Log Exchange

The Log Exchange feature of CLIFF provides an interface between your CLIFF database and other CLIFF databases allowing you to create and send Referrals to other databases. Each "external" Referral you create sends a copy of your Log and its attachments to the other database. If the receiving CLIFF database accepts the Referral, a new Log with your Referral is created in their database. When they complete their Referral and close the Log, your Referral is automatically updated.

In addition, if you have a section on your web site where you invite people to submit questions, report problems, send comments, or other information, this can all be captured and submitted to CLIFF for creating Logs through the Log Exchange function.

All external Referrals, or Logs received by CLIFF, go into a holding area where they can be examined before being accepted into your database.

Exchanging Referrals

Web Forms

Creating External Referral

Sending a Referral to another CLIFF database is as simple as sending a Referral to an Office in your own database.

To Create External Referral

  1. Create a new Referral
  2. From the list of Offices choose the external Organization (database) you wish to send the Referral to. External Organizations will have a prefix of "X:" to mark it as an eXternal Organization. If there are no External Organizations in your Office list then your instance of CLIFF has not been configured to exchange Logs with other databases.
  3. Choose the appropriate Referral action. Note that external Referrals will allow you to set the Referral Due Date past the Log due date.
  4. Save the Referral. The saving process may take a few seconds while CLIFF communicates with the other database. CLIFF sends the Log, Referral, and attachments to the other database and waits for confirmation. If CLIFF saves the Referral, it is a confirmation that the external Referral was successfully sent.

Some things to note about external Referrals

  • You cannot send an external Referral for Batch Headers.
  • If you send an external Referral for a Batch member, CLIFF converts it to a normal Log when it sends it to the external Organization.
  • Log Notes are only sent if the Application Preference is set to include them.
  • Only Attachments that have been marked as "Allow this attachment to be sent to other CLIFF organizations" will be included.

Receiving External Referral

Updated in Version 5.2

Referrals received from other CLIFF organizations go into a holding area where you may examine them before accepting them into your CLIFF database. When CLIFF detects that a new external Referral has arrived, it sends a message to all the CLIFF users that have access to processing external Referrals.

The message is just an alert that a Referral has arrived. It does not mean the Referral has been moved to your CLIFF database. The message will disappear when you accept the Referral, or after three days.

To View External Referrals Not Yet Accepted

  1. Choose Log Exchange from the Administration menu. The following window is displayed:

    To View an External Referral

    1. Open the Log Exchange window if not already open.
    2. Click the external Referral to be examined. The Log and Referral information will be displayed, similar to the following. If a template is assigned to external Referrals it will be applied. The Log data is shown in the familiar Log format but all other information including the Referral, attachments, and additional authors is shown as notes at the bottom.

    3. If you want to accept the external Referral and add the Log information to your CLIFF database, simply click in the Toolbar. The Log will be moved, from the holding area, to your database and be assigned a new Log ID. A Referral will be created and any attachments, and other information will automatically be added to the new Log.

      The external Referral is removed from the Log Exchange area.

      The Log ID of the originating organization will be shown beside your Log ID like the sample below. The Referral will appear in your Referrals Received list.


      To Reject or Delete an External Referral

      1. Open the Log Exchange window if not already open.
      2. Click the button to delete the exchange record.

        3. Receiving Web Form

        Updated in Version 5.2

        Web form submissions from your web site go into a holding area where you may examine them before creating Logs. When CLIFF detects that a new web form has arrived, it sends a message to all the CLIFF users that have access to Log Exchange.

        The message is just an alert that a web form has arrived. It does not mean a Log has been created in your CLIFF database. The message will disappear when you accept the web form, or after three days.

        To View Web Forms Not Yet Accepted

        1. Choose Log Exchange from the Administration menu. The following window is displayed:

          To View a Web Form

          1. Open the Log Exchange window if not already open.
          2. Click the web form to be examined. The Log information will be displayed, similar to the following. If a template is assigned to web forms it will be applied. The Log data is shown in the familiar Log format. All other information including the Referral, attachments, and additional authors is shown as notes at the bottom.

          3. If you want to accept the web form and add the Log information to your CLIFF database, simply click in the Toolbar. The Log will be moved from the holding area to your database and be assigned a new Log ID. Any attachments, and other information will automatically be added to the new Log.

            The web form is removed from the Log Exchange area.

            To Reject or Delete a Web Form

            1. Open the Log Exchange window if not already open.
            2. Click the button to delete the exchange record.

              3. Receiving Email Web Form

              Log Exchange received by Email is processed the same as for a Web Form. The only difference is that an Email Web Form will only extract the following information from the Email:

              • email address of sender

            3. name of sender if supplied. If not, the email address is entered as the Last Name
            4. date written
            5. subject
            6. message - stored as an attachment in the Log. Only the plain text version of the email is extracted. If there is an html version of the message, it is ignored.
            7. The complete email is saved as an attachment of Type "EML" which can be opened by most email programs. This will give you access to any attachments embedded in the email.

              8. Log Exchange Template

              Updated in Version 5.2

              When external Logs are accepted from another CLIFF database, or a MailTo form, you may apply default data values to the Log by using a template. Different templates may be defined for external Logs and MailTo forms. See Templates for more information on creating Templates, and Log Exchange Preferences to assign the template for Log Exchange.