Mission Control Thanksgiving Updates
New updates for Mission Control Dashboard just in time for the holidays
This is a short (sorry, it's not short) post on features, updates, and improvements we've recently made to the Call Theory Mission Control dashboard.
- Compatibility with Infinity
- CSV to databases via email
- Headless browser screenshots
- Whisper transcription reminders
We're also chugging away with definitions for our attempt at billing and will have updates for you shortly.
It's Black Friday week: good luck everyone. May your billings be large.
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving (except those pesky Canadians, eh?) 😄
Enjoy eating your dinosuars this week!
Compatibility with Infinity
Not everyone is ready or willing to move to Amtelco's Genesis platform, so we've been slowly working on making Mission Control work with Intelligent Series more generally.
This means that even if you are still using Infinity, you'll be able to take advantage of most of the IS-specific features and utilities in Mission Control.
Notably, we're still not adding support for Amtelco MDR/CTE databases, so you won't get the recordings and call data through Mission Control if you're on Infinity. To this, I say: upgrade to Genesis.
CSV to Databases via email
A customer approached me for a tool that allows their clients to send emails with attached CSV files and have those CSV files automatically create, populate, and/or merge the data within.
The customer can then integrate the data into the client scripting using normal database tools.
Mission Control already has an Inbound Email component (powered by SendGrid) so I used that same integration and added support for attachments. Problem (partly) solved!
However, the previous Inbound Email option only supported Amtelco MergeComm API Triggers. While a good technical improvement to the ecosystem, it brought a new price-tag that none of my existing customers are willing to pay.
So instead of relying on MergeComm API Triggers, we've added support for Amtelco's built-in SMTP server. This improvement allows the Mission Control Inbound Email feature to be utilized without the need for the ISWeb API or the corresponding Web API triggers.
When I originally built this feature, I made the conscious decision to leverage paid features of the Amtelco ecosystem (i.e., the MergeComm API trigger) in hopes that customers would license that feature, helping Amtelco make more sales and providing my dashboard with improved interoperability. To date, nobody has used the feature, citing cost of the Amtelco API and it's triggers. Is anyone out there using MergeComm API triggers in production - I'd love to talk!
The CSV import via email is being published this week to all Mission Control customers, and the corresponding usage-documentation will be made available at the same time at learn.calltheory.com/mission-control.
Headless Browser Screenshots
One of the hardest problems I've come across recently was getting an image of a message taken in Intelligent Series (pragmatically.)
Yes, you read that right: getting an image of the message.
For example, instead of a text-based copy/paste-able message you normally see in the account or via reporting, I wanted a jpeg or png file that could be attached to a third-party system (in this example, People Praise.)
Initially, I attempted to use client-side Javascript, but that wasn't flexible and couldn't be queued in the background. Next I tried to use PHP GD and command line utilities to create some sort of Message-to-Image pipeline, but that ended up being flimsy, and there were too many formatting issues to be useful.
What I finally landed on was the well-received ChromeDriver headless browser. This allows me to visit an (authenticated) URL that contains the Intelligent Series message already formatted, and screenshot it so that it can be attached as an image.
Barring any major performance issues as a result of ChromeDriver running in the background on-demand, this should be pushed to sites next week.
Whisper Transcription Reminders
It's mostly-well known that OpenAI's Whisper model, widely used for transcription, has the tendancy to "hallucinate."
It might be a little worse than we (I) had originally thought:
GARANCE BURKE
Mission Control users have acess to automated transcription through Whisper.cpp (which itself is the C++ implementation of the OpenAI model.) This means the same hallucinations other industries are seeing are likely to surface in Mission Control's implementation.
I can say with certainty that we've noticed strange hallucinations in routine usage of Whisper.cpp - especially when transcribing non-English languages.
This is more of a general notice and reminder that you should approach AI-generated content (including transcriptions) with a healthy amount of skeptisism.
Next Month: The Gift of Billing
After powering through these pressing (and long-overdue) Mission Control updates, we're spending next month on Call Theory Billing and the statistical manipulations we've been (slowly) working on.
I'll also be going into more detail on a billing anomly found by a customer in the DirSetup* stats. The gist of it seems to be the default View that gets created in the course of a new Directory Subject saves a setup duration equal to the number of seconds elapsed in the given day. This can lead to (much) higher Directory Maintenance values than expected.
For example, if it occurs at 8am, it would log 8-hours of duration.
I don't think this stat is widely used currently (its new!?) so I expect it to have a low (if any) impact on existing billing configurations.
More to come.