or trying to keep track of who sent him a cheque this month. It can all be easily and cheaply outsourced.

There would probably have to be some other field to enable the provider or VPA to add other billable items to the same calendar entry, such as travel costs or materials.

I'm not sure that Bill is the perfect solution for this, even if it can be integrated with the calendar function, but for small businesses the combination would be a powerful tool.

Also worth noting is that the Bill system is compatible with all the commonly used payment options in western countries, but they are not generally used in the world's biggest market - China! I think there would need to be some changes made to the processing to make the combined package more widely saleable.

Well, I'm assuming that at the moment we can only do half of what we want to do, but it's enough to get started with. Can you give me an idea of what's achievable and I'll give it a go.

Thanks again.
Chris

esoft_ian · Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 5188

Hi,

I'm sorry, not knowing Chinese, I can not tell you if you would hit any snags translating Thyme. Thyme does support non-ascii characters. A few people had offered before, but I had never heard back from them after giving them initial instructions.

ingeniousity · Joined: 07 Jun 2008 Posts: 3

OK, thanks. Assuming that's OK then, does Thyme do what I think it will do?

esoft_ian · Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 5188

I'll cover everything before the wish list first:

-- It would simply be a matter of setting permissions from there, am I right? How does the Mozilla calendar app fit into the picture? Would we need to use that too, or just the base installation?

Yes, setting permissions would be fine. You do not need to use a calendar application, the web based interface in Thyme will do just fine.

-- I've just started looking at mobile templates for Joomla, but I read something about Thyme appearing in a wrapper. How does that work?

Thyme has no mobile interface. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure how joomla handles a wrapped website inside a mobile template.

-- Is there any way to let people on the go know what changes have been made to their diary by the folks at mission control?

Thyme supports Notifications where users may choose to be notified via e-mail of added or updated events on any calendar they may view.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

ingeniousity · Joined: 07 Jun 2008 Posts: 3

Thanks Ian,

It looks like I'll have my plate full with this, so it might be a good idea to disregard my wishlist for now....

First off then, can you give me some pointers on translating the calendar? I don't know a lot about the technical stuff, but I presume that there's a php file somewhere which holds all the descriptions, etc? If so then I could import some Chinese into the existing file just to see if it works? I would just change "Monday" to squiggle, slash, squiggle and then reload the page to see if it worked?

Or would I need to provide translations and have you incorporate them, or what?

Assuming that's all good, I can set up a multi-user calendar that enables a shared secretarial service to maintain individual diaries for potentially hundreds of customers? This sounds great. I'd like to give it a go, and then figure out how to make it mobile-accessible later.

Any other issues I need to think of?

esoft_ian · Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 5188

Hi,

Documentation on translating Thyme can be found here.

I can not think of any issues off the top of my head.