InterAction includes many tools and features to help you with your data load process. This guide includes details about how each tool is used in the overall process of implementing InterAction in addition to offering technical details on how to configure and use them. This section provides brief details on each tool involved in the initial data load and cleansing.
Advanced Import
The Advanced Import feature is used both to add new contacts to your InterAction database and to update contacts that already exist in InterAction.
InterAction’s regular import feature can also be used to bring in contact information if the Advanced Import feature is not available.
Application Collaboration
Application Collaboration is a powerful tool that can be used to update contact information in InterAction with values entered in an external system on a regular basis. These external systems include accounting systems, human resources systems, board member databases, or any other system that lets you extract the data.
Data Quality Tools
Several data quality tools are available in the InterAction Windows Client that provide select users with the ability to merge duplicate contacts, manage inconsistent data, identify and merge duplicate contact information, and resolve other data quality issues.
Data Change Management
When user contacts are added to InterAction, Data Change Management tickets can be created to do the following:
- Manage data conflicts
- Identify new contacts that need to be reviewed
- Identify contacts with no associated company
- Manage possible duplicate contacts
During an initial data load and cleansing, data stewards often have many Data Change Management tickets to review.
InterAction Windows Client
The InterAction Windows Client serves many purposes for the ongoing use of InterAction at your organization. During the initial data load and cleansing process, the Windows Client is used by data stewards and administrators to access many of the data quality features, as well as data load features. For example, from the Windows Client, users can add and edit contact information, use data quality tools, run searches, generate reports, and access the Data Change Management Inbox.
InterAction Web Client™
A user’s first use of the InterAction Web Client tool is to review his or her contacts and determine which contacts should be contributed to the firm list.
InterAction Administrator
Administrators at your organization use the InterAction Administrator software to configure many of the options related to the initial data load and cleansing process including user accounts, Smart Connect™ rules, new contact rules, and synchronization processes.
New Contact Rules
New contact rules work with Data Change Management to help you manage new contacts being added to the database. You can configure InterAction to create tickets when new contacts are added to the firm list and for all the following situations that may be encountered:
- Possible duplicate contacts are detected when adding contacts to the database.
- Data conflicts are encountered between a user’s contact and the firm contact during an initial load of a user’s contact information.
- Person contacts are added to the firm list, but are not associated to a company contact.
Smart Connect™
The InterAction Smart Connect feature can be used to simplify the process of determining which contacts to contribute to the firm list. Your organization can define rules to recommend contacts that should be contributed to the firm list or even to automatically contribute contacts to the firm list without any user intervention.
PIM to InterAction Sync
The synchronization process between Microsoft® Outlook® and InterAction populates the user’s InterAction contact list with the contacts in Outlook. After these contacts are in InterAction, the user can determine which contacts he or she wants to contribute to the firm list.
User to Firm Contact Sync
When a user contributes a contact to the firm list, User to Firm Contact Sync adds the contact to the firm list.
InterAction Active Directory Sync
InterAction Active Directory Sync users can manage their InterAction users and groups information in Active Directory. As the user and group information is updated in Active Directory, InterAction Active Directory Sync updates the corresponding user and group information in InterAction.