Specializing in Support and Service Software
The Dovetail SDK is a software development kit for writing applications for a Clarify / Dovetail system. Dovetail uses the SDK as a platform for building our applications, including Dovetail Agent, Dovetail Mobile Agent, Dovetail RuleManager, and Dovetail Seeker. Clarify and Dovetail customers can use this same SDK platform for building applications and extending their system.
The SDK includes code libraries, documentation, examples, sample applications, and utilities to help with configuration and database management. The core of the SDK is two main sets of libraries: FCFL.NET and the API Toolkits.
FCFL.NET provides a number of basic application services such as configuration, logging, provider-independent data access, caching, and licensing. The main purpose of FCFL.NET, however, is to provide low-level, direct access to a Clarify database without having to involve any other Clarify products. Using FCFL.NET, you can query, insert, update, relate, and delete data from your database without worrying about corrupting data or interfering with the use of other software attached to your database. FCFL.NET uses the same semantics that the Clarify Classic Client uses for performing database operations. FCFL.NET can peacefully coexist at the same time against the same database with other Clarify applications as well as other Dovetail applications.
The API Toolkits provide convenient business logic wrappers for most of the common tasks performed in a Clarify environment. These include, but are not limited to: creating cases, solutions, contacts, change requests, and site parts, performing workflow operations like assigning cases and dispatching change requests, and performing logistical operations such as moving and installing parts.
The API Toolkits in the SDK are divided into functional areas that map closely to Classic Clarify products. For example, the SupportToolkit object encapsulates the functionality from ClearSupport, while the LogisticsToolkit covers ClearLogistics.
The SDK is completely written using the Microsoft .NET Framework, and exposes its interfaces in multiple fashions. The most common usage of the SDK is from .NET languages and environments such as C#, VB.NET, and PowerShell. The native .NET interfaces of the SDK make it easy and natural for .NET developers. The SDK also provides COM interfaces, allowing it to be used from COM-based languages such as Visual Basic 6, JavaScript, VBScript, and ClearBasic.
The SDK exposes web services, which provide a web interface into many of the SDK features such as querying and modifying data as well as invoking API Toolkit methods. These web services are built using the SOAP standards defined by the W3C, which means you can use them with any language or platform that supports the HTTP protocol such as Java. The SDK ships with a client assembly for .NET which makes calling the SDK web services very similar to native FCFL.NET and API Toolkit calls.
The SDK ships with three sample/demonstration applications: An ASP.NET web application, a console/command-line application, and a Windows Forms application. These are provided as complete working solutions with full source code. These samples should help developers quickly get started using the SDK in their own environment.
The SDK ships with several utilities to help you manage your system, configure the SDK, and other tasks.
Dovetail Products for Clarify work with the version of Clarify you have – eliminating the need for expensive and lengthy Clarify upgrades. In addition, the same version of the SDK works with all versions of Clarify, and with all supported database platforms. This means that even if you upgrade your Clarify system or your database, applications built using the Dovetail SDK will continue to work without change. Applications built using the Dovetail SDK co-exist with other Clarify applications – including the Clarify Classic Client and CBO-based applications.
The Dovetail SDK is compatible with the following products:
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