Visual Dialogue User Guide. Version 6.1

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Visual Dialogue User Guide

Version 6.1

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Chapter 1: Introduction...9

Purpose...10

Intended audience...10

Chapter 2: Product overview...11

About Visual Dialogue...12

Key functionality...12

Chapter 3: Visual Dialogue GUI...13

The main application window...14

Ribbons...14

Ribbon tabs...14

The File tab...14

The Home tab...15

The Create tab...17

The View tab...17

The Web tab...17

Folders...17

About folders in Visual Dialogue...17

The Explorer...18

Browsers...18

The main component browsers...18

The Select Columns window...19

Visual Dialogue options...19

The Background Tasks Monitor window...22

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Chapter 4: Dialogs...25

What is a dialog?...26

Creating a new dialog...27

Dialog Designer...27

About Dialog Designer...27

Design View...28

Execute View...52

Script View...61

The Options tab...62

Dialog properties...63

Telemarketing projects...64

Browsing dialogs...68

Dialog security...69

Dialog templates...70

What is a dialog template?...70

Creating a new dialog template...70

The Dialog Template Designer...71

Guided setup...71

Dialog template properties...74

Dialog template ribbon tabs...75

Chapter 5: Selections...77

About selections...78

Selections in dialogs...78

Selections in Customer View...79

Selection Designer...79

About Selection Designer...79

Creating a new selection...80

Adding a criterion...81

Previewing a selection...82

Adding more criteria...82

Grouping criteria...83

The toolbox in Selection Designer...84

Group criteria...84

Special criterion types...85

Working in Expression Mode...89

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Chapter 6: Messages...93

About messages...94

Document types...94

Browsing message templates...95

Message Manager...95

Test sending messages...97

Deleting tracking data...97

Master templates...98

About master templates...98

Master template properties...98

Master Template Designer - Message Designer...100

Message templates...109

Creating a new message template...109

HTML templates and web modules...110

Message Template Designer...110

Chapter 7: Questionnaires...141

About questionnaires...142

How questionnaires are used...142

Creating a new questionnaire...143

Questionnaire Designer...144

About Questionnaire Designer...144

Questions View...144

Layout View in Questionnaire Designer...152

Using merge tags...162

Questionnaire properties...165

Testing a questionnaire...166

Building a questionnaire URL...167

Response tracking...168

Browsing questionnaires...169

Running the questionnaire report...169

Exporting response data...170

Deleting response data...170

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Script Object Model overview...171

Global objects, methods, and properties...172

The Question object...176

The Alternative object...180

The Matrix object...181

The Column object...183

The Row object...183

The Cell object...184

The Page object...185

The Section object...187

The Customer object...188

Examples of scripting in questionnaire flow...189

The Dialogue Server API...192

Client-side events and scripts...200

About client-side events and scripts...200

Working with client-side scripts and events...201

Available events...202

Global script methods...203

Global script properties...208

Chapter 8: Reports...213

About reports...214

How and why reports are used...214

Report Designer...215

Creating a new report template...215

About Report Designer...215

Report template properties...216

Data View...217

Layout View in Report Designer...222

The toolbars...241

Using subreports...243

Preview View...244

About Preview View...244

Previewing the report...244

Printing the report...244

Viewing a report in Report Portal...245

Browsing reports...245

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Integrated reporting...248

Integrated reporting overview...248

Standard reports...249

Customizing standard reports...251

Standard report SQL statements...251

Chapter 9: Task Organizer...259

About Task Organizer...260

Workgroups...260

Workgroup users...261

Manual distribution...262

Automatic distribution...262

Deleting workgroups and users...263

Chapter 10: Broadcasts...265

About broadcasts...266

Chapter 11: Published files...267

About published files...268

Chapter 12: Content objects...271

About content objects...272

Creating a new content object...273

Content Object Designer...274

About Content Object Designer...274

Content object properties...274

Working with content items...275

Working with rules...278

Testing a content object...282

Building content object HTML tags...282

Using content objects in a questionnaire...283

Using content objects in an email...284

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Chapter 13: Export and import of Visual Dialogue objects...287

About export and import...288

The Visual Dialogue export wizard...291

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1

Introduction

In this section:

• Purpose . . . .10

• Intended audience . . . .10

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Purpose

This document describes how to use Visual Dialogue to design and implement marketing strategies and campaigns.

Intended audience

This guide is intended for marketing analysts who are tasked with planning and implementing marketing campaigns.

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Product overview

In this section:

• About Visual Dialogue . . . .12

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About Visual Dialogue

Visual Dialogue forms part of the Portrait Dialogue suite of products, which support Customer Relationship Management. Visual Dialogue is used by marketers to define, manage, and carry out large-scale structured communication processes, and is specifically designed to support the principles of one-to-one marketing. The Visual Dialogue application provides you with an intuitive work environment that makes it easy to graphically plan your customer communication process and execute all phases in it. For example, you might use Visual Dialogue to:

• welcome new customers, query them about their communication preferences, and send them an offer via their preferred communication medium

• handle complaints, ensuring that all first-time complainers receive a phone call, while chronic complain-ers receive responses based on their profitability

• distribute a customer satisfaction survey, evaluate the responses, place customers in different groups according to their responses, and then send appropriate communication or take appropriate actions about each group.

Key functionality

Visual Dialogue includes five key components to help you implement your marketing strategies and campaigns:

• Visual Dialogue Designer: Create and execute customer dialogs.

• Visual Selection Designer: Create and test selections used to differentiate between customers. • Message Template Designer: Create and test message templates used to communicate with your

customers through different channels.

