Application Collaboration is a tool for populating InterAction with information. You primarily use Application Collaboration for ongoing integration with another system. For example, you can populate InterAction with data from accounting systems, human resources systems, third-party marketing profiles, board member databases, or any other system that lets you extract the data. You can then use Application Collaboration to keep this data updated on an ongoing basis, periodically refreshing InterAction with changes from the other system where the data is maintained.
Application Collaboration creates and updates firm contacts (both people and companies). It does not update contacts that are sourced in user contact collections.
Application Collaboration is also an important tool in the initial data load process.
- Configure Application Collaboration for the data you want to import from the other system.
- Harvest the data from the other system or systems into special staging tables in the InterAction database.
- Transform the data using Application Collaboration. This brings the data from the staging tables into InterAction, applying all InterAction business rules.
About Configuring Application Collaboration
Application Collaboration includes a variety of options for configuring how it imports data into your InterAction database. For example, you can do the following:
- Create companies or people in a designated InterAction source folder. All name information in InterAction can be populated with data from the other system. For details about name information, see What is Name Information in InterAction?
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Automatically map existing contacts in InterAction with data in the other system. This lets users continue entering company prospects in InterAction, and have them automatically tied to the other system once they become clients.
Mapping is generally only used for ongoing integration with an external system, such as your accounting system or human resources system.
- Automatically link the contacts into a second include folder. This lets you fit the external data to InterAction’s folder structure - storing the company or person names in one of the public folders, but also linking the contacts into a more restricted folder for storing confidential data.
- Update contacts with important profile data. You can update both contacts that came from external data sources and existing InterAction contacts. Data you can populate includes the following:
- Additional fields (both regular fields and those that use the Variable Field Additional Field Extension)
- Classifications
- Addresses
- Phone numbers
- Electronic addresses
- Activities
- Relationships
- Folders to which the contact belongs. As part of this, you can also update the list of users sponsoring a contact on a marketing list.
- Notes
- Update existing InterAction user groups with InterAction users. This is useful when maintaining user groups in a different application.
To configure each of these types of data, you create a data set. The data set defines the type of data you are bringing in and the various options Application Collaboration needs, such as how to find the InterAction contacts to update. For example, when setting up an additional field data set, you might configure it to use an additional field such as client number to find contacts and update them with other additional field values.
Configuring a data set creates a special staging table in the InterAction database. This is used when harvesting the data - you harvest the data into these tables.
For details about configuring Application Collaboration, see the following sections:
About Harvesting the Data
Harvesting the data refers to the process of extracting the data from an external system and bringing it into staging tables in the InterAction database.
When using Application Collaboration for a one-time conversion, harvesting is a one-time event. When using Application Collaboration for ongoing integration, you design a repeatable harvesting routine to update the staging tables on a regular basis.
For example, if you are integrating with an accounting system, you might set up Application Collaboration to update once or twice a week. Each time it runs, any new clients in the accounting system are added, and any changed fields, such as billing addresses or the current year-to-date revenue are refreshed with the latest data from the other system.
Harvesting is covered in detail in Data Harvesting Basics.
About Transforming the Data
When Application Collaboration transforms the data, the program pulls the data from the staging tables and updates the contacts accordingly, using InterAction’s business rules. For example, when transforming an additional field data set, Application Collaboration finds each contact to update and updates the specified additional field with the harvested data.
Transforming the data is covered in detail in Configuring Transformation Options.
Using the Data in InterAction
After you use Application Collaboration to transform the data, end users can use it just like any other data in the InterAction database. Users can access the information from the InterAction Web Client and from the InterAction Windows Client.
When performing ongoing integration, you can configure Application Collaboration to prevent users from making changes to the data in InterAction. In this case, the external system (for example, the accounting system) essentially owns the data. This ensures that the data in InterAction always accurately reflects the data in the source system. Within the Web Client, you can use Data Change Management rules to send requests for updates to the data stewards in your organization.
Regardless of whether users can edit the actual information from the external system, new data in InterAction can be added. For example, users with appropriate access rights to the contacts from the external system can do the following:
- Add additional phones and addresses to contacts owned by the other system
- Create additional relationships between contacts owned by the other system and native InterAction contacts
- Edit additional fields not owned by the other system
- Apply classifications, create and edit activities, and enter notes
- Include the contact into other folders such as marketing lists and projects
- Print, view, and search the data just like any other InterAction data
Also, note that Application Collaboration only adds and updates firm contacts. Users can create their own user contacts and connect them to the firm contacts brought in using Application Collaboration, just as they can connect a contact to any firm contact.