ServiceDesk 4.7.19 Update 01/25/13

Recently a user told us his customers, on receiving an appointment confirmation request (whether by Email or RoboCall), were sometimes uncertain whether the indicated time-frame referred to AM or PM.  For most indicated time-frames, the AM/PM context is obvious (who could doubt, for example, that an expectation for the tech to be there within the "12-3" time-frame refers to PM").  For some other indicated times, however, there truly is ambiguity (what is more likely the intent, for example, if the time-frame reference is "6-9"?). 

We figured this should be addressed immediately, and while we were at it decided to improve the involved language overall, as relating to both the day-description and the time-frame description.  Our goal was to make both descriptions more conversational in tone.  Thus (and to provide some examples), time-frame descriptions have changed to convey to your customer as follows:

Old

New

7-10

between 7:00 AM and 10:00 AM

9:30-12

between 9:30 AM and 12:00 NOON

11-2

between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM

2:30

about 2:30 PM

2:00 AM

about 2:00 AM

You might note the system is using the same AM/PM assumptions as used within SD itself, and if you want to override those assumption in your time-frame indication (as you setup the appointment), you simply need to add an explicit AM/PM designator, per standard practice. 

Day-descriptions have also been changed for better conversational tone and descriptiveness:

Old

New

Saturday, 1/26

Tomorrow, Saturday the 26th

Monday, 1/28

Monday the 28th

Friday, 2/1

Friday, February 1

Please note the old notations were particularly bad for RoboCalling, for the voice-synthesizing engine would translate, for example, "Saturday, 1/6" literally as "Saturday one slash six" (in other words, this is precisely what your customer would hear).  It worked, but made for a somewhat less elegant user experience.  For the customer to instead hear "Tomorrow, Saturday the 26th" is obviously much better. 

Please also note we've built some IQ into the language.  The prefix "Tomorrow" is inserted if in fact the involved date is tomorrow, but omitted otherwise.  The month reference is included if the appointment is in other than the current month, but is omitted otherwise.  We think, all-in-all, it should make the interaction seem a bit more human-like, for your customer.

Two entries back/below, you'll see where we added an option to include the involved tech's picture in confirmation emails.  Pretty cool, but it turns out there were some circumstances where it was not working as intended.  Those flaws have been fixed with this release.