• Questionnaire Designer: Create and test questionnaires to get feedback from your customers. • Report Designer: Create and test reports to easily access data in your system.

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3

Visual Dialogue GUI

In this section:

• The main application window . . . .14

• Ribbons . . . .14

• Folders . . . .17

• Browsers . . . .18

• Visual Dialogue options . . . .19

• The Background Tasks Monitor window . . . .22

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The main application window

When you start Visual Dialogue, the main application window shows the start page. This is one of many windows you will be working with, but a number of the elements are common to all windows.

Description Element

Contains most of Visual Dialogue’s commands. In addition, you can use right-click menus to gain access to functions that are directly associated with a specific item. Ribbon tabs

Contains buttons that let you perform common functions without having to go through the menus.

Quick access tool-bar

Lets you quickly access the different parts of Visual Dialogue. This can also be done from theHome tab.

Explorer bar

The area in which you work with the different parts of the system. For the start page, this contains references to all your recent work. You can click on a reference to open it.

Work area

Gives information on application activity. Status bar

Shows what you are working with at the moment. Header bar

Lets you switch between the windows that are open. This can also be done from theView tab.

Tab bar

Contains different tools that you can use while working The toolbox will change according to what you are working with at the moment.

Toolbox

Ribbons

Ribbon tabs

There are five standard ribbon tabs in Visual Dialogue: theFile tab, theHome tab, theCreate tab, the View taband theWeb tab.

Alongside these tabs, additional task-specific tabs appear in different parts of the application.

The File tab

These are the commands that you can access from theFiletab:

Description Tab option

Save the item that you are currently working with. Save

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Save a copy of the item that you are currently working with. Save as...

Save all items that have unsaved changes. Save all

Close the item that you are currently working with. Close

Open items that you have worked with recently. Recent

Print the item that you are currently working with. Print

Configure a printer. Printer setup...

Display this help file, the reference help, version and license information. Help

Reconnect to the application server. This is necessary if your connection has timed out.

Relogin...

View and change differentoptionsin Visual Dialogue. Options...

Close all windows and exit the application. Exit

In addition, when working with objects like dialogues, selections, questionnaires etc. you will get anInfo option with the following sub options:

Show properties of the selected item. Properties

Open thedependency browser windowfor the selected item. Dependencies

Show the security settings window for the selected item. Security

The Home tab

These are the commands that you can access from theHometab:

Shows a list of all the items you have open. Active items

Open theExplorerwindow or a main componentbrowserwindow. Explore

Remove the current selection and place it on the clipboard. Cut

Copy the current selection to the clipboard. Copy

Insert the contents of the clipboard in the active window. Paste

Delete the current selection. Delete

Search for text. Find

Search and replace text. Replace

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Select everything in the active window. Select all

Rename the selected item. Rename

Reportsenable you to run integrated reports from various places in Visual Dia-logue.

Reports

Reportsare only available if integrated reporting is enabled. This is configured inVisual Dialogue options.

The content varies depending on which integrated report is applicable in a module/location in Visual Dialogue. SeeIntegrated reporting overviewand Standard reportsfor details.

In addition, when working with a main componentbrowser, the following commands are shown in the tab:

Open the selected item. Open

Show the security settings window for the selected item. Security

Open thedependency browser windowfor the selected item. Dependencies

Launch the Visual Dialogue export wizard, which lets you export objects (dialogs, selections, etc.) designed in Visual Dialogue to files, or export a list of content of the currentbrowserto file.

Export

Launch the Visual Dialogue import wizard, which lets you import Visual Dialogue objects from files.

Import

Show or hide a window where you can search for items in the browser. Find

Show or hide a preview of the selected item in the bottom of the browser Preview

In addition, when working with theExplorer, the following commands are shown in the tab:

Create a newfolder. New folder

Navigate up one level in the folder structure. Up

Navigate back in the folder structure. Back

Navigate forward in the folder structure. Forward

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The Create tab

Create newdialogsordialog templates,selections,messageormaster templates,questionnaires, report templates,broadcasts,questionnaire styles,published files, andcontent objects.

The View tab

These are the commands that you can access from theViewtab:

Choose thecolumnsto view in thebrowsers. Select columns

Refresh the data in the active window with the newest data from the server. Refresh

Hide or show theExplorer bar. Explorer bar

Hide or show thetoolbox. Toolbox

Hide or show theheader bar. Header bar

Hide or show thetab bar. Tab bar

Hide or show thestatus bar. Status bar

Move focus to the previous window in the list of open windows. Previous window

Move focus to the next window in the list of open windows. Next windows

Go to the previous subview (tab) in the active window. Previous sub view

Go to the next subview (tab) in the active window. Next sub view

Select another language to be used in the user interface. The application must restarted for this change to take effect.

Switch language

The Web tab

From theWeb tab, you can open the web applications Customer View, Telemarketing, Report Portal and Message Designer. In all cases, you will automatically be logged in as the user you are logged into Visual Dialogue with.

Folders

About folders in Visual Dialogue

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You can use folders to organize your work in any way you want. For example, you could create a folder for each user of the system, or you could create a folder for each dialog, in which you would keep the dialog and all objects it uses, possibly in subfolders. The two methods could of course be combined.

The Explorer

The Explorer displays the hierarchical structure of objects and folders on your system.

You can use the Explorer to organize your folders and objects by dragging to the tree view or by cutting and pasting. You can also create or delete objects, edit existing ones, show properties, and perform other actions in connection with objects.

Browsers

The main component browsers

All the main components display a browser window with a grid as its first window. You can open an item in the browser by double-clicking on it. You can sort the items by clicking on a column header.

