The initial data load and cleansing process is extremely important to your InterAction implementation, because the quality of the data found in InterAction when it is initially rolled out to users affects how users view the system and directly impacts the success of your InterAction implementation.
When loading contact information and relationships into InterAction, you must take steps to ensure that you maintain a high level of data quality in your InterAction database. The full process of how data is cleansed, as well as the amount of time it takes to complete the initial data load and cleansing, depends on your environment.
If you plan on loading matter, engagement, or opportunity data into InterAction, make sure that the applicable contact identifying data is completely loaded beforehand (for example, client number, UCI). This lets your contacts properly match with the particular matter, engagement, or opportunity. See your appropriate InterAction Related Module guide for details on loading matter, engagement, or opportunity data into InterAction.
A typical implementation includes the following steps to populate InterAction with contact information. These steps are a guideline for how to initially populate InterAction with contact information. At your organization, you may have additional steps or may do tasks in a different order. The following sections of this guide provide more details and help you make decisions specific to your environment.
Phase One - Analyzing Your Data and Preparing a Plan
In step one, your organization does the following:
- Identify the data to bring into InterAction from existing data sources at your organization such as a time and billing system.
- Determine your organization’s data quality objectives for contacts added to InterAction.
- Determine your organization’s strategy for cleansing contact information and maintaining data quality on an ongoing basis.
For more information on this step, see Loading Data into InterAction.
Phase Two - Loading Organization-Wide Contacts
In step two, your organization does the following:
- Extract the contact information from the data sources you identified and prepare it for loading into InterAction.
- Load the contact information from the data sources into InterAction.
For more information on this step, see Loading Data Sources Into InterAction.
Phase Three - Cleansing Contact Information
In step three, your organization does the following:
- Perform basic data cleansing for all contacts in the InterAction database, including merging duplicate contacts.
- Categorize contacts to ensure they are appropriately identified according to their relationship to the organization.
- For specific, important contacts, fully cleanse all contact information and profile the contacts to ensure that complete, accurate, contact information and relationships are provided.
For more information on this step, see Cleansing Contact Data.
Phase Four - Bringing in Each User’s Contacts
In step four, your organization does the following:
- Configure your organization’s settings for users and their contacts.
- Create user accounts and contact lists.
- Roll out InterAction to users by training users, bringing their contacts into InterAction, and assisting users through the process of contributing contacts to the firm list.
For more information on this step, see Loading User Information into InterAction.
Getting Through the Process
In Checklist, a checklist helps you through all the steps included in the initial data load and cleansing process. This checklist includes all the major phases of the initial data load and cleansing, and all the major steps involved in loading data into InterAction. While this checklist includes most of the steps required to load information into InterAction, it may not include all the steps needed at your organization. This checklist should be used in conjunction with the information provided in the rest of the Loading Data Into InterAction guide.
How Does Initial Data Load and Cleansing Fit Into the Overall Implementation Process?
Initial data load and cleansing is just one part of the overall implementation of InterAction at your organization. The decisions you make for your overall implementation affect your initial data load and cleansing. For example, consider the business processes you have identified that you want to make InterAction a part of. Consider the contact types and information fields you have decided to configure in InterAction. These decisions directly affect the information you load into InterAction. Instead of loading all contact information you can find at your organization, concentrate on the information you need to perform the business processes you know people use.
When performing your user requirements, take into consideration how you currently store data (spreadsheets, databases, documents, etc.). This is a good indicator of the types of data to be imported into InterAction. It also helps to identify the key business processes that need to be evaluated.
The overall analysis of your business plans as well as the installation and configuration of InterAction typically occur while you are analyzing your current environment and determining which data to bring into InterAction.