Common Ground Connector: Winter '10 Enhancements

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Kevin Suer
Kevin Suer ✭
Ancient Membership Facilitator 1
in Releases : Winter 2010

Feature Summary

Release: Winter '10

Author: Kevin Suer

Overview:

The Winter ’10 release has two new Common Ground Connector enhancements that streamline the effort of synchronizing data between Convio Online Marketing (COM) and Convio Common Ground (CG), as well as help improve overall quality of data stored in both COM and CG.

Key Features:

  • Interest Synchronization: New enhancements to the Common Ground connector that provides two-way data synchronization of constituent Interest assignment(s) between the Convio Online Marketing and Convio Common Ground platforms.
  • Merge Synchronization: New capability within the Common Ground Connector that automatically synchronizes constituent merges performed in Convio Common Ground and propagates those to merge the corresponding records in COM automatically.

Use Scenario #1: Constituent Updates Interests in COM Profile; changes propagated to CG

  1. James, a constituent of the American Health Society goes into his profile page (ConsInterestUser) in Convio Online Marketing and updates his interests.  He sees he has the following interest assignments:
    1. Diabetes eNews (email interest) = Assigned
    2. Heart Disease eNews (email interest) = Unassigned
    3. Cancer Content (web interest) = Unassigned
    4. Trigeminal Neuralgia Content (web interest) = Assigned
  2. James was recently diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) and also has a new job and is no longer interested in the obscure disease, Trigeminal Neuralgia,that his old boss suffered from.  He updates and saves his profile to the following assignments (changes in blue text).
    1. Diabetes eNews (email interest) = Assigned
    2. Heart Disease eNews (email interest) = Assigned
    3. Cancer Content (web interest) = Unassigned
    4. Trigeminal Neuralgia Content (web interest) = Unassigned
  3. The next day, William, AHS’s DataSync Administrator, initiates the Convio Connector for Common Ground DataSync operation from within Data Management - Import/Export.  The Connector runs through its normal routine but has a new step as a result of this release.  It detects that James, the constituent, has updated Interest assignments since the last synchronization.  The Connector downloads the updated Interest Information and updates James’ offline record in Common Ground with the new information.

Days later, Joseph, AHS’s Direct Mail Coordinator, pulls a list of contacts from Common Ground who are interested in Heart Disease for an upcoming direct marketing campaign.  James’ name is included in the list a few weeks later he receives a printed newsletter in his postal mailbox with the latest news on Heart Disease.  James does not remember updating his interest preferences online, but as a recently diagnosed CHF patient, he thinks to himself that the American Health Society provides really interesting and informative content.  He decides to go online to their Web site and donate as a result of the great service they provide.

Use Scenario #2: Common Ground Resolved Duplicate is propagated to Convio Online Marketing

After this feature is released, Sally, a Site Administrator for the American Health Society, does the following:

  1. Sally logs into Common Ground and sees the following two duplicate records:
    1. Jennifer Smith, 123 Elm Street, CG ID  = 20001
    2. Jenny Smith, 123 Elm, CG ID = 20003
  2. Unbeknownst to Sally when she is working in CG, COM happens to store these same duplicate records as contacts from a previously run synchronization:
    1. Jennifer Smith, 123 Elm Street, Member ID  = 20001
    2. Jenny Smith, 123 Elm, Member ID = 20003
  3. Sally decides that Jenny Smith is the Master Record and Jennifer Smith is the duplicate record.  She chooses to merge these two records, which results in updated information on the Jenny Smith record and a deleted Jennifer Smith record.
  4. Later that day, William, a DataSync Admin, initiates the Convio Connector for Common Ground DataSync operation in Data Management - Import/Export.  The Connector runs through its normal routine but has a new step as a result of this release.  It detects that Convio Online Marketing is storing a set of duplicate contact records whose online records were merged in CG (the records Sally merged earlier in the day).  The Connector initiates a process whereby Convio Online Marketing will pick the same record, Jenny Smith, as the Master Record, and Jennifer Smith as the duplicate and automatically resolve the duplicate, transferring information to the Jenny Smith record (according to Convio Online Marketing automatic duplicate resolution logic) and deleting the Jennifer Smith record.  No manual intervention was required by Sally to merge the Convio Online Marketing duplicate records.

William receives a summary of the operation indicating that it resolved one set of duplicate records in Convio Online Marketing; he emails Sally to let her know.

Screen Captures:

crossreferencelist.jpg

Figure 1: View a listing of all interests that are mapped between COM and CG; cross-references have to be created for Interest Synchronization to function.

Site Data Parameters:

There were no Site Data Parameters added as part of this project.

Client Impacts:

  • Interest Synchronization feature is available only for Common Ground clients with the “Nessie” version of Common Ground or later who use Convio Online Marketing.
  • Merge Synchronization is available for all Common Ground clients who use Convio Online Marketing.