When you right-click on an item, a new menu appears. These are the commands you can access from this menu:

Description Menu option

Create a new item. New...

Open the selected item. Open

Delete the selected item. Delete

Show the security setting window for the selected item (not applicable for all item types).

Security...

Open the dependency browser window for the selected item (not applicable for all item types).

Browse dependen-cies...

Show availableintegrated reportsfor the selected item. Reports

Launch theVisual Dialogue export wizard, which lets you export objects (dialogs, selections, etc.) designed in Visual Dialogue to files.

Export...

Launch theVisual Dialogue import wizard, which lets you import Visual Dialogue objects from files.

Import...

Open theSelect Columns window, to select the columns you want to view and their order.

Select Columns... The Explorer

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The Select Columns window

In theSelect Columnswindow, you can choose what columns to view and in what order they will appear.

View selected columns

View all columns

Hide selected columns

Hide all columns

Move selected columns up in viewing order

Move selected columns down in viewing order

Visual Dialogue options

From the File tab, you can open theOptionswindow. Here you can alter various options that change the look and feel of Visual Dialogue and the way it behaves.

The General tab

Description Option

When this box is checked, the recent items in the File tab will be shown as the initial page when you start the application.

Show Recent Work

When this box is checked, the Explorer will be shown as the initial page when you start the application.

Show Explorer

If this box is checked, the instance and server name to which you are logged on will be shown in the title of the Visual Dialogue main window.

Show instance and server in application ti-tle

If this box is checked, the tabs in thetab barget a small icon to the left of the caption symbolizing their content.

Show icons in tab bar

If this box is checked, the tabs in thetab barget a small icon to the left of the caption symbolizing their content.

Show icons in tab bar

If this box is checked, all exceptions (errors) in the application are logged to a file.

Log exceptions to file

If you turn on exception logging use this field to specify the folder where the log files are kept.

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The Dialog General tab

Check this option to enable Quick Design Mode. When Quick Design Mode is enabled, dialog groups and operation can be drawn/designed without dis-playing the properties dialogs.

Quick design mode

Check this option to show the canvas grid when designing dialogs Show grid

Checking this option makes groups snap to the canvas grid when designing dialogs.

Snap to grid

These settings specify the horizontal and vertical size of the canvas design grid.

Horz. size / Vertical size

Check this option to automatically display theexecution progress window when execution a dialog operation.

Automatically display execution progress window

Check this option to automatically save a dialog before executing an operation. Automatically save

dia-log before executing

If this box is checked, theoverview pageis shown as part of theDialog Designer.

Enable Dialog Overview view

If this box is checked, the internal IDs of groups and operations are shown in theDialog Designer.

Show component IDs

If this box is checked,commentsare shown in the Dialog Designer. Show comments

If this box is checked, execute icons are shown in theDialog Designer. Ex-ecute icons visualize theexecute optionsthat you have set for your opera-tions.

Show execute options as icons

The Dialog Colors and Skin tab Description Option

Set the background color of the dialog work area when you are inDesign View.

Design

Set the background color of the dialog work area when you are inExecute View.

Execute

Set the color of an active dialog operation. Active

Set the color of an inactive dialog operation. Inactive

Set the color of a selected dialog operation. Selected

Set the default skin used when creating new dialogs. Default Skin

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The Message Designer tab

When this box is checked, message templates will be opened in Design View. Open in Design View

When this box is checked, message templates will be opened in Source View. Open in Source View

When this box is checked, Message Designer templates will be opened in Visual Dialogue.

Open in integrated de-signer

When this box is checked, the Visual Dialogue internal published files browser is used to select published files instead of the Message Designer published files browser. The Visual Dialogue internal browser supports folders. Use old style dialog to

select published files

When this box is checked, Message Designer templates will be opened in a web browser.

Launch designer in web browser

The Selection Designer tab

If this box is checked,new criteriainSelection Designerare automatically given a textual description if a suitable description can be derived.

Auto describe new cri-teria when suitable

The Task Organizer tab

These options turn the confirmation dialog box on or off for the different op-erations you do in the Task Organizer.

Prompt for confirma-tion

The Integrated Reporting tab Description Option

Enables reports configured for integrated reporting. Enable integrated

re-porting

Select this option to run integrated reports in Report Portal. Launch Report Portal

Select this option to run integrated reports inside Visual Dialogue. Open reports inside

Visual Dialogue

Select this option to open integrated reports inside Visual Dialogue in a new window.

Open in new window

The output format used when running the reports. For a detailed list of the different formats available, seeReport formatson page 247.

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The Content Object Designer tab Description Option

When this box is checked, content items of type HTML will be opened in Design View.

Open in Design View

When this box is checked, content items of type HTML will be opened in Source View.

Open in Source View

The Web tab

When this box is checked, web applications opened from Visual Dialogue will always use Internet Explorer.

Always open in Inter-net Explorer

When this box is checked, web applications opened from Visual Dialogue will use Internet Explorer if they only support Internet Explorer (for instance Open in Internet

Explor-er when required

Customer View, Report Portal and Telemarketing), other web applications will be opened in the system default web browser.

When this box is checked, web applications opened from Visual Dialogue will always use the system default browser.

Always open in default web browser

The Background tasks tab

When this box is checked, the execution progress window for background tasks is always shown when a background task is triggered. When the box Automatically display

execution progress

window is not checked, background task progress will only be shown in the status bar.

The Background Tasks Monitor window

Background tasks

Background tasks are typically long-running tasks that run “in the background”, enabling you to continue working on other tasks in Visual Dialogue in the meantime.

