Google Chat bot to auto expand ticket references - hangouts-chat

In Chat, we often refer to specific issues in our ticketing system.
Ideally I'd like to create a bot that would automatically convert a ticket reference (RM#xxxx) to a hyperlink, possibly also looking up the ticket subject and inserting it too.
My understanding is that this is not possible as a bot must be invoked by an # mention.
Is there any way to achieve what I'm looking for?

Related

How would I go about developing a program that automatically sends an email with the tracking number to a customer using EasyPost API?

I'm a fairly new web developer and I have an ecommerce website that integrates EasyPost to create and print shipping labels.
EasyPost has an API. Also, in each shipping label, I see a JavaScript object (I think) that displays buyer_address... "email": "example#gmail.com",, which tells me that the email information is there.
My question is somewhat general in scope: What steps would I need to take to go about creating this automation? The website is built in Webflow, so I don't really have a "codebase" or "repository" to store whatever code is needed to build the automation.
Since the buyer email is making it into EasyPost with integrations already in place, I feel that I could create a simple program that emails the tracking number to the buyer email every time a label is generated, or perhaps when package is shipped, without the program needing to interact with Webflow or other integrations.
I attempted using Zapier, as well as Make.com. Neither worked, and OrderDesk doesn't have a way to send tracking number emails.
It looks like Webflow has some kind of support for Webhooks (https://webflow.com/feature/create-webhooks-from-project-settings). EasyPost offers webhooks for free as an add-on service. Basically, with webhooks, EasyPost would send tracking events to Webflow proactively, but Webflow (or you) would need to manage the logic for what to do with those tracking events after they are delivered.
EasyPost Webhook Guide
I'm unaware of any off the shelf products that could do this for you without writing any code. We have a guide that details how you might accomplish this with Ruby (you could then follow this as an example for any other language): https://www.easypost.com/email-tracking-tutorial
A few suggestions:
Integrate something into Webflow if possible (I'm unfamiliar with the platform so couldn't say).
Build a simple script that runs on a schedule (cronjob) that retrieves your trackers from EasyPost and sends an email to customers if they have not yet received one. To your point, this approach wouldn't require interacting with Webflow at all and could be done with some local code running on a server and just your EasyPost API key.
I've created a simple UI for EasyPost: https://github.com/Justintime50/easypost-tools-ui, it could be interesting to add this particular use-case as a feature to that project. If you're interested, feel free to open an issue on GitHub for the repo listed here and I'd consider it.
You'd use easypost's API webhooks, to detect when shipment tracking information is provided, or package information is updated.
https://www.easypost.com/docs/api#trackers
It looks like it has a lot of states, so you can keep the client updated regarding the package status from the moment the tracking # is assigned;
EZ1000000001 pre_transit
EZ2000000002 in_transit
EZ3000000003 out_for_delivery
EZ4000000004 delivered
EZ5000000005 return_to_sender
EZ6000000006 failure
EZ7000000007 unknown
You can install webhooks from these docs.
To send the email, you can use an automation service e.g. Make to capture those webhook events, and then compose and send an email to that customer. I like MailJet for that purpose, because it has excellent template support and you can send from your own company domain. But there are many email-sending options.
A bigger challenge, maybe, is getting the email address to send to. I didn't spot it glancing through the Trackers or Shipments data structures, and I am primarily seeing physical address info.
If EasyPost is not tracking the customer's email with the shipment, you may have some challenge in that you'd need to capture the client info through Webflow's order webhooks, and then associate that with EasyPost's shipmentid, and store those in a reference table.
Many automation services offer database-like functionality for this purpose, or you could use e.g. google sheets ( columns webflow OrderID, easypost ShipmentID, customer Email ) or airtable for that purpose.
But you'd have to look into the Easypost integration as well, and you may need to make that integration manual so that you can acquire all 3 of those pieces of information at the same point in your business data flow.

Getting started creating a web form in Microsoft Teams

I dont know where to begin. Do I need to create an app? Do I need to use bots? I have tried finding docs online but don't know where to start. Any help with be appreciated.
I am trying to create a small form in a teams channel that my users will fill out.
User enters #projects
Web server responds with
User clicks submit and data gets posted to my web server.
You're correct that there are a few different kinds of applications in Teams, so finding the one that suits your needs can be a little confusing at first. For what you're trying to do, I would recommend a Bot, and when it received a message (which it will do when it receives your #mention), it can respond with an Adaptive Cards. Adaptive Cards, if you've not used them, are like small embedded forms inside the chat. The user can complete the card and click a button, and it will send the payload back to your bot to do whatever it needs.
Bots, incidentally, are basically just web services, so your bot can do whatever it needs once it received the payload, such as calling another API in turn.
You haven't mentioned what language you might want to work in, but here are some good starting point nevertheless:
https://dev.botframework.com/
https://github.com/microsoft/BotBuilder-Samples/tree/main/samples
https://github.com/microsoft/BotBuilder-Samples/tree/main/samples/csharp_dotnetcore/57.teams-conversation-bot (I've linked the C# version - you should know that Teams bots use the same Microsoft framework as -all- bots build for the Microsoft world, such as web chat bot or a Skype bot. As a result, you have to ensure that anything you look at is applicable to Teams as some content/samples are not)
https://adaptivecards.io/ (as with Bots, Adaptive Cards have a life outside of Teams, so some articles/content/etc. might not be applicable to your scenario)

Using Google Calendar Web API to dynamically create events on (company) calendar?

