SimpleIMS is a Business to Business (B2B) solution for documenting and managing service requests. IMS’s are used in many businesses to handle requests by customers and to improve the efficiency of customer service organizations.
A company representative uses an IMS to document, prioritize, and assign a customer service issue to a staff member who can manage the customer request. For example, a customer might call a software company to report that the software application running on her desktop computer is displaying an error message. A customer service representative from the software company would use the IMS to document and prioritize the problem. Additionally, other company support staff members would perform actions to resolve the customer support issue.
An IMS also typically provides reports showing the number of incidents handled each month, customer representative performance, and general incident trends. Companies can use these metrics to improve customer satisfaction and better understand their resource needs.
Requirements:
- Play 2 framework: http://www.playframework.com
- Java IDE (Eclipse, etc)
Installation steps:
- Create new Play IMS project: play new ims
- If using Eclipse, install the project files using: play eclipse
- Install git in the ims directory: git init
- Issue a pull request from the project repository to update the files.
The SimpleIMS system includes both a RESTful API and a Javascript-based client application. The API and the client application both used separate model-view-controller (MVC) frameworks. The API is built around the Java Play 2 framework and the client application is built around the AngularJS framework. The API currently uses the Java H2 database engine for data persistence -- although this database could easily be switched out for any relational database supported by the EBean ORM.
A RESTful API was developed to facilitate data transfer, in JSON format, between the client application and the core IMS system. JSON was chosen because it is a lightweight object serialization format, and it works well with both Java and Javascript-based application frameworks. REST represents a modern approach to designing pragmatic web API’s where application endpoints are defined by objects acting as nouns and called by HTTP methods acting as verbs. By supporting dozens of useful API endpoints, the system provides an API vocabulary that allows a wide variety of client applications to communicate with the system.
Interestingly, both the presentation and domain logic application tiers utilize separate MVC frameworks. In the case of the domain logic tier (API), the system is primarily using the Model and Controller portions of the framework. The View capabilities of the Play 2 framework are only used to bootstrap the AngularJS application into the user’s web browser. This architecture reinforces a clear separation of concerns. The Play 2 framework is focused on supporting the API, whereas the AngularJS framework supports the client web interface.
SimpleIMS can support any kind of client interface as long as it can communicate with the RESTful API and understand JSON. The existing AngularJS-based client interface represents a prototype of what a client interface could look like. A client interface could just as easily have been built on a mobile platform. In fact, that's a good idea for a future project.
AGENTS
Agents represent the representatives of the company providing products or services to the customers. An agent can create, update, and own incidents.
| METHOD | ENDPOINT | ACTION |
|---|---|---|
| GET | /agent | Get currently logged in agent |
| GET | /agents | Get complete list of active agents |
| GET | /agents/{username} | Get information for specific agent |
| GET | /agents/{username}/incidents | Get incidents associated with agent |
| GET | /logout | Logout agent |
| POST | /login | Login agent |
CATEGORIES
Each incident is categorized for reporting or future service routing.
| METHOD | ENDPOINT | ACTION |
|---|---|---|
| GET | /categories | Get complete list of categories |
| GET | /categories/{id} | Get information for a specific category |
COMPANIES
Contacts (customers) buying a product or service work for a company. A company may have many contacts.
| METHOD | ENDPOINT | ACTION |
|---|---|---|
| GET | /companies[?search=<name> | all] | Get complete list of active companies |
| GET | /companies/{id} | Get information for specific company |
| GET | /companies/{id}/incidents | Get list of incidents associated with a company |
| GET | /companies/{id}/contacts | Get list of contacts associated with a company |
| GET | /companies/{id}/addresses | Get list of addresses associated with a company |
| POST | /companies | Create a new company |
| POST | /companies/{id} | Update an existing company |
| POST | /companies/{id}/contacts | Add a contact to an existing company |
| POST | /companies/{id}/addresses/{id2} | Add an address to an existing company |
| DELETE | /companies/{id} | Delete an existing company |
CONTACTS
A contact represents the customer reporting an incident to an agent. A contact may report several incidents to different agents over time. A contact can currently only be related to one company.
| METHOD | ENDPOINT | ACTION |
|---|---|---|
| GET | /contacts[?search=<fullname> | all] | Get complete list of active contacts |
| GET | /contacts/{id} | Get information for a specific contact |
| GET | /contacts/{id}/incidents | Get list of incidents associated with a contact |
| GET | /contacts/{id}/companies | Get company associated with a contact |
| POST | /contacts/{id} | Update an existing contact |
| DELETE | /contacts/{id} | Delete an existing contact |
INCIDENTS
An incident represents a service or product issue that is having an impact on a contact. Each incident has a start date, priority, category, status, and description. Agents take ownership of incidents and perform actions to resolve the incidents.
| METHOD | ENDPOINT | ACTION |
|---|---|---|
| GET | /incidents[?status=<status>] | Get a list of incidents associated with current Agent |
| GET | /incidents/{id} | Get information for a specific incident |
| GET | /incidents/{id}/actions | Get list of actions associated with a specific incident |
| POST | /incidents/{id}/actions | Add an action to an existing incident |
| POST | /incidents/{id}/reopen | Reopen a closed incident |
| POST | /incidents/{id}/close | Close an existing incident |
| POST | /incidents | Create a new incident |
| POST | /incidents/{id} | Update an existing incident |
| DELETE | /incidents/{id} | Delete an existing incident |
REPORTS
A report is a set of data that represents a meaningful metric related to the system. For example, a report include data on the number of incidents opened each day for the past three months.
| METHOD | ENDPOINT | ACTION |
|---|---|---|
| GET | /reports/incidents[?days=<num>] | Get all the incidents created within the past number of days |
| GET | /reports/incidentcount[?days=<num>] | Get the number of incidents opened each day within the past number of days |
| GET | /reports/stats | Get statistics on the number of currently open incidents |
SimpleIMS was started by Jason Baker in the spring of 2014 as part of a software engineering graduate class (SEIS 626 Software Analysis and Design) offered at the University of St. Thomas. Baker used his prior experience within the telcom and webhosting industries to design the basic models and architecture for the application.
- Better error handling needs to be implemented throughout the application.
- UI needs to support pagination.
- Email notifications and alerts.
- Customer accounts and interface for generating and reviewing requests.
- OAuth and SSO would be nice.
- More report types and options.
- Admin portal and related functionality.
- User password reset
The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) 2014 Jason Baker
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.