The Background Tasks Monitor window

TheBackground Tasks Monitorwindow can be used to monitor and abort ongoing tasks that are exe-cuted in the background. Examples of tasks that are exeexe-cuted in the background areClear Dialog, Delete Dialog, andDelete Message bundle.

Note:The first time a background task is triggered, a background task execution window appears. The Background Tasks Monitor window

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You can configure Visual Dialogue so that background tasks are executed without a background task execution window appearing. SeeVisual Dialogue optionson page 19. Alternatively, clear the Auto-matically show this windowcheckbox. If this checkbox is not checked, the only place where background task execution can be monitored is the status bar. Click on the status bar to open theBackground Tasks Monitorwindow.

Browsing dependencies

Dependency browser windows can be used to browse dependencies betweendialogsandmessage templates,questionnaires,selections, and other dialogs.

The upper part of the Dialog Dependencies window shows operations in other dialogs that use the dialog. The lower part shows you what items are used by operations in the dialog. If you open the window for other types of components, only the upper part will be shown.

You can click on the edit (pen) button on the right-hand side to close the window and open the selected item.

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4

Dialogs

In this section:

• What is a dialog? . . . .26

• Creating a new dialog . . . .27

• Dialog Designer . . . .27

• Browsing dialogs . . . .68

• Dialog security . . . .69

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What is a dialog?

In 1:1 marketing we aim to give each customer the feeling of being in direct, 1:1 communication with our organization, even though there are tens or hundreds of thousands of customers. We aim to learn from each customer’s communication with us: To let the customer’s communication with us influence our further communication with him or her.

This is possible when we structure communication in adialog: A tool for planning, carrying out and keeping track of 1:1 market communication with large numbers of customers.

Comparison to moving business cards between file boxes

You can best understand what a dialog is by comparing it to the manual process of putting customers’ business cards into different file boxes, depending on what you want to do with each customer.

• You might begin by collecting the cards of all the customers who have not bought anything from you for at least a year and put them in a box called “Group of those to be contacted”.

• You might put some of the cards in a box marked “Call these” and some of the cards in a box marked “Write to these”.

• After you have called each person, you might put the cards into new boxes: “Placed a new order”, “May be interested, follow up later”, or “Lost these customers, make a plan to get them back”.

Below, you see how the communication process would look like using the file box method. In Visual Di-alogue, you create the communication process in a graphic environment using elements to illustrate the different stages of the process.

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Creating a new dialog

To create a new dialog, chooseDialogon theCreatetab. TheNew Dialog Wizardappears. Enter the appropriate information.

Enter the name of the new dialog. Dialog name

Choose the customer domain you want this dialog to get its participants from. Customer domain

The state the dialog is in. This is only an informative field and does not have any influence on how you work with the dialog or how it behaves.

State

When you have entered all the information, click onNextto continue.

Check this if you want the same customer to figure as participant in the di-alog more than once, provided the customer has different context information Allow multiple

occur-rences of customers

attached to each occurrence. If it is not checked, the same customer can only occur one place in the dialog at any time.

Check this to have additional logs created when the dialog is executed. This provides for more basis for statistics and analyses but will slow down Enable participant

log-ging

execution, in some instances noticeably. If you chooseDecide logging on each operation, you can turn logging on or off on each operation. If you chooseAlways generate participant log, additional logs will always be created.

When you have entered all the information, click onFinishto create the new dialog and start working with it in theDialog Designer.

Dialog Designer

About Dialog Designer

Dialog Designer is used to create and execute dialogs. It has three main modes: theoverview page, Design View, andExecute View.

The overview page

This view contains key information about the dialog, such as its key properties and execution summary. You can also edit thedialog’s propertiesfrom this page by clicking onEdit.... You can open the dialogs

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Design View

Design View is where you design your dialogs. Here you can add groups and operations using the toolbox, and you can edit and/or delete them afterwards to refine your dialog.

Execute View

In Execute View, you can manually execute the dialog operations. You can also manipulate the dialog in other ways, e.g. by moving participants from one group to another, or by deactivating some or all of the participants in a group. This is also where you can view the dialog’s participants and the various history logs.

Design View

About Design View

Design View is where you design and customize your dialog. You can addgroupsandoperationsusing thetoolboxon the right-hand side. You can editgroupsandoperationsby clicking on them and choosingEdit Group/Operation, or by double-clicking on them.

If you want to change the look of your dialog, you can drag the different elements around or change the color of your groups.

It is also possible to change the starting group of your operation or the end group of your branches by clicking and dragging them to different groups to change the flow of the dialog.

Quick Design Mode

Use Quick Design Mode to easily place groups and operations in a dialog. Use this feature to draw a dialog at first, for later fine-tuning.

Dialog elements

The following is a visual example of the elements that appear in a dialog: groups, operations, branches, branch points, and entry points. The operation in the example includes only one branch.

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Groups

Adding groups

1. Click on the group you want to add in thedialog toolbox.

2. Position the mouse pointer, which should now have a small group symbol attached to it, where you want to place the group in the work area, and click once. If Quick Design Mode is turned off, the Edit Group windowopens. If Quick Design Mode is turned on, right-click on the group and choose Edit.

3. When you have finished entering information in theEdit Group window, click onOK.

Editing a group

Double-click inside the group that you want to change, chooseEdit selected itemfrom theDesigntab, or right-click on the group and chooseEdit Group. TheEdit Groupwindow opens.

In theTypefield, you see whichgroup typethe group is. The group type cannot be changed.

