obsolete: Turbo Key hints

Obsolete

The information herein describes template technology which has been replaced. See workflow technology for current custom template information. Most messages taken prior to 9-1-2015 utilize this older technology. This information is available to document these past messages.

partial typing hint pulldown

Usage

The Turbo Keys act like the accelerators built in to your browser. As a partial entry is keyed into the edit box, those entry terms matching the partial entry are displayed in a drop-down (see right).

Turbo Keys are more useful than browser based acceleration:

  • Turbo Keys are drawn from the entire account. Thus, multiple users are sharing the same data base. Even a single user can benefit because browser based acceleration is tied to a single machine and do not allow sharing across logins. This sharing encourages more uniformity in spelling and data entry.
  • Turbo Keys offers multiple sources of completed entries and are selectable on a field-by-field basis. The sources are:


  • Automatic - source is all past history of messages
  • Manual - source is a list maintained by admin
  • Browser - source reverts to browser facilities (not shared across account)

  • Browser based solutions cannot be edited or managed. Automatic Turbo Keys can be corrected by the admin using the Tools >> Browse menu. For Manual Turbo Keys, see the Picklist topic below.

Keyboard only operation

The screenshot above is intended for operation with a mouse. There is a related popup for operation with the keyboard. The popup differs primarily in that there is no internal close button and there is a faint red background.

Here are the arrow key functions:

  • UP/DOWN - enter the keyboard popup from the text entry input field. Once inside the popup, treats the list of hints as a circular list and positions to the next one either up or down.
  • RIGHT - selects the current highlighted entry in the popup and uses it to populate the text entry input field.
  • LEFT - exits the popup. Replaces the not present close button.

Flash Fill Extension

So far, the Turbo Keys described operate on a field-by-field basis. The form template can be set up so that an entire collection of fields ("secondary" fields) can be filled in simultaneously when a "primary" field is selected from an accelerator suggestion (and not merely typed in). This is illustrated here:

partial typing multiple field flash-fill

We first enter "P" in the caller field (designated as a primary in the form). There are two past entries starting with "P". We click on "PALO ALTO". This expands to fill all three fields. The data is drawn from the most recent phone call so that if there is a correction made, it will propagate. Again, for clarity, note that all 3 fields are completely filled out by entering "P" followed by a single mouse click.

In most cases, this is a major time savings. However, "most" is not "all" and so there are 3 levels of control afforded the user over this feature. (1) for custom forms, this feature is enabled or disabled in the form itself. (2) the user may shut off fast fill for themselves, even if the form implements it, and (3) any secondary field may be edited and any desired corrections made. Hints may be accepted and affect only that field. The primary field may be edited as well provided no further hints are accepted.

Management

Turbo Keys are controlled by the form template. See the Custom Forms topic for how to edit custom forms. In the <entry>...</entry> section of a form field, you may see an entry looking like:
    (&turbo 
      source=automatic 
      tag=xxx&)
The "xxx" is the same as the name of the surrounding tag pair. Here is a fuller example showing the surrounding tags:
    <caller>
      <permit>['move', 
        'edit', 'rename', 
        'del', 'new']
      </permit>
      <entry>
        <tr><td>
            Caller:
        </td><td>
            (&turbo 
            source=primary 
            tag=caller&)
        </td></tr>
      </entry>
      <smtp_html>
        <tr><td>
          caller:
        </td><td>
          <b>(&caller&)
        </td></tr>
      </smtp_html>
    </caller>
Note that caller is designated as a "primary" source. It is this designation which allows expansion of any hint selected to carry data associated with it to other "secondary" entries.

Also note that the meaning of a primary field must be consistent across all forms used in an account. The system forms define caller as the primary. If you mix system forms with custom forms, this means your custom forms must define caller as primary as well. If you use only custom forms, you may designate account number, business name, telephone number, etc. as primary.

Picklist

A picklist is a specialized type of hint list. Rather than being created dynamically from the call data as it is taken, a picklist is entered statically and maintained by you, the admin. A picklist is a good choice for data which is drawn from a limited menu of choices and is relatively static. Examples might be department names, office locations, account codes, medical diagnostics, etc. A poor choice would be names and numbers of telephone callers because these are changing all the time.

A Picklist may be created and edited via the Admin >> Picklist menu. You can also use the Tools >> Browse to merge (add) entries into the Picklist.

Please note: You must (1) create a picklist file for the field (also called cabinet)and (2) change the source to manual in your custom form for that field in order to have a usable manual turbo accelerator. Doing only one of the foregoing is not good enough. Both actions must be taken. Because a custom form is required, it follows that the standard forms may not use picklists or manual sources of Turbo Keys.

To have this use your picklist for the dlv_to_email field, replace

    (&turbo 
      source=automatic 
      tag=dlv_to_email 
      legacy&)
above with
    (&turbo 
       source=manual 
       tag=dlv_to_email&)
If you make some other field manual manual, notice that the tag= value must be changed to be the same as the enclosing field name. There are 5 instances of "dlv_to_email" in the example above. Change all 5 when adapting this for another field name.