I've reviewed the Google Calendar API docs and having trouble finding information on creating events on a predefined calendar.
The Browser Quickstart docs worked just great to get up and running by authenticating use of my calendar. However, do you have advice on how to allow users to create events on a predefined calendar?
Use case:
We have a couple web forms for users (leads) to complete. When certain criteria have been met, we'd like to pass details from the web form to a Google Calendar event on our company calendar.
User completes web form which includes a handful of questions, namely two date/time pickers
On form submission, deliver form values to Google Calendar API - create event dynamically using information submitted in the form
Standard calendar functionality happens; notifications, etc. generated from Google Calendar
More clarification:
Users don't need view access to the calendar
The calendar integration is irrelevant to users, they're just submitting a contact form
It appears the only required event fields are start and end time so that's easy enough to grab from a date picker I'm just lost on how to engineer the connection to our company calendar named e.g. "User Created Events".
I know this can be done with Zapier. I'd like to learn the correct way though.
Based from Calendar API Sharing and Attendees:
There are two different ways to share calendar and event data with
others.
Firstly, you can share an entire calendar, with a specified level of
access. For example, you can create a team calendar, and then do
things like:
Grant all members of your team the right to add and modify events in the calendar
Grant your boss the right to see the events on your calendar
Grant your customers the right to only see when you are free or busy, but not the details of the events
You can also adjust the access to individual events on the shared
calendar.
You can share with somebody a specific created event on a calendar using google api by going through ACL - access control list.
I use Zapier for my organization to complete the exact same scenario. Ideally the webform service you use has a built in integration with Zapier, otherwise there will be some coding involved to have this work.
Assuming your webform service has an integration with Zapier:
Trigger Event: There is likely a trigger scenario along the lines of "execute zap on submission of new record". Upon this trigger activating, depending on how your webform service sends data, you will likely receive a list of values corresponding to the data entered.
Optional Action: Depending on the consistency of the data being entered through the webform you may want to also consider adding a step using the Zapier code module. The code module allows you to take the data gathered during the trigger event and manipulate it as you see fit (I personally use this step to check that data was entered correctly). That said it is an advanced step and does require some coding experience in either javascript or python. See the Python documentation here and the Java documentation here.
Google Calendar Action: If you haven't already you will be required to authorize Zapier's access to read and write to your calendar. Zapier makes this pretty straight forward. Click the "connect account" button and a dialog window will appear asking you to log into your gmail account. After you have connected your account you can then setup your template. Using the drop downs within the template you can select what data you would like to be entered into each field. Assuming everything went correctly then you should see the information added to your calendar.
See the documentation here for further explanation.
Assuming your webform service does not have an integration with Zapier:
This is a bit trickier and will be dependent on the whether or not your webform service allows you to make POST requests based on the entering of new forms. This will as well require a good deal more programming to get up and running. Not knowing the platform you are using to capture user input forces me to make a lot of assumptions.
So assuming your webform platform has the ability to make POST requests with the data from a newly entered record, or allows you to program it to do so, you could use Zapier's webhook module as a trigger. See Zapier's webhook documentation here.
For this to work you would have to start by creating a webhook endpoint through Zapier. The endpoint is just a url that is waiting to receive data sent to it from an outside source, in this case your webform platform.
The zap template would look as follows:
Trigger Event: POST request data caught by Zapier webhook endpoint. Once the data is captured it can be used in the same way you would with a standard zap. That is to say that the data, in the form of key/value pairs, will now be populated in Zapier's drop down list you use to move information from one step to the next.
Optional Action: Once again you can leverage Zapier's code module to apply logic to the captured data.
Google Calendar Action: Same as the "Google Calendar Action" listed above.
Edit:
In re-reading your question I realize that you are looking to achieve this without using zapier. I will leave this answer up for the time being, as perhaps it will have some value to you. If not I can remove it.

Getting permissions for using instagram api

I have made an android application that enables advertisers to count the posts each one of their followers/followings have liked. this way they'll be able to understand which one of them is more active and which one is not, I also have added another feature for sending like requests to the followers/followings by leaving a like on their most recent post and leaving a comment that tells them "I liked your posts come and like my posts".
I registered a submission and explained everything as they wanted, but they declined my submission :(
Now my question is How should I explain it for them or WHAT CHANGES should I apply to my application so they approve it.
This is their answer:
General issues:
Invalid Use Case: The use case described in your submission notes,
screencast and website is not a valid use case. If you are trying to
build analytics for personal use or one-off projects, note that we do
not support one-off and single use projects. We recommend that you use
a third-party platform that powers this use case. If you are building
a platform for this use case, we will only approve one client ID for
all your integrations. For more information, please see:
https://www.instagram.com/developer/review/ Policy Violation ("Like",
"Follow", "Comment" Exchange Program): Your app shouldn't participate,
enable or promote any “like”, “share”, “comment” or “follower”
exchange programs. In working to build a high quality platform
experience, we ask that you comply with our Platform Policy
(http://wwww.instagram.com/about/legal/terms/api/).
I have to say my application is not a ONE-OFF application, as the number of liked posts vary from time to time, so the user will check this application almost every day.
I also have added another feature for sending like requests to the
followers/followings by leaving a like on their most recent post and
leaving a comment that tells them "I liked your posts come and like my
posts".
This is against the API policy:
Your app shouldn't participate, enable or promote any “like”, “share”,
“comment” or “follower” exchange programs.

Create an email tracker

I thought I would find tons of information on the subject but somehow the implementation of email tracking seems to illude me on the web. I understand that there is the so-called email tracking pixel that you can add to an html email. I suppose the src attribute of this image (pixel) would point to a website action or api that would note the opening of the email, etc. However this seems too easy for there to be email services that charge a ton of money to track emails.
I need to implement my own email tracking and am wondering has anyone implemented an email tracking and what are the caveats to it? I am not looking for specific implementations in php, ruby or asp.net, although such would be more than welcomed. I am more looking for the basic principals and approaches to such an implementation.