Group Type

Here you see the number of participants in the group. Participants

Give the group a descriptive name. The name you enter here is the name that is displayed inside the group rectangle in the Visual Dialogue, so you want this to be fairly short.

Group Name

This is the unique group id which identifies the group in the database. Group ID

Enter a description of the group that can help you or other dialog users to un-derstand how the dialog works at a later time.

Description

Check Allow manual insert of participants if you want to insert participants into the group from Customer View.

Allow inserts of par-ticipants...

CheckUse for reportingif you want the group to appear in the summary on theoverview page. This property can also be used in somestandard reports to decide if the group is shown in the report or not.

Use for reporting

Group types

Groups are containers of customers that you want to do something with. In visual dialogs, these are shown as large rectangles.

There are four different group types:

Description Group

The All known customers group contains all the customers in the customer domain you are working with. The customers are identified by ID numbers only and can All known

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Description Group

therefore appear only once in the group. In other words, the All known customers group can be seen as the participant “source” group in the dialog.

The All known customers group is normally used as the Start group in a dialog. However, it can also be used to enter new participants into a dialog, for instance by using it together with anImport from file operation.

The Known customers group contains a selection of customers. These customers are identified by a combination of ID and context, and therefore the same customer Known customers

ID may appear more than once in the group or the dialog. Currently, the Known customers group may be used as From group or To group for almost all operation types in a dialog.

The Market segment group contains a description of supposed segment members. That is an unknown number of unidentified customers, possibly including some Market segment

or all of the customers in the customer database. By having groups with this group type (and the associated operations), users can define dialogs aimed at potential customers and customer capture, and record costs in the same way as for other dialogs.

The Control group contains a selection of customers. These customers are iden-tified by a combination of ID and context, and therefore the same customer may appear more than once in the group or the dialog.

The control group is an additional group type that includes only participants that are randomly selected into the group for control purposes. The functionality around Control group

this group type has not been fully implemented, but is planned for future release. However, the way it currently can be used is to select a group of customers that you do not want in your dialog. You may then use data mining to compare the results of the customers in the control group with the results of the customers that participated in the dialog.

Operations

Adding an operation

1. Click onDraw operationin thedialog toolbox.

2. In the work area, position the mouse pointer, which should now have a small arrow attached to it, over an empty area or in the group from which you want to start the operation. Click and hold down the mouse button, and drag a line to the area or group in which you want the operation to end.

When you are adding an operation, if no to-group is selected and Quick Design Mode is turned off, theNew Groupwindow opens automatically, so that you can configure thenew group.

Note: Design View

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3. Select theoperation typethat you want.

4. If Quick Design Mode is turned off, theEditwindow opens. Enter the appropriate information for the selected operation. For detailed information on the options in this window, seeEditing an operation on page 31.

5. When you have entered all the necessary information in theEditwindow, click onOKto save the operation.

Editing an operation

Double-click on the operation that you want to change, right-click on the operation and chooseEdit, or select the operation and chooseEdit selected itemfrom theDesigntab. TheEditwindow opens. TheEditwindow can be divided into four parts:main operation information, theBranchestab, the Execute optionstab, and theNotetab.

Main operation information

The main operation information is located on the top of the window.

The Operation ID field shows you the ID that the operation has been given. This ID, which is used to identify the operation in tables of the system, cannot be changed.

Operation ID

In the From group field, you see the name of the group that is the From group of your operation.

From group

In the Type field, you see of whichoperation typethe operation is. Operation Type

In the Name field, you can set or change the name for the operation. The name you enter here, is the name that appears in the Visual Dialogue, so you want this to be fairly short.

Name

If you want to limit how long the operation should be active, you can use the Active from field and enter a date for the day from which you want the oper-Operation start/end

ation to be active. In the succeeding “to” field, you enter the date for the last day you want the operation to be active. Dates outside the Start/End date range set indialog propertieswill have no effect.

If you want to be able to execute the operation, it has to be activated. To activate the operation, check theActivebox. If you want to, you can inactivate Operation Active

it to make sure that the operation does not run until you are ready for it to run. If an operation line in a Visual Dialogue has the color red, then the oper-ation is set to inactive.

Branches

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The left side shows all the branches the operation has. The number in front of each branch shows the order the branches will be executed in. Use the arrows on the right side of the list to change the execution order.

The Branch ID field shows you the ID that the branch has been given. This ID, which will be used to identify the branch in tables of the system, cannot be changed.

Branch ID

In the type field, you see the branch type. Branch Type

In the To group field, you see the name of the group that your branch leads into.

To group

In the Name field, you can set or change the name for the branch. Branch Name

If you check theGenerate participant historybox, Visual Dialogue will generate history for the participants that are affected by the branch each time Generate participant

log

the operation is executed. If you do not need the historic information, leave the field empty. This field will only be enabled if you have chosenDecide logging on each operationindialog properties.

By clearing theDeactivate branchcheckbox, the branch will be deactivated until you go back to this window and activate it again. This option is also available by right-clicking on the branch itself inDesign View.

Deactivated

CheckUse for reportingif you want the branch to appear in the summary on theoverview page. This property can also be used in somestandard reportsto decide if the branch is shown in the report or not.

Use for reporting

The parameter fields available depends on what kind of operation type you are working with. See the different parameters for eachoperation typefor more information.

Parameters

Execute options

The execute options for an operation are displayed in theExecute optionstab. When you add an oper-ation to a dialog, you must decide how the execution of the operoper-ation should be started. By default, the optionUser commandis already checked for you.

If you select User command, you can execute the operation manually in Ex-ecute view at any time.

