InterAction contact types and folders can be dependent on one another in a variety of ways. For example, the Client Personnel contact type should be applied to all of the people in InterAction who work at a company classified with the Client contact type.
Similarly, several contact types rely on the information folders for shared folders for storing profile information. This creates a dependency. For example, all people with the Our Personnel, Alumni, or Our Consultants contact types need to be added to the Personnel Information folder for tracking personnel profile data.
See Information Folders.
The figure below illustrates some of these dependencies for the default InterAction folders. Note that this structure is complex. Also, this diagram does not illustrate all of the dependencies.
Folder Dependencies
These dependencies would be very difficult to manage manually in a timely manner. Moving contacts in and out of folders based on these business rules would be very time consuming and error-prone. To prevent these problems, InterAction provides a tool called the Folder Dependency Analyzer.
This tool uses a set of folder dependency rules to automatically move contacts in and out of folders based on business rules you define. You set up Folder Dependency Analyzer to run on a scheduled basis using Process Manager. Each time it runs, the tool analyzes the firm contacts and adds/removes contacts from the folders as needed. Folder dependencies can be between folders, contact types, and saved searches.
InterAction comes with a default set of folder dependency rules to support the standard folder structure. For details about these rules, see Out-of-the-Box Folder Dependency Rules.
These rules should not require customization. If you add new contact types and information folders, you will need to define new rules to manage the folder dependencies.
Why Folder Dependencies Exist
The InterAction folder structure has been designed with dependencies between folders for several reasons:
- Some contact types use shared profile information. For example, it is useful to maintain basically the same information for employees, alumni, and consultants. Therefore, these three different contact types all share the same information folder (Personnel Information) for storing the profile information.
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Some folders need to protect sensitive profile information. For example, you may not want all users in your organization to have access to client financial information. However, you wouldn’t want to restrict access to the Clients folder, since the existence of clients is normally not considered sensitive.
Therefore, the Client contact type uses a separate information folder for financial data (Client Financial Information). This folder can use tighter security than the Clients folder.
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For certain contact types, it makes sense to classify people based on the companies they work for. For example, most clients are companies. The people who work at a client are not “clients” themselves, but knowing that a person works for a client company is extremely useful. It is also useful to be able to see client information from the person.
Therefore, the Client contact type has a dependency with the Client Personnel contact type. Any person associated with a company classified as Client is assigned the Client Personnel type.
Getting Started with Folder Dependencies
There are two key steps to setting up folder dependencies:
- Set up the folder dependency rules. These should be based on the business processes surrounding the folders, contact types, and saved searches.
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Configure InterAction Process Manager to run the Folder Dependency Analyzer on a regular basis.
For details about how to set up the folder dependency rules and how the rules work, see the following:
If you are using the default folders and contact types that come with InterAction, you shouldn’t need to create new dependency rules. However, you may want to review these sections to understand how the rules work.
For details about configuring Process Manager, see Schedule & Run Folder Dependency Analyzer.
Folder Dependency Recommendations
Properly setting up folder dependencies can involve several steps. It is best to start with just a few rules and then gradually add new ones.
Identifying Possible Rules
- Before creating any rules, develop your overall business process for contact types, folders, and saved searches.
- Identify contact types that are mutually exclusive. These are good candidates for folder dependencies.
- Identify any contact types that are mutually exclusive with other marketing lists. For example:
- A person with the Deceased contact type should not be on any marketing lists. You can create a rule that removes these contacts from all Marketing List folders.
- A contact in the *Send No Marketing Communications list should not be on any marketing lists. You can create a rule that removes these contacts from marketing lists as well.
Testing the Rules
- Test each individual rule in a test environment to make sure it is adding or removing correctly.
- Test rules in groups to ensure that the order in which the rules run is correct.