SNDTWEET and Twitter can appear to be an unusual combination for the IBM System i community. When you log in to create your Twitter account, the objective presented to you appears to be an emphasis on “What Are You Doing?”, a questionable business need. If, however, you think of Twitter as an SMS service (Short Message Service), a concept that has been around for a much longer period of time, then you can start to see through the hype to find that this can be used for very legitimate purposes in your System i shop. A Twitter post is called a "Tweet" and is a character based message with a limit of 140 characters.

Here are some initial ideas that we have come up with. To make these work, you need to create a Twitter account for your System i; then have users create their own Twitter accounts and sign up to “follow” the account for your System i. When your system posts a Tweet, the users that are set up to follow will receive automatic notification through to their PC, cell phone or PDA. Everyone who is supposed to know about what’s happening will find out right away.

You can also use Twitter to send a directed message to a specific Twitter user. You do this by starting your message with that user's Twitter ID preceded by the @ sign. For example, if your Twitter account named is “myname”, then you can send a directed message through Twitter by starting it with “@myname Message text”. The “Message text” will be sent to the Twitter known as myname.

If you have more ideas, please share them with us and we will post them at our website:

• Message Monitoring - As of SNDTWEET Release 1.03, you can use SNDTWEET to monitor any message queue on your system. When a qualifying message arrives at the message queue, SNDTWEET will tweet the message text through Twitter. If the message is looking for a reply, like an error message or an inquiry message, anyone following your System i on Twitter can respond to the message with a reply. This can be set up in a fully secure environment so that only authorized users can monitor your system and reply to messages.

• 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.

• 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 - As of SNDTWEET Release 1.08, you can use SNDTWEET to set a file monitor on your system. The file monitor can be configured to report, via tweets, on file adds, changes, deletes or even reads. When a specified event happens on the file, SNDTWEET will post a tweet advising of the event. Tweets can be set up to be either detailed (on every event) or in summary (after every nth event).

• 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.

• 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.

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

Price Information

SNDTWEET Price: $295.00. Additional copies can be purchased at a discount.

SNDTWEET for LPAR Price: $495.00. Lets you install SNDTWEET in as many partitions as you want on your LPAR box.

Maintenance: Free for first year of ownership. Annual fee of 15% of the purchase price thereafter. See company policies section for more information.

Ordering Information

SNDTWEET is available for FREE 30 day trial.

Place your order here for a FREE trial of SNDTWEET.