User command

If you select Waterfall, the operation is executed as soon as the prior operation that brings customers into the operations From group is executed. For in-Waterfall

stance, if you have a Select operation, followed by a Divide operation, and you apply the Completing prior operation option on the Divide operation, the Divide operation will be executed as soon as the Select operation is executed. Design View

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If you apply this option for an operation that starts in a From group that sev-eral operations enter into, the operation will be triggered upon each of the operations leading into the From group.

If you want the operation to execute every time the prior operation is finished, checkAlways run. CheckOnly run when participants were movedif you want the operation to run only when the prior operation actually moved par-ticipants.

If you select Schedule, you can set up a schedule for when you want the operation to be executed.

In theNext runfields, enter the date and time that you want the operation to be executed next. This will be the starting point for the schedule. When Scheduled

the operation has been executed, the date and time for the next schedule will be automatically updated here.

If you want the operation to be executed only once, checkRun only once. This will automatically deselectRun every.

If you want to set up a schedule for several executions, go to theRun every field and enter a number specifying how often you want the operation to be executed. For example, if you enter the number 2 and select theHoursoption below, the operation will be executed every two hours.

You can set the scheduled operation to execute on at most a given number of participants by checking theRun max on [count] participantsbox and specifying maximum number of participants in the field below. This is similar to manually executing the operation with theExecute advancedpopup menu. Note that the operation will only run on schedule if the operation is active and the date is between the dialog’s start and end dates, which you can set in theMain Operation Informationwindow.

If you selectEvent triggered, the execution is triggered by the events that are entered in theRespond to these eventstable.

Select the event that you want to trigger the operation, and click onOK. (The events reside in the Dialog database. If you need other events than the ones available, contact your marketing database administrator).

Event triggered

To remove an event, deselect the event.

By choosing this option, the operation will only run on the relevant participant.

Note:

If you want the operation to execute every time an event of the selected type(s) occurs, independent of whether the participant is in the from-group of the operation, checkAlways run. CheckOnly run if customer is in from-groupif you want the operation to run only when the participant or customer specified in the event is in the from-group of the operation.

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Advanced options

By using the advanced options it is possible to override the default priority and chunking & multi-threading settings for the operation.

The default settings for the operation are configured for each operation in Dialogue Admin. For a more technical explanation of how these options work, see the Dialogue Admin help.

Execution priority

The execution priority is used to prioritize the execution of the operations accross all the dialogs. The operation with the highest priority will always be executed Execution priority

before one with a lower priority. Select the wanted priority in the dropdown which contains the five possible priorities; low, medium low, normal, medium high and high.

Avoid giving a long lasting operation with many threads a high priority, because you run the risk of starving other lower-priority operations running in the system.

Note:

Chunking & Multi-threading

If chunking or multithreading is disabled for the operation type, the respective controls will be disabled.

It is possible to disable the chunking for the operation if it is enabled for the oper-ation type.

Enable chunking

The chunk size is the maximum number of participants in one chunk to be execut-ed.

Override default chunk size

It is possible to disable the multi-threading for the operation if it and chunking is enabled for the operation type.

Enable multi-threading

The number of threads gives the concurrent number of chunks for the operation that queues up for execution.

There is a maximum number of executing threads which is set in the system configuration. This means that for a system with several active dialogs, the number Override default

number of threads

of actual threads available for running the operation may at times be less than the specified number. (For more information see the Dialogue Admin help.)

Enabled options may be disabled by the branch plug-in. In which case a warning will be displayed naming the first branch which overrides these settings.

Note:

Notes

In theNotestab, you can add any text that you would like to add to an operation. For example, if you know that some of your coworkers will be working on your dialog, you might use theNotestab to give Design View

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instructions to your coworkers about the operation. The information that you add can be edited at any time without affecting the functionality of the operation.

Operation types

Operation types overview

You can choose between different operations depending on what your marketing database administrator makes available for you in the Dialog database. These are the operation types that come with a standard installation of the system:

Description Operation

When you are sending email to contacts in a dialog, use theCheck bounced emailoperation to select the participants whose email addresses are OK, and those whose emails are bounced (returned) by the mail server.

TheCheck for duplicatesoperation selects all customers in the from-group that are possible duplicates in the database. See theTechnical Documentation for more information on duplicate checking.

TheCopy to another dialogoperation enables you to copy participants from one dialog (the source dialog) to another (the destination dialog).

TheCreate customeroperation creates a new customer in your database. This operation needs to be customized depending on the data you have available about the new customer and the structure of your customer database. Because of this, a new operation of this type is created as ascripted operationcontaining an example script.

TheCreate letteroperation uses amessage templateand information from the customer database, creates a personalized letter in Microsoft Word for each customer in the from-group, and then moves the customer to the to-group.

TheCreate Taskoperation creates a task for all the participants. You can set a follow-up date and assign the task to a specific workgroup.

You can use theCustomoperation to create ascripted operationthat contains only the bare bones of an operation implementation without any logic. This can be used as a basis for your own customized operation.

TheDecision optimizationoperation takes the customers from a from-group of theKnown Customers group type, evaluates them using a decision-opti-mization rule, and moves the customers into different to-groups based on the outcome.

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TheDivideoperation takes the customers from a from-group of theKnown Customers group type, compares them to different selection criteria in order of priority, and moves the customers into different to-groups. The to-groups will therefore contain customers who are “more alike” than the customers in the from-group.

TheFacebookoperation uses a Facebookmessage templateand information from the customer database, creates and posts a personalized facebook posting, and then moves the customer to the to-group. You specify the operations Facebook template when you add the branch to the operation.

