Planning Custom Interactions

See also:

• About Interactions
• Building Complex Custom Interactions with Existing Data
• Importing Custom Tables into Metrix
• Preparing Custom Tables for Importing Interactions
• Understanding and Planning Interactions

During the planning process, you identified which data need to be captured as Interactions. Some data will be able to be represented in simple Interactions. Much information, however, will require Custom Interactions and the use of custom tables. The first step in planning custom Interactions to define the Interaction's attributes. Some questions that you should answer for each field are:

• What is the field name?
  We recommended that field names are easily identifiable or recognizable by organizational staff, since it is likely that custom tables will be used in queries and filters.
  There are some naming practices that you would do best to follow:
  • Do not use spaces in field names.
  • Use camel back naming (CamelBack) for greater readability.
  • Create recognizable field names, as these will appear in your queries.
• What is its data type? Are there a limits on field length?
  For example, datetime, char, varchar, int, smallint, money. Remember to assign "false numbers" such as zip codes, phone numbers, social security numbers as char.
• Is this field chosen from a lookup, or list? Can there be multiple choices from the lookup (i.e. "Languages Spoken"), or only one (i.e. "Primary Language Spoken")? What are the lookup values?

Note: If you have a field for which a contact can select more than one choice from a list, this field will require its own table, although the data can be presented as part of the main interaction.

Note: This information is the beginning of a data dictionary, and will help you to document your custom data when you import it to Metrix. We recommended that you maintain a data dictionary for each set of custom Interactions.

The next step is Planning and Building Custom Tables.