Creating Simple Interactions

See also:

• About Interactions
• About Metrix Customization
• Adding Interactions
• Editing an Existing Interaction
• Understanding and Planning Interactions

Simple Interactions have limited fields, and are appropriate for data that can be described in a single title and short note. Generally, basic Interactions are a word or phrase that are attached to a contact. As you can see, the title of the Interaction contains the relevant data and additional information can be added into a Note field for the Interaction. Simple Interactions are stored in a standard Interactions table (tblInteractions). Simple Interactions provide an easy way to flag contacts so an organization can easily identify subsets based on these flags. For example, a simple Interaction such as "Major Contributor" or "Vendor" could be used to easily generate mailing lists for these contacts.

It is likely that your organization will require Interactions that track more data than can be tracked in a simple Interaction. Discerning which types of Interactions can be captured with simple Interactions and which need the flexibility of customized Interactions is an essential part of the planning process.

Note: It is important to agree with the organization on an Interaction setup standard, so that all Interactions will be accessible and easy for users to understand. For example, you could agree that all interactions should minimally include the fields AddBy and AddDate, so that they can be queried based on data about their creation, as well as by specific custom data.

Only users assigned to the role of Metrix Administrator can create or edit Interaction Definitions. For more information about how Interactions are used, please see Adding Interactions.

1. Launch the Metrix client, Metrix.adp, with Metrix Administrator rights.
2. Click Customize in the Navigation Menu.
   The Setup Interactions form will be displayed.
   
   Figure: Creating a New Interaction
3. PressNew Interaction .
4. Name and categorize the interaction. Choose values for the 1st Level and 2nd Level drop-down list fields. (The 3rd Level is available if you need it.)
   Metrix requires at least two levels of categories. Level-1 categories are the most general, and level-2 categories are sub-groups within the first-level categories.
   
   Figure: Choosing categories for an interaction

   Note: You can enter a new value if the drop-down menu of values is not sufficient.
   You can enter other details for the Interaction Definition as well. This can be valuable if the Interaction Definition is participation describes an event, for instance, and you want to log information for this event that will be applicable to every instance of this Interaction logged for all contacts.

5. From the Available Columns list, select the field(s) you want to display by double-clicking it or by clicking it and pressing the right arrow button (>). Repeat to add more columns.
   As mentioned earlier, it is important to come to agreement with the organization as to which fields will be considered standard for Interactions. These fields (e.g. Add Date and Add By) would be added at this time.
   
   Figure: Adding Fields for a Simple Interaction

   You may also want to include ItemNote to contain any miscellaneous data relevant to the interaction, but keep in mind that this data will not be easy to search or query. You can change the order of displayed fields by selecting a field and clicking the Up and Down arrows to the right of the Columns to Display area.

6. Press OK to save the Interaction. Repeat these steps for additional simple Interactions.