TheImport from fileoperation takes the customer IDs of customers in a specified text file, checks that each one exists in the database, and then places them in the to-group. If the operation encounters a customer not found in the database, the customer ID is logged in an error file, and the customer is not moved to the to-group.

TheInactivateoperation inactivates the participants.

TheMoveoperation takes the participants in a from-group and simply moves them to another group without performing any other action on them. For example, if you perform an action on customers that reside in an Expiry group, you might want to move them to another group associated with the action that you per-formed.

TheReceive responseoperation detects the registration of a response to a questionnaire for a customer in a from-group and then moves that customer to a to-group. You define which questionnaire should be associated with the oper-ation when you define the branch informoper-ation for the operoper-ation. This will normally be the questionnaire that you used in theSend emailorCreate letteroperation earlier in the dialog.

TheSelectoperation is used to pick out your target audience (dialog participants) from a group of theAll Known Customers group typeand move them to a new group. Depending on which branch you choose, the Select operation functions differently.

TheSend emailoperation uses an emailmessage templateand information from the customer database, creates and sends a personalized email, and then moves the customer to the to-group. You specify the operations email template when you add the branch to the operation.

TheSend SMSoperation uses an SMSmessage templateand information from the customer database, creates and sends a personalized SMS, and then moves the customer to the to-group. You specify the operations SMS template when you add the branch to the operation.

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TheSet categoryoperation is an operation that makes it possible to set or clear categories in the customer database for selected participants.

TheTelemarketingoperation is an operation that makes it possible to include telemarketing campaignsin a dialog, for instance to use the telephone to ask questions in a questionnaire or to market goods and services.

TheTwitteroperation uses a Twittermessage templateand information from the customer database, creates and posts a personalized tweet, and then moves the customer to the to-group. You specify the operations Twitter template when you add the branch to the operation.

The Check bounced email operation Parameters Branches

Select participants who’s email are not bounced (returned) and thus is assumed arrived.

OK

Select participants who’s email are bounced (returned) and thus is not arrived. Parameters:

Bounced

• Maximum stale days: The maximum number of days the participant can be in the From Group. If the participant has been in the group longer than this when the operation is run, he or she will be moved. This parameter accepts decimals to allow fractions of a day.

• Fixed expiry date: After this date, the participants will be moved irrespective of how many days they have been in the From Group.

• Bounce codes: Select the bounce code(s) representing the reason why the email did not arrive to the receiver.

The Check for duplicates operation Parameters Branches

Select participants representing customers who might have one or more dupli-cates in the customer database. See theTechnical Documentationfor more information on how to set up duplicate checking.

Duplicate check

See the entry forExpiryinThe Divide operationon page 40. Expiry

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The Copy to another dialog operation Parameters Branches

Copy participants in the From group to another group in another dialog. Copy to

anoth-er dialog

• Destination group: The group you want to copy the participants into. Note that all the participants might not be copied because the customers they represent might already be participants in the remote dialog. These participants will not be moved to the To group either.

• Override context: Enter a context value here if you want to copy the participants with a specific context instead of the context they have in the dialog.

Seedivide expiry. Expiry

The Create customer operation Parameters Branches

Create a new customer in the database using a customizedoperation script. Create

cus-tomer

The Create letter operation

Parameters Branches

Create a letter to each participant using merge in-formation from the customer domain.

Create letter file

• Message template: The message template you want to use. This must be a Word document template.

• Check for blocking category: Clear this checkbox if you want to create letters for customers who have guarded themselves against receiving let-ters. This should only be done in special circum-stances.

• Customer sort order: This parameter lets you specify how the customers should be sorted when the letter is generated. Sorting based on data coming from secondary database connec-tions is not supported.

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The Create task operation Parameters Branches

Creates a task for each participant Create task

• Task type: The type of the task you want to create. • Channel: The channel type for the tasks.

• Task work group: Assign the tasks to a workgroup for follow up. • Follow up date: The follow up date for the tasks.

• Task description: Assign a task description

The Custom operation

Parameter may vary depending on how you imple-ment your operation.

Customized branch—the customized branch does not contain any logic, you have to implement it yourself as ascripted operation.

Decision optimization About decision optimization

Decision optimization is the means by which results from Portrait Minercan be executed within dialogs. It provides a “smart” divide operation, where the choice as to which customer is assigned to which branch of the divide is decided by a real-time analytics rule, generated from the Portrait Optimizer tool from within Portrait Miner.

In Visual Dialogue, you use thedecision optimization operationto include analytics-based optimized divides in your dialog.

The Decision optimization operation

Decision branch—divide based on an analytics

Decision Optimization rule. • Decision optimization: Thedecision

optimiza-tionthat you want to use. You can pick an exist-ing optimization or you can create a new optimiza-tion. The new optimization will then have to be edited in Portrait Optimizer to generate a new optimization result.

• Optimization outcome: The name of the outcome from the decision optimization rule that will result in a customer being assigned to this branch.

Creating a new decision optimization

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ChoosingUse an existing optimizationwill show a list of existing optimizations. Choosing one of them will open up theConfigure Decision Optimization Branches window.

ChoosingCreate a new optimizationwill advance the wizard to the next page, where a new optimization can be created.

Finishing this wizard will create an unfinished optimization. That optimization will need to be de-fined further in Portrait Miner before the operation can be used in a dialog. All parameters entered Note:

in the Create Decision Optimization wizard are saved and can be used and changed from within Portrait Miner.

To create new optimization, you need to enter anOptimization name. Other parameters can also be set and used to improve the analysis.

The following parameters will be saved into the newly created optimization. These are global constraints and will be editable using the Portrait Optimizer tool within Portrait Miner, when the optimization is finalized. They are global constraints that apply for the whole optimization, regardless of outcome.

