We've been thinking about ideas on how you can use SNDTWEET and the Twitter service effectively in your IBM System i shop and here is the list we've come up with so far. If you have more ideas, please share them with us using the email link below and we will post them at our website:

• System Monitoring - Twitter has the ability to share event information immediately with multiple users, connecting to them on their PCs, cell phones or PDAs. You can add the SNDTWEET to your CL programs to send out notifications when the program is done or when error situations are encountered. For example, many shops run critical overnight processing either daily or on a monthly basis. You can use SNDTWEET to send out a normal completion Tweet at the end of the process. If the Tweet is not received, then your users will know there is a problem and they can react.

  Note: As of release 2.01 of SNDTWEET, many system status inquiries are now available by simply sending a directed tweet to your System i.

• Message Monitoring - You can set up a program to monitor your system operator message queue. If a message is sent that requires a response, your monitoring program can react by sending a Tweet to put your following users on notice that there is a problem. The source code for a simple CL program to monitor a message queue is included with the install library.

  Note: As of release 1.03 of SNDTWEET, this feature is now built into the product, including the ability of replying to a message through Twitter.

• System Watches - new with Release 3.07 of SNDTWEET, you can set a watch task for a specific message ID arriving at a given message queue. If the specified message arrives, then SNDTWEET will tweet this fact and you can react as needed. It is Kisco's intention to enhance this capability further in subsequent releases.

• User Tweets - Twitter can be used to enhance communication between team members on a development project, or any other project for that matter. If your development team are located in physically different places, Twitter can help improve the level of communication between team members. When one person gets something done or identifies an issue, it can be immediately shared with all team members. If you’re working on a System i, then you can send your Tweets directly from the command line or from within iSeries Access using the remote command capability.

• File Monitoring - You may have a situation where you want to “watch” file update activity for a critical file or for a file that should not normally be updated. You could implement a file trigger program for the watched file and then have that trigger program submit a Tweet when update activity (or delete activity, etc) takes place. Then, your followers will know when the indicated activity has happened and take action immediately. If you need help setting up such a file trigger program, contact Kisco Information Systems for a shell program that you can use for this purpose.

  Note: As of release 1.08 of SNDTWEET, this feature is now built into the product, including a choice of either detail event tweets or summary event tweets.

• Personal Tweets - The SNDTWEET command can be used for any Twitter account. All you need to supply is your Twitter ID and password and you can send a Tweet for any account. This can come in handy while working on your System i if you are participating in multiple projects that are all being coordinated using Twitter. Keep in mind that when you use Twitter that general messages will be seen by everyone who is following the Twitter account. If you want to make sure that there is limited access to the messages, then make sure you require confirmation before someone can follow the Twitter account. This is an option when creating the account.

• Company Promotions - many companies are finding that Twitter is a great way to keep customers and potential customers on board with current events. With a simple CL program, you could have your marketing (or other) folks maintain a database of future Tweets to be sent and have them go out on a regular schedule. Again, if you want help with this kind of application, contact Kisco Information Systems and we’ll see how we might be able to help you. New with Release 3.0, SNDTWEET now includes an automatic Tweet Scheduler that lets you load in a Tweet schedule. Once in place, SNDTWEET will post your tweets to Twitter at the specified date/time intervals.

• Company Metrics Notices - most companies have performance metrics that they check on a regular basis with notifications going to key exectives. Your System i is often the first place where these critical business measurements are determined based on transaction activity. SNDTWEET could be used to send instant notifications messages when key metrics have been recognized during the day. One such example suggested to us by a customer was low stock notices on mission critical items from inventory. Another might be an unusually high order volume that might trigger the need for overtime or an extra shift.

• Remote Command Submit - as of Release 1.11 of SNDTWEET, you can now submit commands to be run on your iSeries via Twitter. Using your cell phone or PDA, you can run a command on your system in an emergency. This has been implemented in SNDTWEET in a secure environment.

• User Application Interface - as of Release 2.01 of SNDTWEET, you can now submit your own custom inquries by sending directed tweets to your System i. The interface will interpret your Tweet on the System i and call your application program. This even support passing of parameters!

Do you have questions about SNDTWEET? E-mail them to us:

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