FAQ:

What are the details behind how Merge Synchronization works?



Whenever two contact records are merged in Convio Common Ground the next synchronization operation of the Common Ground Connector should trigger Convio Online Marketing to merge the same records automatically.  Below are detailed requirements for this automatic trigger.

  • The two contact records merged in Convio Common Ground must each map to contacts in Constituent360 ( the MemberID fields of the corresponding COM records must contain the CG IDs).
    • Unless both records merged in Convio Common Ground have a match between the MemberID field in COM with the Common Ground ID in CG then do not trigger a merge in COM.
    • Failed merge synchronization error because one or both of the records do not exist in COM (scenario is: a into b in COM; b into a in CG); this error will be reported in the Operation results and the merge synchronization will not be attempted again in future synchronization operations.
    • Failed merge synchronization error because of COM saying it couldn’t do the merge for a particular for an unexpected error; this merge synchronization will be attempted again in future synchronization operations
  • Convio Online Marketing Duplicate Resolution Logic. Convio Online Marketing will merge the two contacts in automatic fashion. The bullet points below outline the precise logic behind automatic duplicate resolution in Convio Online Marketing
    • The master record in Common Online Marketing will be the same record that was selected as the master record in Convio Common Ground (per matching COM MemberID to CG Common Ground ID).
    • Update the master record Contact attributes with information from the duplicate record Contact attributes under the following conditions:
      • Email Address:
        1. If one record’s email address is null, choose the non-null Email Address, else
        2. If one record has a deliverable email status and the other record does not, choose the Email Address that has a deliverable status, else
        3. If the master record has an Email Address, choose the value from master record
      • Accepts Email:
        1. Update the Master Record as “accepts,” if either the Master or Duplicate Record accepts, else
        2. Update the Master Record as null, if either or both the Master or Duplicate Record have null values, but none accepts, else
        3. Set “does not accept” for Master
      • Center Level Accepts Email
        1. Update the Master Record as accepts, if either the Master or Duplicate Record accepts, else
        2. Update the Master Record as null, if either the Master or Duplicate Record have null values, but none accepts, else
        3. Set “does not accept” for Master
      • User Name / Password / Login
        1. Update the combination of these three fields with values from the Record that last logged in; else,
        2. Use values from the Master Record
      • Address Field: Treat all address fields (Address 1 - 3, City, State, Zip Code, Country) to update either all the values from either the Master or Duplicate record.
        • Update logic
          1. Do not update Master record
          2. Update Master if improvement (ala Survey)
          3. Update Master always
        • Applicable Addresses
          1. Address - Address
          2. Address - Work Address
          3. Address - Other Address
          4. Employment - Employer Address
          • Advocacy - Manual District Overrides
      • Address - Standardized Home Address: Null out standardized address for Master
      • Advocacy – Automatic: Null out automatic districts
      • Accepts Postal Mail:
        1. Update the Master Record as accepts, if either the Master or Duplicate Record accepts, else
        2. Update the Master Record as null, if either the Master or Duplicate Record have null values, but no accepts, else
        3. Set does not accept for Master
      • Membership Information Fields:
        1. Choose non-null Membership Information fields, else
        2. Choose non-null Membership Information fields for non-expired Membership record, else
        3. Choose use Membership Information fields from contact record with most recent online financial transaction
      • Calculated field merging criteria. Update the Master Record according to the following rules for the following fields, which are calculated on the Constituent record:
        • Recalculate the following fields:
          • Transaction Information
          • Sustained Giving Information
        • All other fields. All other fields will be updated based on one of the following selected configuration options:
          • Online Merging Rules
            1. Update null value with non-null value, else
            2. Pick value from Master Record, else
            3. Pick value from (most recent/least recent) modified date, else
            4. Pick value from (most recent/least recent) last login date, else
            5. Pick value from (higher/lower) Constituent ID
          • Offline Merging Rules
            1. Update null value with non-null value, else
            2. Pick value from online/offline record
          • All other fields include:
            • Biographical Information
            • Biographical Information - Name
            • Email
            • Phone
            • Employment
            • Education - Secondary School
            • Education - First Post-Secondary School
            • Education - Second Post-Secondary School
            • Education - Third Post-Secondary School
            • Education - Fourth Post-Secondary School
            • Education - Fifth Post-Secondary School
            • Education - Sixth Post-Secondary School
            • Significant Others
            • Relationships
            • Additional Information
      • All interaction history from the surviving and purged record will be saved on the surviving record.
      • All transaction history from the surviving and purged record will be saved on the surviving record.
      • All notes history from the surviving and purged record will be saved on the surviving record.
      • Recalculate all summary information on the master record according to updated transactional information.



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