Click onFinishto complete the wizard. Configuring a decision optimization operation

Pressing theBrowsebutton in a decision optimization operation will open up theConfigure Decision Optimization Brancheswindow.

In this window, it is important to connect the outcomes of the decision optimization to the dialog branches from the operation in Visual Dialogue. It is therefore easier to set this up if the operation in the dialog has been set up with all branches already before you open this window.

The red rectangles show which parameters need to be set up for the operation to work fully. In the ex-ample, there are three outcomes that need to be mapped to the desired branches by setting values for theBranch mapping (to-group)parameters. Without this mapping, the operation will not run without failing.

The values shown for parameters in this window can only be changed when the optimization is created. Thereafter, they are only editable using the Portrait Optimizer tool from within Portrait Miner.

The Divide operation

Divide using import file—divide participants

based on customer IDs and possibly contexts in a • Import filename: The file that you want to get customer IDs from.

file. Only participants found in the file will be moved.

• Field delimiter: The delimiter used in the import file.

The operation assumes that the first row in the file contains column headings, and that the ID column

• Default context: If your dialog uses context (al-lows multiple customers), it will use the context is namedCustomerID. If you use context, the

con-text column must be namedContext.

specified here if the import file does not have a context column.

Divide using remote group—divide participants

based on the participants in another group in anoth- • Compare to group: The group you want to base your divide on.

er dialog. Only participants found in the remote group will be moved.

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Divide using call status—divide participants

based on the call status that they have received in • Telemarketing project: Thetelemarketing projectthe participants have been through. a specifictelemarketing project. Only participants

• Call status (one or more): Only move the partici-pant if he or she received one of thesecall sta-tuses.

with one of the specified call statuses will be moved.

Divide using selection—divide participants based on aselection. Only participants that fit the selec-tion will be moved.

• Selection: Theselectionthat you want to use.

Divide on task complete—divide participants

based on the completion of atask. Participants will • Task type: The task type you want to check on. be moved if they have a task of the specified type

and the task is set to be completed.

Divide on bounced email—divide participants

based on the registration ofbounced emails. • Bounce codes: One or more bounce codes to check on.

Participants will be moved if the system has regis-tered a bounced email with one of the specified bounce codes.

Divide on receive response—divide participants

when they answer a questionnaire. • Questionnaire: the participant is moved when he or she submits an answer to this question-naire.

• Onlyansweredafter: The participant will only be moved if he or she answered the questionnaire on or after this date.

• Onlymodifiedafter: The participant will only be moved if he or she modified the questionnaire on or after this date.

Divide using email address validation—divide participants based on the validation of their email address.

• Email field to check: The customer domain field containing the email address to validate. The address is validated using a regular expression defined in the system parameter CheckEmailAd-dressExprdefined in Dialogue Admin. See Technical Guidefor more information on system parameters.

Divide by random—divide participants based on

random extracts. • Random rule: Specify how you want the random

divide to occur.Specify a number of partici-pantsrandomly selects a fixed number of partic-ipants.Specify a percentage of the from group

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matching the percentage that you specify. If you Specify a probability in percentage, each par-ticipant has the specified probability of being moved regardless of the others.

• Number/percentage: Number of participants, percentage of participants, or probability in per-centage. The parameter accepts decimals: if you specify a number of participants with decimals, it will always be rounded down.

• Initial selection: You can constrict the extract using an initial selection.

Divide using analytic rule—divide participants based on an analytic rule created by Portrait Miner or Portrait Explorer.

• Rule criterion: An expression that describes the rule criterion to use for the divide operation. This expression needs to be constructed by pressing the browse button to the right. It cannot be written directly into the textbox.

Browsing will only be available for sys-tems that have Miner integration enabled. Note:

• Initial Selection: You can constrict the extract using an initial selection.

Divide using list—divide participants based on list membership. Participants will only be moved if they match customers in the lists.

• List: The list you want to use.

Expiry—Move participants after a fixed number of

days or after a fixed date. • Maximum stale days: The maximum number of

days that the participant can be in the from-group. If the participant has been in the group longer than this when the operation is run, he or she will be moved. This parameter accepts deci-mals to allow fractions of a day.

• Fixed expiry date: After this date, the participants will be moved irrespective of how many days they have been in the from-group.

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The Facebook operation

Create a Facebook Wall Posting—publish a Facebook wall posting to each participant using merge information from the customer domain.

• Facebook message: Themessage template you want to use. This must be a Facebook tem-plate.

Expiry—Seedivide expiry.

The Import from file operation

Import—select participants into the dialog based

on customer IDs and possibly contexts in a file. • Import filename: The file you want to get cus-tomer IDs from. The encoding of the file must be in either ANSI or Unicode format.

Only participants found in the file will be selected. The operation assumes that the first row in the file

• Field delimiter: The delimiter used in the import file.

contains column headings, and that the ID column is namedCustomerID. If you use context, the

con-text column must be namedContext. • Default context: If your dialog uses context (al-lows multiple customers) it will use the context specified here if the import file does not have a context column.

The Inactivate operation

Inactivate all—inactivates the participants

The Move operation

Move—move all participants to next group.

Expiry—Seedivide expiry.

The Receive response operation

Answer form received—move participants to the

next group when they answer aquestionnaire. • Questionnaire: When the participant submits an answer to thisquestionnaire, he or she is moved.

• Only answers newer than: The participant will only be moved if he or she answered the ques-tionnaire on or after this date.

Visual Dialogue User Guide. Version 6.1